Dirty Old Dive Bar

One step in the poorly-lit bar and it already reeks of their sex. The walls are icky, slimy as snot but a translucent grey, like dying fish had been glued to it and never quite died but the stench intensified.

And I wouldn't mind it at all if it weren't for the vein in my left hand begging for the chance to rip my skin open and explode - I couldn't bear contracting the infection of dead cum without having at least fucked a 6 or a 7. Or a trashy 19-year old.

I keep wondering about the shit that goes on in there when I'm not around, seeing as they usually devolve pretty quickly even in my presence. And the shitty music never helps, either, fucking cock-rock classics of the 80s, country-rock classics of the 70s, nothing modern, nothing new - a fit representation of its patrons, who never would have seen the past 20 years if it weren't for the invention of penicillin.

Drunk fucking zombies on their automated poker machines, barely pausing for cigarette breaks, drinking 3% beer 'cause it's a dollar cheaper than the regular-strength stuff that, oddly enough, also tastes like stale piss.

This is the minor leagues of daytime drinking, populated with a few youngsters, sure, but mostly should-be-retired-by-suicide dreamers holding on to the last parcel of their youth, with memories of that one day in their life where it didn't rain shit on their heads, where maybe the right whore was a decent enough actress to make them believe in Love for even a second, their first used car, the first time seeing a plane in the sky, playing with a dog, or that first welfare check that seemed like so much money.

These dreams aren't broken, they're rusted, mouldy, holding on for their fucking life with fucking duct tape - but they're still there, alive. Working. Well enough to get from point A to point D in a haze, barely flipping over a few tables, perhaps with a black eye or two, but fucking standing.

And that's why the dried-up beer, the vomit, the blood - some of it clearly menstrual - and the cum add layer upon layer of goo on the tables, floors and walls, and why we all keep coming back. Hope.