As I set my newly claimed stick against the bar, I notice a table of three older men watching the move warily. Maybe this little shit stick made a move for them too.
I take in the scuffed up tables and the lack of any bar paraphernalia on the walls. This place is mostly contrived of old wine barrels, and...yep, those are teeth on the ceiling. Gator teeth, if I had to guess. A shiver runs up my spine, and I make a mental note to watch where I walk when I leave this place. The last thing I need is to slice open my foot on somethin’ else.
This place looks like the drinkin’ hole for a bunch of good ol’ boys, and yet the older men at the table and the couple at the bar look more clean-cut and city slicker than they should if my assumptions are true.
Maybe Hairy Dog Tavern is a tourist spot? A swamp adjacent, country lookin’ stop for visitors who want the feel of a backwoods bar without havin’ to actually deal with backwoods kinds of people. I suppose who can blame ’em? If I could avoid the more bumpkin side of my extended family, I would.
The bartender slides my drink in front of me, and I look around for a coaster before chucklin’ at myself. Tourist trap or not, this is not a coaster under your drink kind of place. I take a sip and let the cool liquid wash my worries away one sip at a time as the A/C cools my stress and blows the anxiety right off my shoulders.
Damn. I needed this. I exhale a deep breath and hope the last of my bad luck goes with it. Maybe it’s time to accept that a life in Sweetgreen isn’t in my destiny. I don’t know why that thought bothers me so much or why this place has such a claim on my soul, but I’m drawn here in a way I can’t quite explain.
I was happy when Mama and Daddy chose to move back to be closer to family when Daddy retired. After my college plans went to hell in a handbasket, the plan was to live with them and save up some money.
I needed just enough to live off until I could get into a trade school and acquire some kind of certification that gets me closer tostable adultstatus and further from thealmost thirty years old and still a hot messtitle I’ve been the runnin’ champion of for way too much of my late twenties. But it’s like this place has a hold on me somehow and no matter what, I can’t leave, because all these years later, I’m still here and still no closer to movin’ out or havin’ my shit together.
Maybe I’m depressed or somethin’. Although, I don’t feel sad. More like I’m missin’ somethin’, but I just can’t seem to grasp what it is.
I take another sip of my drink and try to unravel where it all went wrong.
I could blame movin’ around a lot and the lack of good friends, but I never really fit in anyway except for a couple solid friends, so who’s to say stickin’ in one place would have made a difference? I’ve always had a good family, with no lack of love and support, so that’s definitely not it.
The shit that went down at college could play a factor, but it feels kinda wrong claimin’ too much of that hardship for me, not when my roomie, Mackenzie, is the one who truly has to carry the scars and trauma around for the rest ofherlife. Besides, that was a long time ago.
I reach out for my new stick acquisition and spin it slowly where it’s perched against the bar, studyin’ the details. I run my finger over one of the many metal bands evenly distributed down the staff and wonder what the hell it is.
Strangely, the metal still feels warm against my touch. It must’ve been out in the swelterin’ heat for a while if it’s takin’ this long to cool off.
I finish my drink in two more gulps and push it to the inner lip of the bar top so the lanky bartender can see I’m ready for round two. Only, instead of the sallow lanky man that was mixin’ drinks before and wipin’ things down, there’s a Groot-lookin’ fella in his place. I blink slowly as though my lids are wipers that will somehow clear the vision before me from my eyes, but it doesn’t work.
If Groot had a shorter, stockier, older relative, it’d be this walkin’ tree stump. His skin-bark is gray, and he’s thick, with dark brown eyes and red leaves branchin’ out from the sides of his fingers. I shake my head, tryin’ to figure out what’s goin’ on, but my cage gets even more rattled when I look over and see that the judgmental couple that’s been watchin’ me look like they’re somethin’ straight out of Area 51.
What in the Sam Hill is goin’ on?
Do I have heatstroke? I put my palm to my head as though I’ll be able to answer that question with one quick check, but I don’t feel hot. A smidgen clammy and definitely shaky, but I blame seein’ Groot’s fatter uncle and a pair of aliens for the last part.
I rub at my eyes, but the freaky images don’t go away. My breathin’ picks up and adrenaline goes rocketin’ through me as panic starts to take a firm hold on me, and denial fights it for control. My wide-eyed confused gaze lands on the empty cup in front of me, pieces of mint leaves now stuck to the ice, and a lightbulb goes off in my head.
I turn a glare to the walkin’ tree trunk and stumble off the bar stool I was just perched on.
“You drugged me!” I accuse, shocked and enraged.
Fear’s probably gonna kick in here real soon, and I should hurry and get the hell outta Dodge before the paralyzin’ effects can kick in. Whatever this bark asshat just slipped me, I need to leave before it can taint more of my blood and good sense.
“Excuse me?” the barky bartender demands, as though he has some right to be offended. “I didn’t do nothin’!”
I back away from him and blindly stumble right into a table. I wince as it does its best to cause some kind of internal damage to my kidney.
“You sure as hell did,” I snap back to the bartender, wavin’ at the state of him like it’s proof.
I look over to the table of older patrons and immediately regret it. They look like somethin’ that just traipsed out of the bowels of Hell. Their skin is black as pitch and shiny as though they’re made of glass, and their faces are just...gone. They’re shiny glass faceless beings now.
“We didn’t traipse,” one of them informs me, humor in his voice, but I can’t for the life of me say which one spoke, because they haveno mouths, and I didn’t see anyone actuallysayanythin’.
“Oh Lord, what’s happenin’ to me?” I demand, hysteria forcin’ my tone into dog-whistle range, panic floodin’ in.
I scream when somethin’ hard hits my palm. I jump back and look down to see the stick that was leanin’ against the bar is now firmly in my hand. Was I holdin’ onto it the whole time? No, I definitely wasn’t. Which means it just…
Just what, Medley?I ask myself as my rational, logical side tries to help me wade through the manic delirium.
