II
So we sit, lean and stand in The Tap Room, striving to act as men brought together by choice rather than chance and convenience.
I first find myself paired off with Herman who begins to talk at me about his ex-wife's abuse of his visitation rights. I nod gravely and murmur deep assent in the right places. I do not care about him, his ex-wife or his two children whose names and gender I forget as soon as every time he tells me. After ten minutes I am spent and excuse myself. On returning from the toilets I nonchalantly position myself on the other side of the group.
Soon someone suggests we move on to The Concourse, which is a cold, sterile and therefore essentially fashionable bar a block away. As we leave The Tap Room the older members of our group, Herman, Janick and Dave, yell loud goodbyes and thanks to the bar-staff to show they are cool, they know the score. I cringe inwardly and nod knowingly as I pass towards the exit because I am cool, I know the score.
The Concourse is painfully hip and as we enter each of us affects a strut apart from Kev who is unaffected and hence struts effectively. We each order and pay for drinks separately, as we did in The Tap Room; our playact friendships stop short of our wallets. We sit around a large table and bits and pieces of bland observation eventually restart a distant facsimile of involved conversation. There is a huge mirrored wall in front of me made of connected panels that only serves to further my feeling that the whole place is an elaborate, ironic eighties reference. In one of these panels I study a couple sitting in the corner booth directly behind me.
She has dark brown hair, an intelligent face and high leather boots. He has one arm around her shoulders and the other hand on her thigh; she is beautiful and she is with him. I return my attention to our table and see that Janick's eyes are already bleary, Dave is plucking at his chest hair and Mike is picking his nose. I feel tired and empty and consider offering the couple in the booth all the money in my wallet if they would allow me to sit by them and rest my face in her hair.
Eventually, we call for a taxi and soon after a mini-bus appears honking outside. Inside the taxi we laugh loudly, hurl crude remarks and I participate. I realise we are putting on a show for the driver. We are wild boys, lady-killers, we are having some fun. Kicking ass and taking names. I don't hate the rest of them as much as I hate myself but it is a close thing.
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