Tales from the Bottle: Smoker Health Protection Act
Tales from the Bottle is a collection of stories with the protagonists of those stories growing in age in the collection. Each has something to do with alcohol. The collection is not complete yet. Here are a few individual stories. All of the stories are copyrighted to Jeremy Lum.
This story is also my attempt to play with Hemingway's style.
Smoker Health Protection Act
by
Jeremy Lum
The smoke was gone. Ever since the “Smoker Health and Protection Act” passed, the bars had been emptied. The purpose of the law had been to reduce the health risk posed to smokers by their own life threatening decision. Unfortunately, the law had no affect in the number of heart attacks and deaths caused by smoking. All it had done was empty the bars. Before when entering the bar, one couldn’t see from one end to the other. There was an air of mystery and privacy. A good place for hooking up with someone else looking for a little love that night. Now, you could see clearly across the entire bar. The roof was exposed. It was made of beams, wood, and looked like a warehouse. The smoke used to make the place feel warm. The smoke used to give it atmosphere.
Jonas had had no plans that evening. He lived with his parents. He said that put a damper on his dating life. Jonas had just gotten off the 9-6 shift at the local publishing company where he worked. Customer Publishing: You Decide. We’ll Produce. He worked inventory there. It kept him busy. Too busy to hang out with friends. Too busy for him to find time to write. Too busy for him to have a life.
The phone rang.
“Yo, buddy! What ya doing?”
“Uh… I’m trying to write.”
“Screw that, you’re coming with us!”
Joseph’s car came whirling around the corner of the otherwise quiet suburban neighborhood. Joseph didn’t take no for an answer. Jonas had known Joseph for years, they grew up best friends along with Mathias and Lee, but work now kept them apart. Except for Lee who lived in L.A. Distance kept him apart.
Jonas turned away from the story he had started when he heard the car. The only thing on the screen: “Put Title Here.” Joseph burst into his house with a boom, a hello, and a let’s go. Mathias was with him.
The three sped down the highway in the vast expansiveness of nowhere. They were heading to downtown. It was called downtown, but on a Saturday night they would see maybe twenty people on the street.
“Where are we going?” Jonas asked.
“That’s for us to know to know and you to find out” Joseph smiled. A surprise. Jonas hated surprises.
“Dude, I wanna mingle tonight. Where we going, there’s going to be girls, right?” asked Mathias.
“Dude, this place has everything. Its got food, its got drinks, its got girls, its got music, its got billiards.”
“I don’t play pool.” Jonas said.
“Sure ya do!”
“I just want a little different atmosphere, tired of staying at home when we hang out.” Mathias chimed in.
The place was called South Billiards. There was no one there. There was no smoke. The pool table room had maybe ten people in it. None were girls. Except the waitress. Joseph’s usual waitress wasn’t there. He didn’t know this one. “What would you guys like to drink?”
Jonas thought she was nice enough. Joseph immediately ordered three rounds of 3-wise-men. “I’d like a glass of wine. What selection do you have?” Jonas asserted.
“I think we only have a house red or house white. You want me to find out which one each is?”
Jonas said, “Nah. I’ll take the house red.”
“Wine, man? We’re in a bar.” Joseph replied. “I’m going to show you a man’s drink. Put hair on your chest.”
“I don’t want hair on my chest.” Jonas said.
“Who’s going to break?” Mathias asked. Joseph pulled out a three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar cue. He wouldn’t tell anyone its name. He said it was personal. Jonas thought Vanessa his ex. Smiled.
Mathias picked up a cue from the wall and named it Allan. “Good strong name, but you know, standard.” Smiled.
Joseph broke. But not with his three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar cue. He said since it was a two-piece cue, it could mess it up.
The break went Mathias’ way. No balls in any pockets. Mathias called stripes and nailed one in. Joseph had done a lot of bragging about how good he was, while Mathias had said he hadn’t played in three years. Both were lying.
The first round of drinks came.
“To friendship.” Each of them had a double shot glass in hand. The drink was one the Joseph had ordered.
“What’s in it?” asked Jonas.
“It’s a man’s drink.” Joseph said.
“So how are we supposed to drink it?” Matthias asked.
“Pop it back. Cheers!”
Joseph and Matthias popped theirs back. Jonas sipped his. Winced. And set it down on the table. Matthias had popped his back, but it immediately came back up. Most of it into the glass. Joseph started laughing while drinking and it went up his nose so he started crying.
“Bitch! Why did you do that?”
“Dude, this drink is disgusting. I’m getting something else.” Matthias yelled, just as Jonas’ wine arrived. Jonas took wine in hand. He picked up the 3-wise-men with the other hand and offered it to Joseph who was still crying. No.
The games that night went Matthias’ way. Joseph had claimed he was letting Matthias win, biding his time. Matthias claimed that he was getting Joseph angry like in their childhood and was waiting for him to blow up. They were both right.
Joseph had the opportunity to sink the 8-ball and win his first game out of five. He scratched. Then Matthias scratched. Then Joseph scratched. It was the worst game Jonas had ever seen. He’d seen a lot of games.
“You wanna play?”
“No.”
That ended that.
Matthias won and Joseph almost threw his cue. “That would have at least been cheaper than the tennis racket that you broke when I beat you.” Matthias smiled.
“Jonas, this is ridiculous! Matthias beats me at everything that I’m better at than him! It’s insane!”
“Another round?” the waitress asked. Jonas said sure. She didn’t need to ask what he was drinking. Joseph and Matthias ordered some other drinks. She didn’t know what they were.
Jonas began to wander around the place. It was cold. It was dark. A band was setting up in the front part of the room. They dressed like skaters and he worried what their music would sound like.
To his surprise he found some artwork on the wall. A lot of it. By a lot of different people. He wondered if it was for sale.
A girl came up next to him. She may have been twenty-one or had a fake ID. She looked like she was in college. Preppy. Had a scarf wrapped around her neck. It was cold. The girl with the scarf was looking at a piece of art.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Jonas said to her.
“Yes, yes it is.” The girl with the scarf responded. They were looking at a black canvas that had numerous condoms glued to it. The condoms formed a fetus. “I like that it’s ironic because condoms stop fetus’ from forming.”
Jonas thought she didn’t need to say that. He got it. He was the one who said it was ironic. He liked her. “Yeah, unless the condom breaks.”
She smiled at him.
“Do you think they’re used condoms?” she asked.
“That would make it really ironic.” Jonas said.
Jonas was about to reach out his hand when an arm came around the girl with the scarf’s waist and pulled her to one of the skater band people. He kissed her. “We’re about to start.”
“You should come listen.” She said to Jonas.
“I’ll swing by.” The skater band player led her off. Jonas looked back over to Joseph and Matthias who were all the way across the bar. He could see them clearly. They were still playing.
As Jonas headed back, he saw a jukebox. He had a quarter. He put it in.
Jonas got back to Matthias and Joseph both taking another shot. Something called red death. They wanted him to taste it. It was cloying, it tasted like syrup. Jonas went back to his wine.
Matthias was raking the pool balls and complaining, “I thought you said there were going to be girls here.”
“Usually there are.”
“For being the tenth largest city in the US, you figure there would be something to do in this city.”
“No.” Jonas said.
Then Jonas’ song started: Bohemian Rhapsody.
“Oh that’s amazing!” Matthias yelled!
“I wonder who put this on?” Joseph said.
“I did.”
Everyone smiled at Jonas. The three got together and began to sing along with the song. At first quietly and then at the top of their lungs. They all knew the words. “I’m just a poor boy. I need no sympathy. Because I’m easy come. Easy go. Little high. Little low. Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me. To me. Momma just killed a man. Put a gun against his head. Plugged my trigger now he’s dead. Momma life had just begun. But now, I’ ve gone and thrown it all away. Momma” –
A loud bang came over the bar. It echoed in the large warehouse ceiling. Queen was still playing, but no one could hear it. Jonas and his friends kept singing for a time. But the grunting grew louder, followed by a really bad drumbeat, followed by music that sounded as if it had been scrapped out of the garbage can after Robert Plant had vomited everything except his talent.
The three stopped singing and looked at each other in disappointment. Jonas took his red wine and sat down in a chair against the back wall to watch the game. The break had gone Matthias’ way, but Joseph was trying to run the table. Whatever talent he said he had, must have woken up, because Matthias never got another take. The score 7-1. Joseph went to the bar to hit on the bartender and Matthias came over and sat next to Jonas.
“So, how are you doing, man? We never see each other anymore.” Matthias asked as he grabbed his cell phone and began texting.
“Who ya texiing” Jonas sipped his red wine.
“Some girls I know from high school. Me and Joseph hung out with them last week. Trying to see if they’re free tonight. You know, mix up the dynamic.”
“Gotcha.”
Matthias finished texting. “So, how are you doing, man?”
“Me? I’m fine. Why do you keep asking?”
“I don’t know. You just seem a little down.”
“Nah. I’m fine.”
“You wanna play a game?”
“And make a complete ass out of myself in front of all these people? No thanks.”
“Come-on”
“I can’t even hit a ball, Matthias. I don’t have the eye hand coordination.”
“Okay.”
The two sat there both nursing their drinks. For most people it would have been an awkward silence, for the two of them, having known each other since they were two, it was comfortable except for the horrible music in the background. The skater band. You couldn’t hear the jukebox anymore.
“You know what I miss?”
“What?”
“The smoke.”
“Smoke?”
“Yeah, you know, when people used to smoke in bars.”
“Jonas, you don’t smoke.”
“No, I don’t smoke, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss it. I mean, this place would have been one giant haze. You wouldn’t have been able to see beyond the table next to us. You see that guy necking his girlfriend in the corner over there. That used to be private. The lights on the windows. Those used to be the only way to notice that there was an outside…”
Matthias and him just drank in comfortable silence save for the band, but they were blocking it out for the most part. Joseph came back and joined them in their silence and drinks. He had some new to drink with him. It was blue. Jonas thought you should never drink anything blue. Each nursed their drinks. Looking through the entire bar, Jonas was the only one drinking wine. And the music pounded on.
The drinks had gotten to them and the three toasted their friendship and to many more years like this.
“For Christmas, let’s not do the same old thing. Let’s do something new.”
Jonas agreed with them. But, Matthias wanted to add, “let’s make sure it’s something we all can do.”
Jonas interrupted, “I don’t want to be the person who stops us from doing something that the rest of you want to do. I have no problem being a spectator.”
They let the silence take them again, but this time, the comfort was broken by that horrible skater band.
“Dude, I prefer your country music to this shit.” Jonas told Matthias.
“HA! Yeah man, they call this music?”
“It certainly is noise, that’s for sure.” Jonas said.
They went to pay their bill and go home. On their way out, Jonas, Matthias, and Joseph saw the band on the stage for the first time. A wall had separated the bar area from the billiards room. It wasn’t a band at all. It was just two guys screaming into mikes to synthesized music. There was a drum machine. None of them could probably play an instrument.
Jonas saw the girl with the scarf. Her eyes closed, dancing to her band’s music in pure joy. If only her band had talent. Jonas wondered what it must feel like to be a groupie to something that horrible. She was a spectator. He just wished she were watching something worthwhile. Although one of the band members would probably take her home and fuck her that night. That wasn’t what being a spectator was about. As he watched the girl watching the band, a smile came across Jonas face as he took in a deep breath. He wished they still allowed smoke in these places. They left.
