By the time we finally met up with Liz and her friends at the bar next to the Pepsi Center -- Brooklyn's I think it was called -- we were both shit-faced... me cocky and waving my arms at everything, storming around in my Viking helmet and yelling at passersby, and Regan a swerving, stuttering, giggling mess.
We barged into the bar and scanned the tables for Liz's crew, the milling crowd of people halting their conversations mid-sentence, glancing over at me with strange looks. I saw Liz surrounded by a group of clean-looking people with shirts tucked in and shiny shoes, and she waved us over -- a mortified look on her face.
"What the hell are you wearing?" she yelled, ushering us over to the table, where she introduced me to all of her friends. Regan accidentally hugged one of Liz's blond friends I didn't know and howled," Heeey Liz, so nice to finally meet you!" "No, I'm Liz." The women were all mid-twenties professionals and the men wore standard-issue striped shirts with open collars and gel in their faux-hawks, shiny flat-bottom shoes that they must issue everyone under thirty-two who makes over $40k a year. They all looked like a bunch of assholes. Everyone was somewhat taken aback to be shaking hands with a bearded drunk Viking and Regan, whose eyeballs were each pointing a different direction.
"Um, this is my friend Max," Liz told them meekly.
One of the Gel-Hair Pricks tilted his head and upturned his smarmy nose at me. "What are you supposed to be?"
"Drunk," I barked, then turned back to Liz. "You think we have time to order some chicken wings? We'd really love some chicken wings. We're starving."
-- From Wanderlost, by Ben Olson.
No comments:
Post a Comment