The Age of Reason

He knew he had a good two hours to recall any embarrassing proceedings from the previous night’s debauchery and, accordingly, showered.

Having to walk to work after the third drunk driving arrest, he enjoyed it-- amusing himself with thoughts of being rundown on the sidewalk by a Budweiser-toting redneck in a large pick up truck.

At one point he crouched left out of his normal pace and shot across the street, diving in to the brush on the opposite end, rolling through the hedge and picking himself up smoothly to resume the previous gait, surprising no one along his normal route.

"Who you like in Big ‘Cap?" asked the Japanese wheelchair-ridden newsstand clerk.

"Whatever P Val’s on. I hear he could suck his own weight in heavy sand right up through his nose- Hell, he don’t even need a horse!"

"Ahh! Never you give me picks. Always win, never give me shit."

"That’s my pick, old timer- take it or leave it."

"Valenzuela’s no good. Too much coke. Wired—no good."

"Here’s 10 bucks. He loses, it’s yours, he wins, you give me closing odds- deal?"

"Ok."

When he reached the bar, he was 20 minutes late. Exactly.

"Hey, PUKE!" screamed a large Italian man from across the room.

Jack leaned down next to two decent-looking business women on a lunch break.

"Wha is dis?" he whispered to them.

"WHAT IS DIS?!" the large Italian bellowed.

"He’s trying to run a bar here," he informed the giggling women.

"I’M TRYIN’ TO RUNNA BAR HEEA!"

"Do you ladies need anything?" he asked.

"No, we’re alright, thanks."

He took his place behind the bar and lit a cigarette. It was his last and he was broke so he walked down to the end of the bar next to Roy.

"How you doin’, Roy?"

"Awful."

Roy was a laid off engineer in his thirties who was just beginning to realize that physics was just another in a long string of human fallacies. He sat in the bar day after day and pissed his unemployment checks away on the liquor that helped him forget that his assuredness in physics alongside his own sanity were slowly crumbling as he sank down into the bottle like so many before him. Jack took a deep interest in Roy’s problems in that he was broke and out of cigarettes and Roy tipped well for good conversation.

"What’s it all about, Jack?"

"It’s all about hypocrisy, " replied Jack, "You know, it takes money to make money, things like that."

"No, I mean, what’s it all ABOUT?"

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, here it is. Remember Adam and Eve and the apple and all that?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, the apple wasn’t evil, per se; it was false confidence. When you lose your youth, you gain a false confidence. Everything ceases to be fun, everything needs to have a purpose, an explanation—even the shit you used to do without any thought whatsoever. But, in actuality, there is no explanation, just a huge mass of people all confident in their conflicting explanations of what’s going on."

"So what’s your explanation?"

"I don’t have one, of course. Things happen for absolutely no reason at all. You need another drink? I need to go next door and get some smokes."

"Yeah, JD, rocks."

Jack came back with a large jar, light on the ice.

"Unemployment special today, $2.50, extra stiff. Don’t tell Joe."

"Thanks," Roy mumbled, handing Jack a five. "Keep it."

"Thank you," Jack said.

When he returned from the store, he lit up a cigarette and Mark walked in, wearing his trademark 3 piece suit, back for another Martini lunch.

"Hey, Jackie, what’s happening?!" Mark beamed.

"Hey Roy," he added with a slight distaste in his voice.

He sat down at the opposite end of the bar from Roy and Jack began preparing a Sapphire Martini, two olives.

"I sold ten units today, dude. That’s $120 in my pocket."

"So you’re buyin’ tonight?" Jack replied.

"Well, no, I won’t see it until I get my quarterly commission check."

"Oh, so they can make the interest off ya?"

"Hey, I make bank, my job is cool. We’ll see when I take all you guys to Vegas next year."

"Man, I remember the Mark in school. Big time socialist, ideals, the whole thing. Don’t you feel guilty producing nothing and making all that money?"

"I don’t do nothing! I work hard and I enjoy my job! I sell the best fireplaces there are, man. People need these things—I’m helping out the community!"

"You mean the company."

"You’re just jealous."

"I just remember."

Joe screamed from the back room- "Two Mint Juleps! Today!"

"I’m not a sellout, man," Mark whined.

"People want these things and I sell them. If I didn’t do it, someone else would."

"Call it what you like," Jack mumbled as he prepared the Mint Juleps.

Mark’s beeper went off and he headed for the pay phone. When he returned he said "Jack, I gotta go, man, I’ll catch you later."

Jack mumbled something about "the Man" and delivered the Juleps. He came back just in time to see Carl and Jim stagger in.

Carl was as fiercely independent as he was dependent on Jim and vice-versa. He was unemployed and stayed that way as often as he could. For months he would travel around the country and return with fascinating, if contradictory, stories of the various people and places he had seen. Jim lived vicariously through Carl while holding down dreary fast-food jobs to keep himself drunk.

Carl had gone to school with Jack, Mark, Jim and all the others for a year and decided it was too restrictive for him. He also found he had no desire to join the workforce, so society did with him what it did with everyone who refused to contribute to the economy- he was medicated and kicked to the side, which was fine with him. Every so often the liquor and Prozac made for a bad reaction, but Jim usually got him out of these situations without a fight.

"Hey, ya slothful bar wench, two G & T’s with a side a Roy’s liver!" Carl roared.

Roy raised his head briefly, then it sank back down on to his glass, still full.

Jack served the drinks while Jim quietly fished through his wallet.

"What’s happenin’ fellas? Sorry, but Roy shit out his liver earlier this morning. Can I get ya somethin’ else?"

Roy’s head slid off the glass and hit the bar, hard. Carl burst into laughter.

"Isn’t there anything but horse racing on?" Jim complained.

"Sorry, man, Joe makes the rules," Jack lied.

Carl and Jim polished off another 4 or 5 a piece while decorating Roy’s sleeping head with streamers from a party long forgotten. Carl fired up the jukebox with some Glenn Miller tunes and began his patented Australian table dance when Mark burst through the door, looking pale. Carl fell off the table, waking Roy as Mark sat down next to him.

"Make it a double. Anything," Mark groaned.

"What’s up?" asked Jack.

"I fuckin’ got laid off!" Mark howled.

Roy attempted to speak, "Hey.. things happens for no reasons at all, man.."

Jack silently poured a drink as Glenn Miller faded out and the television announcer exclaimed "What a race! I think it’s safe to say that Patrick Valenzuela is back, ladies and gentlemen! What an upset..."