We went to bars. This is where the talk happens. A lot of times, I make up stories about myself because that’s what people want to hear. I have fights and insult others because I am suddenly courageous and cynical in regard to most conventions of life.

Middle 30’s shows up with a skateboard in hand wearing what I guess to be Marithe Francois Gibaud jeans.

“You skate?” I say

“Yeah, I just bombed that hill (pointing)” says the jeans. “This is a good little town you got here. I’m coming from the city.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“Breck.”

“That’s not the city. I used to live there.”

“Before that Oakland.”

“Yeah, ok”

“So you girls are skateboarders? You know Jake Phelps, the photo editor at Thrasher? He’s my NIGGA.”

“This isn’t the city. You can’t have NIGGAZ”

Later I heard that guy tell his friends he brought his “rain board” due to the impending doom of cloudy skies. GOD BLESS HIS HEART. Someone told me to leave. I didn’t really listen, but I eventually obliged.

Wherever we went next was cheap and quiet. People were throwing darts. When I went to the bathroom, someone started pounding on the door, but I didn’t open it so she broke it open and puked. Then she got thrown out. I felt bad. I tried to talk the bartender out of his decision, but he was pretty convinced that she couldn’t drink or walk appropriately anymore, and so she had to leave. He gave her back her dollar, as though she cared. IM SORRY JENNY B.

We wandered, were accused of being 16, went into places that looked like they should have been part of people’s houses and maybe they were. In some books that I read, people live in rooms above the saloons they work in, where they stand on their feet all night and their wives cook the dinner. A hired boy works in the kitchen. Men come in after hard days of work, sit down, have drinks and tell stories. Women do, too. Then these guys who the place is named for basically watch the night everywhere end as they count the cash in the register and are so tired. They stumble upstairs to fall asleep as the sun rises. People like this would be worried about serving underage kids even if they have IDs. I get it.

Sometimes there are distractions. Flashing lights, neon cacti, imagining line dancing, cowboy boots and horseshoes on the walls serve as distractions to me. So a place like Ollies was perfect, because in a perfect world and from the outside looking in, this bar appears to be an embodiment of all my gaudy daydreams. You really did have to be 21 to get into the place, so we lost everyone we were with. It was okay. I bought Brooke a Labatt and we sat down and watched what people do when they are single or sad and over 40. Blonde, platinum best mullet ever stood at the bar and shook each buttock, alternately in time, to grateful dead covers. Apparently, an AC/DC cover band also plays here on some nights. We’ll have to go again. I like places where nobody cares about me because I am too young.

Next we went back to the first bar, where I was denied service because I broke the rules the first time around, brought beer in my bag and gave it to 19 year olds while drinking some myself. The bartender was fairly cool about this and simply refused to serve me again, but some terrible woman came up to me and started screaming at me to leave and asking me if I wanted her to lose her job. Like I said earlier, don’t try to talk to me if I have been drinking and I don’t want to hear it. I took my sweet time, finished whatever meaningless conversation I happened to be having and went back to the lair of underage indulgence. After cutting through the woods to get back on track, we drank more and did more stupid things.

I won’t lie and say I don’t like how certain people look. Most popular male attire of the evening: mesh hat. Female attire of the evening: dilated pupils.

And that was that. Tune in for leg 2, when we make more friends and fewer enemies. Until next week. -RC