This is what I wrote Saturday at the 750words.com website. You'll need to read my earlier post to learn more about the site. Beware, this entry got an R rating for its language and sexual content. So if you're easily offended please don't read it. Also please keep in mind this is fictional (mostly) and written in one take in less than 20 minutes.
Down in the recesses of my brain, down past the walls I set up for others to see, the parts of me I make public, there is something else living there. I feel its breath on me at night as I roam the streets looking for company. The sidewalks are usually deserted in the early morning hours. The frat boys and sorority sluts are already back home, sleeping or fucking or whatever else they do when the bars close. Chicago can be a lonely place, despite its bustling nightlife and daylight hours. I can walk along the lakewalk from Montrose Harbor all the way to the Shedd Aquarium and hardly anyone will pay any attention to me. I walk past teenage girls who look right through me. I've reached the age where I am invisible to them. If I try to talk to them, they are usually polite at first. It's when I start asking where they are headed or what they are doing in the city, that's when they start to get that look in their eyes. We have to get going, they'll say, and scurry off to get away from the guy who is creeping them out. I stand on the sidewalk and watch them disappear down Halstead. At night I walk Rush Street, unable to afford to stop in and have a drink at any of the clubs. I love to hear the jazz notes floating into the air from behind the closed doors. In front of those doors usually stands a burly meathead asking for the $20 cover charge. And I think to myself, 20 fucking dollars? Really? I went into one of them during another phase of my life. I ordered a Diet Coke because I was still on the wagon then. The drink came back in one of those tall, skinny cocktail glasses loaded with ice and a narrow black straw. A few pulls on that straw and my pop was gone. The bartender asked if I wanted another, and I said yes because in addition to the $20 cover charge, there was a two-drink minimum to sit at the bar. A short time later she slipped the tab in front of me as I watched the band crank through one of those 15-minute jazz songs that never really sounds like the same song but then they stop playing and tell you that was, "whatever, whatever" and we hope you liked it. I did like it. But I left anyway. I've never been back into one of those clubs. The clientele was rich and refined, maybe even dignified. All things I am not. I prefer finding the hole in the wall bars, places like Carol's on Clark. A guy can go in there and get five or six beers with 10 bucks and be happy. It's one of those dingy places where cigarette smoke still clings to hte walls and ceiling even though smoking hasn't been allowed in city bars for two years. I suspect Carol probably still lights up in there when business is slow. She always struck me as a I-dont-give-a-fuck gal. But you have to be careful in Chicago. Cops are always looking to bust bar owners for stupid shit like that. Those liquor licences -- especially the 4 a.m. ones -- are better than gold in Chicago. Carol's stays open until 5 a.m. on Saturdays. Well, I guess that would be Sunday. I've walked into that place many times after 2 a.m. and had trouble finding a place to sit. College-age girls don't come in there, but that's all right. The women who do don't look so bad, unless they're the ones who slather on their makeup with paintbrushes and squeeze their fat asses into way-too-small jeans. Those are the ones who sit at the bar looking bored, glancing around for some guy drunk enough to want to fuck them. Some nights that guy is me. But it never works out well. We'll go back to her place -- always her place, I never take anybody to my dingy apartment -- and maybe smoke some weed if she has any. I'll get myself a beer or a shot of whiskey and then we'll start up on the couch. My hands run all over her body and hers are on mine. We move to the bedroom, disrobing along the way. By the time we're naked and on the bed, I'm bored. My dick just lies there no matter what she does to entice it. A few minutes later I'm back outside letting the night air cool my face. I look down the street one way then the other, hoping someone -- anyone -- is out walking and wouldn't mind talking to me.
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