Fumes | 30 November 2021

The street was aswirl with a dense fog of weed, tobacco, and the vodka fumes still outgassing from everyone’s skin from the night before.  Blinded by its density, I reached my hand out, and…

BNR Response

…touched the back of someone remarkably close yet visually undetectable.  I was so startled, I felt as if I’d been swimming somewhere alone in the dark only to be unexpectedly grazed by a fin.  I recoiled and smiled at the face that turned to identify the owner of the groping hand.

The light was orange and hazy.  Was it dawn or was it dusk?  I couldn’t recall the last few hours of the Halloween party, and there were just enough people on the streets for it to still be the evening of the party or the morning after.  As I passed the entrance to the zoo, the decorations from the big bash were at once a close recollection and a distant, headachy memory.  Through the gloaming of my remaining inebriation I could see hanging pumpkin lanterns, sagging with fog and dew, as well as the orange fairy lights slumping yet still affixed to the tree branches lining the grand entry path.

I continued down the block until I got to the beach and the Great Highway.  The ocean air briefly reviving me from my dehydration.  I paused at the stoplight and looked to my left, where I noticed someone exiting Zeke’s.  I had a brief and feeble mock-debate with myself about going in or not.  A small group of people wandered around the door and parking lot, zombie-like and as if high on the marine layer.  I took their lead and surrendered to my baser urges.

As I approached, I noted how it still felt like Halloween…eerie light in the sky and the Santa Anas blowing hot for either late at night or early morning.  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and was greeted by a lifeless black screen.  It must have died due to copious photos taken during the party and no charge.  I passed through the swinging saloon doors of Zeke’s and realized that they had been open for long over 24 hours and were still very much celebrating All Hallow’s Eve.

Tammi, dressed as a low-rent homemade Ursula the Sea Witch seemed a little too on-the-nose given her ongoing taunting-cum-downright-jealousy-fueled-feud with the redheaded bartender actually named Ariel.  Her neck and chest tattoos added edge to the look, which she wore with total disinterest.

I nodded at Tammi but she looked right through me.  I got a lukewarm beer from Ariel, who was also snubbing me…what was going on?  The cast of characters at Zeke’s continued to puzzle me as well…Julia was the only regular, and she was slumped down in the corner booth with a fake costume knife embedded in her breast.  I thought she had overdone it with the fake blood, but it was a decent look nonetheless.  The passed-out Julia was surrounded by a crew of over-confident tourists wearing an irritating mix of Ed Hardy and Harley Davidson biker gear.  “This must be how the French feel about visiting Americans” I thought to myself as I watched a man wearing full skeleton face paint, a Macho Man Randy Savage muscle tank, and cut-offs order Ariel to deliver a round of 15 Miller Lites to his friends in the corner booth with Julia.  They surrounded her, draping themselves over her in a disturbing manner and mocking her in a Weekend at Bernie’s  kind of way.  Their looks prompted me to look down at my body, and I surprised myself that I was still wearing the Cleopatra costume I had toiled for so many hours on.  That explained the “come fuck me” eyes I was getting from the table of touring bikers.  The clock on the wall had been stuck at 3AM since the first day I ever stepped foot in Zeke’s, but today it was another detail that didn’t help. 

I was trying to get Ariel’s attention for a second beer when a handsome stranger got my attention with a dirty joke and a mischievous smile.  He ordered us two shots and I stupidly fell for the peer pressure, the already-bendy time suddenly becoming a carousel of disguised drunks, new “friends” from the Halloween zoo party, drinks, and more missed red flags.

I grew more and more distressed as I failed to make eye-contact with Ariel even once, her eyes glazed and fixed.  Tammi aka Ursula was tending to the sloppy wannabe bikers in a mechanical tattooed Stepford Wives fashion, as if on a conveyor belt or grooved track sweeping through the bar and collecting empties while delivering fresh rounds.  The 80s jukebox was stuck on a five-song loop which was festive at first but haunting several hours later.  “Seasons don’t fear the Reaper, nor do the wind, the sun or the rain…we can be like they are…come on, baby…take my hand…”

Mikey, the good-looking stranger, was halfway through a story about an unpleasant encounter with a potato bug when I decided it was time for me to head home.  I stood up quickly and had to steady myself by clutching tightly to the bar.  This was endlessly humorous to Mikey.  Dick wagon.  I tried to nonchalantly head to the back of the joint to slip out the oversized window in the ladies’ room, when I realized that Julia was definitely in a real version of Weekend at Bernie’s.   As I rapped nervously on the occupied bathroom door, I noticed that Julia appeared to be in a state of rigor as the buffoons jostled and cavorted around her.  Lividity was starting to appear on the underside of the bare forearm, still clutching a half-full pint glass on the table.  Time to get the fuck out.

I tried to disguise my fear but my drunkenness was conspicuous.  I tripped over my own feet and knocked over one of the old wooden bar stools, its crash echoing through the bar.  As I reached for the swinging doors, a large arm fell across it like a tumbling redwood.  It belonged to a creature, a man, so piratey and decrepit that he appeared to have floated up from Davey Jones’s Locker just for the occasion of stopping my exit.  “Just where do you think you’re going, dollface?  This party is just getting started.”