Drinking By The Books

Here I sit in an old dusty bar (where once there was smoke) drinking old-fashioned's discussing societal failings and the limitations of masculine modernity with Hemingway, Faulkner and Bukowski. - An ancient voice from a dark corner of this whiskey'd - world speaks out: It is the mass of men who undeservedly lead lives of quiet desperation, due to deprivation. My pals and I raise our dirty glasses in toast and with a hearty: Here-Here! devour our dread in drink. Bill cries out in great southern-style: Damn the night. Free the slaves. The price has been paid. Chinaski with a weary smirk says softly: I'll drink to that; hell I'll drink to anything. I'd even go so far as to say, I would anything, anywhere, with anyone! Ernie glowering over his glass of rye gives a brief revue: You boys just plain talk too much. We all roar with manly laughter; God it feels good to really be alive right now, right here... if only briefly. - the bartender glances over at me with eyes that threaten charges of insanity. But we don't care, no not the four of us, old classic pals anachronistic conundrums last of the free minds, getting a wee bit carried away in the wonderful joy that comes from outside of the ordinary world where the sun still rises on all: the just who are unjust, the wise who are foolish, the brave who are fearful, and also the alive... who were once the dead. In the closing distance near the land of the finish and faraway places, a solitary gunshot sings it's sad song of loss... then Bill cries out: No more for old Ernie - he's had quite enough! - and with that, for the moment, so have I. I gather my books, and head for the nearest Exit. Time has come to go -