The beer drinkers
The nights were endless and so was the summer. It seems as we were doing everything else from what we were supposed to do – if the bar was closed we would stay there until the waitresses went home, and then we would have pillow fights, wrecking chairs and smashing glasses until we felt it would be a good idea running away from the scene of crime in time. If the concert would end we would curse them all, send them to hell, and go on having our next beer in the only open bar of this rigid small town, which just happened to be the bar of a hotel.
At that time in the night it was all damp and chilly, but that did not prevent us from sitting all alone in the terrace next to the road, where no car would drive on at that hour. First we would abuse their toilets and then smoke our cigarettes while diving into our uncomfortable chairs. Our circle was spinning, the beers were flowing and I guess none of us remembers what we were all babbling and laughing about. Then a guy who was spending a night in the hotel came out for a cigarette and tried to make conversation with us, but none of us was willing to participate in. He said he was just like us, looking for a party to be going on somewhere, but although it probably looked like that, it was not our intention. I guess we were just looking to find a place that weren’t our homes, where we would exist all together in that moment and not think about going to work in the morning or helping mom with the gardening in the afternoon. And so we all willingly pretended to agree with him, waiting for the moment when he would go back into his room and leave us in the world we found ourselves in that night.
The next time was after we ran away from the chaos we left behind, once again looking for another place and another beer. We decided going to the hotel once again but mutually agreed to have a bite to eat before heading on. We went to a Balkanian kebab place where they had good and cheap French-fries but it was closed. We went to another Balkanian kebab place which was open but just stepping inside the place would make you feel quite obnoxious. We gave our orders to the dark tanned men with funny looking noses and funny shaped heads, and after that tried to eat what they served us as quickly as possible. I only had something like three beers at the time but I was already feeling a bit week and sick and I was rocking on my chair trying to convince my stomach that it wanted another beer. Kate gave us a ride to the hotel and headed home (for she was driving and could not share the same enthusiasm for drinking beer that we were sharing). We ran and hopped along to the hotel door but it would not open. We cursed it and sent it to hell and started making plans on who will be brave enough to steal our father’s beer when Jerry remembered something so brilliant, none of us would dare to imagine – the train station was just up the hill of the hotel and there was a wannabe artsy painted bar named “Jazzy Club”. We came there so fast that I don’t even remember how we got there. The beer was already on the table when I came out of the little girl’s room and so we proposed a toast to our foolishness and drank. I forced myself into doing a few small sips but I couldn’t bare drinking it any longer, the feeling down my throat was disgusting and the more I tried to force myself into drinking, the more disgusted I felt about myself.
What the meaning of it all was I don’t know, but I loved doing all those random things no one of us expected doing, even more having random conversations we never thought of having, and probably not even remembering them in the morning.
