... Calamansi. It's name in the Philippines, though I'm not sure if it is unique to us or not. He sipped at it, a Kumquat Whiskey Sour.
"Lemon, lime, kumquats, gomme, Old Grand-Dad." Stewart leaned into him to intimate it, fighting over Lauv's Reforget. Gomme was simply syrup. Old was bourbon. Wart knows I know. No one else would, or very few at least.
A pick-me-up. Citrus has that affectation. He stared out the window and wished for a moment that he didn't see the facade of another building. It was as if every window looked out on a mirror. Little variation. He sipped again and let that thought go.
"We let it go now I'm full of rum and regret, I go out just so I can reforget." The booth synced a bass hook and added some low end. Familiar. Bum. Bum. Boom. Chainsmokers, that's what it is. Roses. Sip. Menthol. Crisp and sharp.
Fuck. He loosened up and felt his shoulders relax. Finally. "I go out just so I can reforget" The air felt new tonight. Finally. Looking down on the street he saw the mulling throng.
"You bored?" Bailey. He leaned over beside him. He pulled on a vape. It glowed purple then white. The vapor filled the air, only for two seconds and disappeared.
His mind was actually racing. He was thinking of flat desert. Dark nights with only a few, lonely lights in the landscape. Home. Cucamonga. The dark of the San Gabriels ever present. "What did you want to do when you were a kid?"
Bailey laughed, "What?"
"All I ever wanted to do was fly a jet in the Air Force. A pilot." He leaned over the railing more. "I used to read piloting manuals when I was a kid. I understood none of it. I had them open and I would read the words, but they would never cement in my head. It was like trying to pretend to read hieroglyphics or something, you know?"
Bailey had disappeared. He does that. "Then it dawned on me: I just wanted to fly. I had no commitment to do the work. I wanted to play. I wanted to go. I never really put in the time." I wanted to soar over the mountain, through the valley on the other side where the trains blew through, three times a day. Across the hidden lakes where they were inaccessible, to the snow caps that were just as impassable. I wanted to travel back in time and meet the natives and shove edibles in my mouth and wake up with the knowledge of the world in my head and they would say 'you have no eyes, because now you see everything...
The world was gone for a minute and returned. Someone screamed on the street below and the mulling of people naturally made a circle around the source. Homeless, a wash of uneven grey, and teetering along the street - the tourists from Boise and Raleigh making sure to put ten feet between them. Some are laughing and laughing again when they realize they have a story to tell when they get home.
Kitten, thank God. They won't play them until the end though. He'll play until before the bridge and cut to anything else. "Give me the lights now, let me breathe."
"What was that thing you hit me earlier? Something about a bad day?" Oh, the text.
"A Joker quote."
Bailey laughed again. He was on something and that something was annoying. "What?"
"It's from The Killing Joke, I lent it to you back in 8th grade. You read it and it blew your mind."
"Ok." He waited with his face flat and his eyes glossy. It wasn't alcohol. Bailey stared until he got an answer.
"Joker says to Batman, 'All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am."
"Just one bad day." Bailey slapped my chest when he got it and did a quick hop into the air. Now it was time for him to disappear. All right, I'm done for the night. He nodded to Stewart on the way out and threw a 20 on the bar for him. The drinks were free because they were tight. ...
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