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Post by norman eugene grant on Aug 27, 2012 17:56:27 GMT -5
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] on the Devil's dance floor
Fuck her and her inability to find another grocery store. Fuck her and her smile, her new boyfriend. Fuck her and her happy new life. She'd seen him from across the aisle and she had had the nerve to walk up to him and say hello, to be civil. God, he hated her.
Which was why he sat in his usual seat at the pub a little earlier than usual, glaring at the knots in the wood as if staring so lethally at a counter top could solve all of his problems and curb his anger and hatred for that damn woman. Even if he hadn't of seen her, he'd be here once the sun went down and the pub filled with locals and tourists, drinking and complaining about how much he hated his job to the bartender like he did almost every Friday night. Truth be told, he spent an unhealthy amount sitting on that pathetic little stool , drinking. If he wasn't there drinking on a Friday night he was at home in his underwear eating cheetos, resisting the urge to crumple up his work and yelling at the television while Melvin hid under the coffee table.
Norman was pathetic and everyone who could see his messily tied tie and slumped shoulders knew it.
The last time he'd been at the pub he'd gotten punched in the face, a small brown bruise still adorned the bridge of his nose. He couldn't even remember what had happened or what he'd said. "You're looking better,"said the bartender with a smirk as he refilled his glass, he'd stopped asking if he should weeks and weeks ago. Norman only glowered at him, shifting slightly as he tapped his fingers on his glass before taking a sip of the liquid gold rum.
It was yet to occur to him that he currently had ten dollars to his name and no way to pay for the slew of drinks he'd end up having that night.
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Post by dmitri rafael cain on Aug 28, 2012 14:37:36 GMT -5
[/style][style=width: 360px; background-color: #000; font-family: courier new; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 1px; color: #c1bdbd; text-align: center; padding: 20px;]They say those who can't just instruct others
And act like victims or jilted lovers There was no denial of the facts: Alpine Heights’ pub was an absolute travesty. Dmitri wasn’t sure why he so often tortured himself here; its cloying inauthenticity was a source of perpetual irritation, reminding him once again of this American inability to do anything properly. Imitation Tudor beams, a couple of Union flags hanging from the walls, a bit of Beatles memorabilia and a dart board that saw little use beyond the ornamental – these did not a pub make. For one thing, it was all too clean. Dmitri had the unsettling sense of having stepped onto the set of a B-movie with less plot than continuity errors.
But returning to an empty house on a Friday night had never been appealing, and he would willingly suffer through worse for the sake of the company to justify a drink. It was here or that godforsaken nightclub; the pub may have been a tacky abomination, but here he didn’t feel so – old.
Without the prop of a cigarette to busy them, his idle fingers tapped impatience on his glass of bourbon. The table he usually headed to when his poorly-supressed misanthropy got the better of him was secluded in a corner, enabling him to survey the antics of his fellow patrons unnoticed, and with not inconsiderable distaste. The bar was in view; for the past twenty minutes he had been observing the same cheap haircut and sloping shoulders in a shirt he immediately catalogued as creased and poorly fitting, knocking one drink back after another with an irascibility whose cause any regular with an ear to listen would have heard about a hundred times.
Their friendship may have grown more out of shared territory than shared values, but if Dmitri had had any room for finer feelings, he would almost have felt pity for the guy.
Drink finished, he had run out of excuses not to go up to the bar. With the rumbling sigh of one resigning himself to martyrdom, he stood up and laid claim to the next stool.
“How long’s it been now since the great schism?”
Long enough that behaviour that had begun as unseemly had become pathetic; that was the only answer Dmitri really cared about. Without comment the bartender refilled his glass, his face betraying his low opinion of this arrogant, unpleasant customer, whose only redeeming feature was his heavy wallet. Proving this point correct, Dmitri failed even to acknowledge him.
“What you need is to rebound with some naïve undergraduate. Drop a few romantic quotes, a basic knowledge of decent wine” – he waved a hand dismissively – “and inflate her grades for a term or two, and she won’t notice how bland you are.”
You want a reason? How's about because
You ain't a has-been if you never was |
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Post by norman eugene grant on Aug 29, 2012 13:49:43 GMT -5
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #000000, width: 300px; height: 300px;] on the Devil's dance floor
Norman rarely and barely paid attention to the interior decorations of the pub, he could care less if it was bright green with neon furniture or had a western saloon vibe and all the servers wore cowboy hats and fringed vests. He didn't even know if the pub had a proper name, to be honest. The pub had alcohol and that was all that mattered to him. He didn't even converse much with the other patrons unless they came to him, and usually he'd send them away after a slew of complaints and eye rolls. The bartender was his only constant companion and he knew more about the Norman's personal life than he could ever care to know. He didn't even care to know his name, he just cared that he could pay. It seemed no one in the pub or any pub only ever really cared about their own needs and desires.
It was only once the other man spoke that he became aware of him, turning his grim eyes towards him. He seemed to grunt in response, followed by a snort and a shake of his head as he took a sip of his drink. "How much thought was put into that piece of golden advice?"his voice as dingy as the shirt he wore on his back. Dmitri wasn't exactly the best kind of guy to give advice, from what he'd gathered at all, but he seemed to be one of Norman's few constant companions, the other two being the bartender and that frustrating red-head at work. Fuck her too and her coffee.
"Sleep with a student and risk my whole career, yeah, okay, sounds like a plan,"he added after another sip of rum, the glass almost empty and he tapped it on the table, catching the bartender's attention and he refilled it a moment later. Norman wasn't sure if he wanted Dmitri to go away, but than again, it suddenly hit him as he started to down his drink that he only had ten bucks on him and with that, Dmitri's company would be begrudgingly welcomed.
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