Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Chameleon Junction

This bar is like a third world country. It’s hot. They have about half a dozen ceiling fans and only two appear to be working. Each fan has a combination of three differently colored light bulbs, selected from any of the following options: red, blue, green, purple, or white. Some of the fans are missing paddles. They all have a thick crust of dust accumulated on them, as though they were batter-dipped and deep-fried in dust. There is a disco ball in the center of the ceiling and it’s either broken or simply not turned on. Xmas lights have been strung over anything that will accommodate them. One of those things is a giant series of mirrors on the right wall. Four large, square mirrors, each about three feet across, all side-by-side, with all their edges traced with Xmas lights. The music is terrible. We got suckered into coming down here to see somebody’s band play. It’s all bad. Everything. The bar is impoverished. They have a small handful of moderate-quality booze sitting on a fold-out banquet table behind the bar. Three taps, all bad. Fifty-cent drafts of chilled piss. No food. The bartenders are mutants, like everybody in here. Fifteen years back in time and just slightly deformed. There are lots of posters of girls with big tits, bad beer, and race cars. My head is somewhere else entirely. I’m furious that I’m even here. Cranky as a child and tired, I’m a prisoner at the end of a fucked-up gravel road, under an overpass, in the middle of the goddamn woods, watching high school garage bands embarrass themselves.
 

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