Late November 2016

Another full glass of beer in front of me, foaming over like my life which runneth over continually. I know this bar well as very nearly there is no other one I visit in Annapolis. Beatles (incidentally, I’m watching a doc on them on Hulu) on the stereo bounding about the dimly lit room, penetrating dark corners. Bulbs dangle from the ceiling, lonely in the dark, shedding meager light. They look like dildos daring drunken debauchery, insinuating ideas into minds swirlingly intoxicated. Once the clock strikes two and the revelers need leave… of course by that point those paired off will hardly need further inspiration. A girl—beautiful and tall, slender long legs—leans against the bar in profile, her gaze vacant, staring. The bar seating is very nearly full at only quarter to seven. I am in a blissful state of calm, my face feeling flush, my belly feeling full. There is comfort in this space I know so well. I am transfixed by the glint of light in the martini and coupe glasses stacked nearby shining in the dark like scores of night lights in a dark hallway, like streetlights in a city block. On the wall behind me hangs a large photograph of a tree. It’s been there for several years, and the more I see it, and the longer it hangs, the same juxtaposition it continues to make with the space. That is to say it doesn’t fit in. I can’t imagine anything more strange displayed as a piece of art in here. Nothing. I think if I were to walk in and there were a hole in the wall where the picture is now, I would be less shocked than I am every time I look at that tree.

Not long after finishing my second beer, I pay and leave. As much as this bar feels comfortable to me, as much as I associate it with home, I can’t stay here for long. I crave fresh air and the chill bite of November cold. I wish to walk the streets of my home town a bit and wonder at the glint and glimmer of streetlights in the dark and the shadows they cast. I want to relive old memories which only I can by walking the brick sidewalks I’ve walked on years past. Later I will have to drive back to my father’s where I’m staying currently, following taillights redly glowing through the winding dark wondering what comes next.