The candle’s wearing a fishnet stocking and there’s this weird notched dish next to it smoking three cigarettes at a time and I’m drunk.

I get these interesting notions. I’m wondering if the bartender is rinsing out the really dirty glasses by pouring liquor in them and letting drunks slosh it around until they’re clean enough for a sober person. I wonder if naugahyde comes sticky from the factory, or do they install it aftermarket. I wonder why a deaf man loads the jukebox. Is there a floor on the planet — wood, wall-to-wall carpet, packed earth, whatever –where any table in this joint won’t wobble? Two more pony glasses and I’ll be wondering what the gum under there tastes like. I wonder if anyone else is getting the Morse Code S.O.S. in the flickering neon sign.  I wonder if the singer doesn’t like me. No, I know he doesn’t like me because I yelled at him and he yelled back.

There’s a girl at the next table and she’s Juliet just now. But she’s like me, and isn’t about to wait until the third act to start drinking poison. The trouble is, I’ve had five glasses of amber Cyrano de Bergerac and my tongue’s depressed and I’m in the wrong play. What difference does it make, really? I could reel on over and reel her in to empty my wallet and fill my ear, and where does it go? Back to her place to watch her wash off the warpaint and see her go from Juliet to Lady Macbeth quicker than a coffee break in a factory. 

They hate it when you tell them, just there, when you’ve figured out your mistake, that you forgot something in the car, and she points out you took the subway.