"Come drink with us, Christopher.

Come down to the bar.

To the Blue Goose on Main Street

where the gin falls like rain.

Come drink a martini

a Manhattan or fizz.

Come chug Irish Car Bombs

until you get sick."

 

That was his friend on a cell phone

shouting over the uproar, the music,

the cacophonic melange.

Thus went Christopher, son of Harry,

son of Martha, son of Maine

into the black winter evening

for shots with the gang.

 

On his walk to the Blue Goose

saw young Christopher a bum

who begged a stray quarter

for a story in a song.

Sang the bum of a love lost

to whiskey nights in Sin City

and a tragic affair

with a slick bodybuilder

oiled within an ounce of torches,

great bonfire torches

made of men and their ambitions

to be so strong and so loved and so bigger than all.

 

Sang the bum of a knife fight

with a Mexican gang

in the summer when Loredo

was a warzone in back rooms,

parking lots and dumps,

when Old Chester the dachshund

shuffled loose his extension cord leash

like Fenrir at world's end.

 

A dollar in quarters was Christopher's toll,

a price he paid gladly to linger and stall.

There were tequila shots waiting,

Coronas and limes.

There were fearful crowns of porcelain

and piss-sticky floors.

 

And there was magic.

 

At the Blue Goose the juke spooled

a loom of hard rock.

Its tapestry a pantheon,

its gods spandex-frocked.

Among the wailing guitars and cheesy synth calls

came young Christopher to mingle,

to awaken, to imbibe.

Billiard balls cracked like eggs made of shale

and cocaine in the bathrooms made pretty girls pale.

The night nearly over, the night just beginning,

the bloodshed, the tearshed, the bladders, the sperm.

Christopher kissed a bourbon

and shared his first drink with none.

 

"Don't hide from us, Christopher!

Don't forget we're your friends!

We've bought a pitcher of Miller

and can't drink 'til you sit

and align with us.

A constellation soused,

a bright, shining rust

of squandered youth and yadda yadda yadda,

you wanna get plastered or what?"

 

Three pints in libation

to no particular god

and Christopher's eyes were wide, swimming

to the end of the bar.

There was a lark with her midriff a banner,

a tramp-stamp emblazoned

above her hip-hugging pants.

She sipped on a Cosmo, then amaretto and Coke.

Her hair was like a fox in Spring,

her lips like cushions of crimson.

 

"Aphrodite be kind

although you never are.

Smile down on a soul too scared to walk

your roads without drinking.

Give my credit card legs

that it may run extra leagues.

Give my tongue godly grace

lest it fall and undo me.

Grant me this moment and I will be your slave,

in service 'til death at your altar and lave."

 

Christopher finished his prayer

and downed his last drop.

He rose from the table and all wished him good luck.

Like a sea serpent he weaved

through the revelers and drunks.

Like a heron he glided to the beer taps and beyond.

He ducked under a trucker with a willow tree beard

and he threatened a day trader

who stank of Red Bull, Hugo Boss and fear.

 

With wings on his intentions and the sun oh-so-close,

Christopher plummeted into despair and remorse.

The fox found a raven, the cushions found twins.

A black-haired waitress was Christopher's end.

She put her arms around his quarry,

kissed her forehead, kissed her neck.

She whispered the poems of Sappho without moving her lips.

 

Christopher died then in his heart and his pants.

He found no solace in bourbon,

no ease in nacho chips.

At 1:00 A.M. a creature appeared at his side.

She had hair like a mouse just come in from the rain,

two lips like cat's whiskers, thin and near-gray,

a blouse once full-white now faded and stained,

and a voice like cold coffee, heavy with grains.

Christopher leaned on her sympathy

and then on her shoulder.

With last call on the horizon he held back a tear.

To do what he now must, he'd need one last beer.