2077. Enrique’s sandwich bar

Enrique came up with a brilliant plan. His sandwich bar in the side street downtown had been doing poorly. He estimated that within a week he would have to close down. The rent had become impossible. Fewer and fewer lunchtime patrons seem to call. A drastic change was called for; perhaps a final fling.

Enrique’s brilliant plan was this: he would go bizarre. The Bizarre Sandwich Bar had a ring to it. It was everything or nothing.

Lots and lots of strange combinations ensued: banana and lettuce sandwiches, tomato and honey sandwiches, leek and strawberry sandwiches… There was no end to Enrique’s imagination. People were in for a risk; a dare. Have you tried Enrique’s peanut butter and dried apricot sandwich?

Can I have just a plain ham sandwich please? Certainly not; there’s nothing bizarre about that.

Enrique’s experiment was a complete flop.

Repeat of Story 379: Beer garden

(This is the eighth and final story in a week or so of repeats. “Beer garden” first appeared on this blog on 24 October 2014. The picture is a detail of a wonderful photograph by Terry Barca. It was what inspired this story. In the photograph, every face could tell a story or two. WARNING: The story contains foul language.)

Yeah, well I’m standing there outside in this pub’s beer garden, and I’ve got a bottle of beer, Haägen I suppose, or something like that because the bottle’s green as far as I remember. And I’m talking to this chick. And she’s really boring.

Then this other guy comes along and starts talking to this chick, and they talk and talk like I’m not there. And I’m stuck with my back to the wall, and they’re in front of me, and there’s no way I can escape. I’m trapped. So I nod and smile like I’m interested (“so I just fed it some crushed cereal” she said), like it’s the biggest fucking deal in the world.

Then he asks if she’s got any other pets, and she said she had a cat but gave it away when it got the goldfish. I take a swig of the Haägen only to find there’s nothing left in the bottle. I say I’m going to get another drink, and it’s like I’m not there, he’s so into her fucking cat.

Eventually I say excuse me and push right past them and go to the bar and get another Haägen. And when I turn round, over at the chick there’s this big hulky bastard smashing a bottle over the head of the boring cat-lover. So I think, fuck this, if we’re going to get entertainment I might as well get a proper drink.

Like a bourbon and coke.

1585. Survival

(WARNING! The characterisation in this story calls for the occasional swear word…)

Poodle Jerkin was a clown of questionable talent. He snorted cocaine. Who wouldn’t if you worked day in and day out for a circus that hardly paid for nothing? And his wife had left him and taken the kids. There was no hope, so he snorted cocaine and got the sack. Yeah, he wasn’t good enough even for a fuckin’ circus.

He got a job as a clown at a transgender nightclub, where he gyrated up and down on the bar top, dressed as a clown and wanking while patron stuffed dollar bills down the front of his jock strap. The smile was painted on his face, but underneath the makeup he was crying. Then at the end of each night, Jolie the manager or owner – he didn’t know which but who gives a shit? – would take all the bills out of his jock strap and finish off what he’d started on the bar top. He’d leave each night with a couple of bucks and somehow he was meant to have a life.

One night, on the way back to where he slept, he walked past an appliance store. On a big television screen a politician was spouting:

We’ve got to get rid of all these no hopers sleeping on the street. There are needles everywhere. There’s human excrement. We should round them up and do something about it.

Poodle Jerkin picked up a nearby laptop and threw it at the television screen. He’s in prison now. What the fuck? It’s survival.