Memories . . . happy days . . . distant moments . . . close to the heart. . . . The best part of waking up . . . is Folgers in your cup.
We looked for an empty table. We found one. We sat around it proudly, elegantly, stylishly.
I repeated to the girls: “Stay fresh, we’re on a trip.”
Zeezee, our youngest, felt targeted: “Don’t I look fresh to you? Do I look stale?”
“No, Zeezee. You’re so sensitive! I was talking to everyone at the table, not just you.” I filled the place with my voice, but no one in the place heard me. Clapping. Final bow. Tears of joy. Heart pounding. My audience!
The waiter brought us two menus, one for food and the other for drinks. We ordered two platters to share, and I ordered a trendy new cocktail I’d never tried before but that sounded strong enough: vodka with red wine and a medley of other flavors. Zumurrud got jealous and ordered the same drink. I felt reassured that I wasn’t alone in this experience anymore. Zeezee ordered vodka with 7Up, and Shwikar ordered a vodka sour.
We positioned ourselves on barstools around a high table. The tables were aligned facing the bar. Behind me, to the right of our table, sat a very young man with his button-up shirt tucked into his pants and his nose turned up. Facing him sat a girl who had shaved her legs especially for their date. She was wearing a look of surprise on her face and clothes that, despite her attempt to appear casual and fun, made her look constipated. They were both dirty blond and their expressions betrayed utter disgust at their surroundings. Excuse me? You ask how I noticed their expressions? I wasn’t staring at them or anything, but the waiter, who wore the same face expression, had asked us to move our table further from the one on our left, because the girls sitting there got lucky. So he pushed our table away, and we got so close to the table on our right that I was practically sitting in the blond’s lap. I snapped at the waiter, but he pretended not to hear me. That didn’t hurt my feelings though, because I felt so good that night that no creature like him could change that. The waiter seemed to be friends with the ones on our left: two girls eager to be approached, with the hint of a smile hanging on their lips, and a suspended conversation waiting to be initiated. Once they got lucky and found dates, their expressions would change into disgust at their surroundings as well.
When the food finally arrived, we attacked it mercilessly. Then the drinks arrived and Zumurrud’s face and mine lit up once we saw how pretty our drinks looked and how tasty. It seemed like it was going to be a good night. We felt so young.
“What you looking at, punk?”
A voice violated our space: the blond guy asked the dark-haired guy leaning at the bar behind his girlfriend, “Who you eyein’?” with a deafening voice.
And like any dark-haired guy who doesn’t tolerate remarks from a blond guy, he answered, “Who you calling punk, punk?”
The dark-haired guy then, despite his smaller size compared to the Pharaoh-like blond, was not only accepting his invitation to a fight, but also answering his question with a question.
And as the moment for action arrived, I felt something hit me in the back: their testosterone shooting like fireworks in all directions.
Grrrrrrrr.
“What are you looking at?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Who are you yelling at?”
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“$#%^&*”
“*&^%#$”
The music was still playing loud. The waiters didn’t rush to control the situation at all and throw the troublemakers out of the pub. So the two guys found themselves in the spotlight and refused to step down before one of them wins the fight.
Our table, the “super fresh” girls, was the battleground. Zeezee’s first instinct was to run on tiptoe with her iPhone in her hand. She then turned around and came back to salvage what was left of her purse. Zumurrud, with her usual poise, found herself within arm’s reach of the dark-haired guy. He grabbed her by the shoulder and leapfrogged over her to get closer to the blond guy, so she asked him sarcastically: “What am I, your shield?” then withdrew with complete class to hide from him. Shwikar was trembling from anger and fear. She ran to the dining area repeating: “How dare you let yourselves go like that? Why is the music still playing so loud? Why didn’t the waiters throw them out? How could something like this happen in a club? How can you allow such violence? How . . .”
Me on the other hand, I had mixed feelings. Part of me was excited to see guys fight, and the other part was looking to hide away, afraid of people’s violence against one another. And in my head were two conflicting voices: one was happy that we wouldn’t have to pay our check, and the other was sad that our fresh mood had basically turned into a doormat.
I was also having an out-of-body experience in which I was proudly watching myself disgusted by the cruelty of the two beasts and their stupidity. How classy of me.
Punk!
Crash! Pow! Biff!
The blonde girl raised her hand to her forehead and fell to the ground in a very elegant faint that drew most of the peaceful guys to her. Bravo!
By that time, the two stylish bad boys were breaking bottles and using the sharp ends as weapons.
The bartenders led them outside while the music continued to play.
“Should
