Charmageddon Time (is Here Again)

Lesbian bars probably exist down at the end of some shady little rip in the space-time continuum.  The decor might change, the clientele rarely does.  Well OK that’s a given if you’re only thinking as far as “lesbian” as a descriptor, but within any subculture are still more subcultures.  Think yoghurt flavours.  Or yeast-based irritations.  The flavours hadn’t changed much since Scar’s last visit to the place and nor had the decor.  Same old tired looking bar counter, with some tired old regulars propping it up.  Same kind of hustle going on around the pool tables.  A babydyke feeding chips into the jukebox, making it howl along to her own heartbreak.  Vagina music, Scar’s mates used to call it, back in the day.  Oestrogen soaked heartstrung folkie country pop ballads galore.  It drove Scar demented, but she grinned wryly and thought Helen would feel right at home.  It was probably a good thing there were some dyke stereotypes Scar didn’t fit, anyway.

Scar ordered a Tiger beer, hunched over it and unwittingly, habitually, began to destroy its label.  By the time’s she’s nearing the lees, the lager’s warm and so’s Scar and by the third beer, she’s officially pissed.  By beer number five, she’s in deep conversation with Blue, who evidently wandered in at some stage of the evening.  It’s going the way inebriated conversations tend to go – Scar pontificating, with all the solutions to all of the world’s problems in her hip pocket, Blue nodding and saying, “Hmmm,” from time to time.  From time to time, Scar lurched off to piss like a horse and play, yet again, one of three male vocals she’d managed to find on the jukebox.  Blue probably hauled her sorry arse out of there and back dockside before she got booted out.  It was one of those maudlin nights.

You might be surprised to learn that I have some Hetero friends out there too.  Two of them asked me to send them this story, so with heavy misgivings, I did.  This was the first reaction: “Thanks for sending this – I am only 2 pages into it and it makes me so sad, I have tears in my eyes.  Is that good or bad for a writer, I suppose its good to have strong reactions to writing?”  I reply, “It’s good, it’s good.”  What I want to say is, right now I am too damn emo to write anyway and part of it is, I suppose, this poxy story.

Scar woke up wondering just how many parrots had shat into her mouth and why demons were chipping away at her cranium with tiny axes.  Milliseconds later, the whole experience took its proper shape and form as a fully-fledged hangover – at which point, Scar felt even worse.  She was definitely too old for this kak.  She cleaned off the previous night’s stale aura under a tap outside and hoped like hell somebody had scavenged some decent food recently, she definitely wasn’t up to grazing and browsing the dump herself just then.  And if she had to chew her way through one lukewarm McJunk burger, her liver would probably reach out and throttle her to death.  Right at that moment, Scar would have welcomed the oblivion, but it was a painful route to get it.

That was the blissful moment when the archest of archangels, Helen the hero walked in, bearing seriously potent coffee and the fluffiest muffins from the coffee shop.