Drew's Post #1 The screen kept blazing back at him, with that huge white emptiness taunting him. He had done more work than this in a day, this should be no problem. But it was - no matter how hard he racked his brain, nothing came out of his fingers and onto the empty page. Or screen, for that matter. He looked at the clock. Fourty three minutes to deadline. Fuck. Drew had that little moment of rage that he got whenever he was faced with a pain-in-the-ass problem that, ultimately, didn’t matter. He was writing a story about politics, in a college student newspaper, in August. Who was going to read it? Probably nobody. Why write the fucking thing? He didn’t know. He cursed his choice of profession (or pseudo-profession, since he got paid barely enough to pay for his expenses), threw a little tantrum in his head, then checked his notes and the quotes he had transcribed from his recorder. Drew focussed, and then started writing. Fifteen minutes later, the story was done. Fast typing. The only thing Drew had learned that he could still rely on from High School was his ability to type in the range of 90 words per minute. Now, as long as it didn’t have any glaring errors in it (and they rarely do), it should be ready for the printers in about half an hour. Drew hit the keystrokes to send the story to the appropriate editor, and then went on to check his e-mail. There was nothing wrong with the story, and it ended up on page 2. Whoopee. He left the building, contemplating a raucous evening of “Resident Evil,” and possibly some forty-ouncers of some sort of ghetto Malt Liquor. Sounded like an evening.

2.
Drew had been single again for a few weeks. His girlfriend of approximately
3 years had gotten tired of the long hours and constant appointments. Drew
had gotten tired of having to explain and make amends for his work. Rather
than participate in the incestuous environment of the newsroom, he found
himself becoming more of a homebody. It was boring as hell, but it kept a
person out of trouble, and the drinks were cheaper.
But getting older was all about getting boring, Drew thought. When all you
have to talk about with other guys is some stupid fucking sporting event, or
mortgages, or worst of all, golf. You get fatter and fatter, and more and
more boring, and before you know it you’re a watered down version of the
person you thought you were.
Compromise, Drew thought. It all came from that.
Drew looked at the clock. Time to go to bed. After all, wouldn’t want to
be tired for work.

3.
The first thing on the agenda for that day was an interview with a state
senator running for re-election. All this really meant was that he had his
shpiel down pat, and every question was quickly rebutted with the
appropriate answer. Drew had found the only chance for any honest answers
was with smaller-scale politicians: City council members, school board
members. Senators and Mayors and Governors and Secrataries of State all knew
exactly how to answer their questions using the predetermined key words. You
had to look to a 73-year-old angry, balding guy on the City Council, who
happened to hate all of the area students with a passion, to say anything
remotely interesting.
This person was not one of those.
“What do you think of the attempts by the controlling Republicans of the
House to push for a redrafting of the districts so close to an election?”
Drew asked, holding his little recording device near enough to the man’s
face to avoid discomfort.
“Our goal is to reach a bi-partisan solution,” the politico replied
with his standard grin. “Everyone knows that there’s gonna need to be a
redrafting soon, but I think we’ll all work together to make the
appropriate changes.”
Drew finished the interview and packed up his stuff. As usual, he was
already late for class. His attempts to get something solid out of these
candidates was not bearing fruit, and probably wouldn’t for some time. The
only advantage of starting the election coverage in mid-summer was that by
October and November, they knew who you were, as long as you were always
there. That had already meant a lot of missed classes and rescheduled dates,
which had resulted in bad grades and a rescheduled relationship,
accordingly.
But he was already getting phone calls giving him the heads-up on events,
and he was getting invited to dinners and speeches. Not that he could ever
eat any of the food, thanks to some bullshit journalistic code of ethics.
But he did get to wear nice suits and sit and watch well-off business people
and contributors to campaigns gulp down Chicken Cordon Bleu and Steak, and
then get to ask questions to people who were hopefully slightly less
on-guard than normal. Not usually, but sometimes.
Then he would stop for fast food on the way. If you ever see a man in a
suit eating a taco at a shitty resteraunt, now you know why. But remember,
he was at least around important people.

4.
The really, really shitty part about summer was that it meant a lot of
weddings. Not going to them, so much, but having to work at them. Drew
worked part time as a d.j., and in the summer that meant weddings. During
the rest of the year it was parties and bars, usually a lot of fun. But
summer meant brides, old people, drunk groomsmen and the mother of the
bride.
It was amazing to Drew that so many weddings were the same, despite all the
effort put into making them “a special day.” Firstly, who the groom was
seemed not to matter - as long as there was one, that was fine. Too much
attention was put into stupid details - what kind of cake it was, what the
setting at the table looked like, how many fucking white flowers were going
to be set up everywhere. And the brides were insane. Completely fucking
insane.
Drew got dressed up in his suit on Saturday afternoon. He had already
stopped by the venue earlier, to set up the gear and make sure everything
was in order. Once again, the bill had not been paid for the evening, which
mean that Drew had to try to wrestle it out of them or threaten to pack up
and leave.
The venue was pretty typical. Nice room, over-decorated with ornate chairs
and flower arrangements, a cake that was way too big, and a table right next
to the d.j. booth that would inevitably be packed with all the oldest guests
of the wedding. Somewhere, Drew thought, there’s a fucking wedding
planning book that says to put all the grandparents right next to the d.j.,
because they love complaining over and over again to turn it down.
The father of the bride showed up, and Drew asked him about payment. He
said that he thought the other father had the check. Drew looked for him.
Someone was pretty sure he was out at the car. The wedding party showed up.
They wanted to be announced. Drew told the groom that he hadn’t been paid,
and he had already been playing background music for an hour. Nothing was
happening until he got paid.
“Don’t be a jew, dude,” the best man said. His logic was obviously
assisted with the typical after-ceremony beers.
“Sir, it’s my responsibility to my employer to ensure payment before
rendering services,” Drew said, practiced. “Just as it’s my
responsibility to provide the best musical atmosphere for you this evening.
If I am to shun one responsibility, how many more should I forget about?”
The groom reached into his jacket and pulled out his checkbook and filled
it out. The check was for $900. Drew would get $200.
“Oh, yeah, dude, we decided to change the first dance song on the way
over,” the groom said as he handed over the check.
“It absolutely has to be that Celine Dion song,” the Bride said.
“The hard-to-find-one that I told you would have to be special ordered a
month ahead of time and added to the bill?” Drew asked.
“Yeah, that one,” she replied. “Only that one will do.”
“It was never ordered, because you switched to the one I have already
prepared for today,” Drew answered, knowing it wouldn’t matter.
“What a fucking joke!” She sputtered. “What did we hire you for
anyway? This is my special day, and I want that song! Do I have to call your
boss?”
Drew sighed. It would be frustrating, but it was like this every time.

  ¶ 4:07 PM

  Brian's Post #1 1.

It was your average late summer evening in Lakewood, Colorado. The sun had yet to go down behind the Rockies, and the heat baked in waves off of the pavement. Union Street was packed, as usual, with commuters coming home from a day’s work in the city. The heavy funk of automobile exhaust wafted through the air in powerful clouds. It was an average day at Christ on the Cross Liquors, not too busy, not too slow. Most of the usual crowd had been in and out already, and the business from the commuters had yet to truly taper off. There were three customers in the store, two of them waiting impatiently for Charlie to restock the Keystone Light 30 packs in the cooler. The other was a middle aged white collar businessman, complete with the twin accessories of the yuppie mid-life crisis; fingerless driving gloves, and the keys to a cherry red Corvette. He was currently standing in front of the import cooler trying to decide which beer would best fit the role of “different looking enough to impress the guys from work, yet still tastes like Heineken”. His eyes lit upon the Steinlager twelve-pack. “Hmm. New Zealand” he thought. “That’s by Australia, right?” He opened the door of the cooler and wrestled the twelver out. The two other customers had apparently decided to take their business elsewhere after the clerk had refused to honor their Sam’s Club cards as ID. The customer sat his Steinlager on the counter beside the abandoned Keystone Light. Brian, the clerk, nodded a hello and rocked the twelve-pack on its side to scan the barcode. Brian was already a tall guy at 6’ 3”, and the five inch platform that the checkout stood on (the better to see you with, my boozehounds) made him look enormous. The customer adjusted his leather jacket while he waited. He was hot, but that was the price one paid to look this cool, after all.
“Fourteen seventy one” Brian said to the customer.
“You got it.” The man replied. “Aren’t you gonna ID me?” He gave Brian a fake hurt look, and then a smile that probably represented at least a few thousand dollars worth of dental work. Brian gave the man his best fake chagrined smile, and mentally kicked him in the balls. That was the seventh one today. Why can’t people figure out what jokes are stereotypical to a given situation, and just keep them to themselves? The man laughed at his own joke, and handed Brian a twenty. Brian made change and slid the box back over to the customer. The man thanked him, and left.
“Douche bag.”
“Huh?” said Charlie as he came up to the counter.
“What? Oh, not you.” Brian answered. He pointed out the barred glass doors at the man climbing into the cockpit of the red Corvette. The man closed the door behind him and turned the ignition. The engine roared to life, and the man noticed Brian pointing out of the window at him. He mistook this for admiration of his obviously superior taste in automobiles, and pegged the RPMs on the tach before squealing out of the parking lot.
“Yep, douche bag” said Charlie.

2.
“It’s all the rage over there, you know” said Charlie. Brian shook his head, returning to the moment.
“What?”
“Rodeo. Them Germans can’t get enough of the shit. Traveled around Germany for years on the German Rodeo Circuit. They love it.”
“Huh.”
“I was famous over there, y’know. I was ranked number two on the Circuit two years runnin’.”
“No shit.”
“Yep. I’m in the German Rodeo Hall of Fame an’ everything. Even a statue of me out front. Ridin’ a bull.” Charlie finished straightening bottles of $2.99 vodka and got up off of his knees. He leaned against the liquor rack. Brian eyed him with some suspicion.
“I didn’t even know they had rodeo over there.”
“Oh yeah. They love it.”
“How’d you wind up in Germany riding bulls?”
“The Army. I was stationed at Landstuhl fer years. After I got out, I stayed on in Germany, ‘cause I liked it so much, and ‘cause I got married to a German girl. I wound up hookin’ up with a fella who was tryin’ to get riders for a German rodeo circuit.” Brian got the chewing tobacco back stock out of a cabinet under the humidor and started refilling the displays.
“Where’d you learn how to ride bulls? Germany?”
“Nope,” Charlie laughed. “If you don’t know how to ride bull by the time you’re old enough to be gettin’ outta the Army, you prolly shouldn’t ought ta start then. I learnt growin’ up in Nebraska.”
“Ah.” At that moment, their heads turned as they both heard the rattle of the steel cage over the doors as they swung open. A tiny elderly woman walked through the doors and up to the counter. She pointed one shaking, spotted hand at the vodka that Charlie had just finished straightening. Brian said hello.
“Hello, ah, could I have one of the, uh, two ninety nine, vodka, I can’t read the name from here.” She asked in a quaking voice.
“Dirty Immigrant? Sure.” Brian retrieved a 200ml bottle of Dirty Immigrant vodka from the back of the row so that he wouldn’t have to fix the row again. He scanned it, and the old woman sat her purse on the counter and began to search for her credit card. After a few moments’ search, she seized upon it with a little “Hah!” of triumph, and handed it over to be scanned. Brian ran the card and handed back the slip to be signed. This was the true test. Normally, most elderly people carefully scan any credit card document for malfeasance of any kind, but not the drunks. They generally sign whatever you’ve just set in front of them, snag the purchase, and are out the door before you can say “cirrhosis”. The Dirty Immigrant vodka was usually a dead giveaway, but this was by far the oldest person Brian had come across in his three days at the liquor store. She scribbled out a signature that would have made a doctor say “whafuck?”, snatched the bottle, and skirted out the door without so much as a backwards glance, let alone a bag. As the door closed behind her, Brian caught a glimpse of her spinning the cap off of the bottle with the practiced ease of a Daytona Beach bartender.
“Jesus!” Brian laughed.
“That’s Doris. You’ll get real familiar with her” snorted Charlie.
“Who is she?”
“Some old lady that lives in the apartments up top of the foothills. Over by Golden almost. She’s in here two, three times a day sometimes. I seen her every single day I’ve worked here.”
“You guys ever worry about her driving around with two or three empty pints of cheap vodka in the car?”
“Nah, that one lost her license years ago.”
“Really? She have someone driving her over here everyday?”
“Nope. That’s the weird thing. She walks.”
”From the top of the hill? No way, that’s like five fucking miles! Are you serious?”
“Yep. I see her on my days off sometimes, heading out or coming back.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I’m glad I don’t let some stupid chemical tell me what to do. Can you imagine living like that?” Charlie snagged one of the tins out of the Copenhagen display and stuck a fat wad of chew in his lower lip. Brian realized he was leaning on the counter on the side that held his smokes.
“Me? No way.”

3.
As the night got longer, the periods of silence between rattles of the door grew as well. It was now completely dark outside, or at least as dark as the ass end of a major metro area ever gets. Christ on the Cross Liquors Inc.’s formidable collection of beer neon was blazing away, looking for all the world like some sort of inside-out embryonic Vegas casino-in-exile. This time of night, the only people that come into a liquor store, even one as nice as Christ on the Cross, (600+ varieties of beer, can ah get a Halleluja!) are either addicted to something, bad planners, hard up, crazy, underage, desperately trying to get laid, college students, or some cross-breed thereof. Brian’s people, in other words. It was this time of night that often made this job worth working. The customers were few and far between, and the ones that did show up were like watching an ambulatory combination of the Jerry Springer Show and COPS. Brian and Charlie were currently engaged in watching a local bum known as “The Black Leprechaun” shoving 40oz. bottles of Olde English 800 in his pants. The Leprechaun was a regular at Christ on the Cross Liquors, known for his theatrical behavior as well as his propensity for bursting into show tunes in the middle of a transaction. The nickname was an obvious one, since he was black and short. He had a short wiry afro that was shot through with gray, and he was wearing cargo pants and sandals. His T-shirt proclaimed “Virginia is for Lovers”. He had gotten about three bottles in each pant leg, and was trying to get a couple more in around his waistband. After much grunting and shimmying, he succeeded in getting a total of ten bottles in his pants. The Black Leprechaun threw a sly glance over his shoulder at Brian and Charlie, and wandered over to the non-alcoholic cooler. He grabbed a small bottle of tomato juice, and slammed the door. The Leprechaun gingerly made his way up to the counter and set the juice down. He simultaneously leaned his begging sign up against the counter. In the store’s shoplifting mirror, Brian could see that it read: “WHY LIE, I NEED A BEER”. The Black Leprechaun flashed Brian a smile that was more gap than tooth. The Leprechaun put his hand on the counter and leaned against it. As he shifted his weight, a sound like a flatbed truck making a drop at a recycling facility emanated from the vicinity of his crotch. He tossed two crumpled up dollar bills onto the counter.
“One toe-mah-toe juice, yo honor.”
“Uh huh.” Brian scanned the tomato juice. “Twenty seven fifty.”
“What?” The Black Leprechaun slowly recoiled in a drunken display of mock outrage. “Dem tomatoes from Timbuktu? Ah ent neva hoid of no twenny fo’ dollah tomato juice, yo honor.”
“It’s for the brewery in your pants, Leprechaun.” Charlie said.
“What?” The Leprechaun’s face slowly evolved from a look of outrage to one of abject pain. “I object.” He raised a finger in the air and blinked slowly. “ I, uh, I object yo honor. An’ you!” He pointed his finger at Charlie. “You a bullshit lawyer, jack.” He slurred lawyer so it came out more like loyuh.
“Come on man, we’re just doing our jobs.” Brian looked at The Black Leprechaun from eyes that were already cracking up.
“Ok, ok, yo honor.” The Black Leprechaun stepped back with his hands up in the air and a grin on his face. “Ya got me.” He dug a twenty, a five, and a fistful of change out of his pants pockets. This caused a small avalanche of 40oz bottles from his pant legs. The Black Leprechaun looked from his pile of Olde English 800 to the faces of Brian and Charlie.
“Can I get a bag fo dis shit?”
The three of them collected his bottles into an empty liquor box, and The Leprechaun headed out the door. As he was about to walk out, two attractive young blondes walked in through the door in front of him. He looked at them and said solemnly:
“He tough, but he fair.”
The Black Leprechaun walked out into the night, cackling that special laugh that only true crackheads are capable of.
The blondes looked at each other and made faces.
“Did you smell him?” the tall one said to the short one.
“Gross” hissed the shorter of the two. Brian frowned at the pair. The Black Leprechaun may be a bum, but he was our bum, for fuck’s sake. They walked up to the counter and said hello.
“Where do you guys keep the Seagram’s coolers?” Blondie the greater asked.
“Oooh, yeah, I want Sex on the Beach!” Blondie the lesser agreed, and tittered at her own boldness for saying the name out loud. Brian pointed them towards the appropriate cooler. Fucking amateurs, he thought. Girls like that drink anything neon-colored and carbonated containing high-fructose corn syrup and booze. I could probably make a mint by bottling a 50/50 mixture of Faygo Red Pop and Dirty Immigrant vodka, and then selling it at six bucks a four pack.
”Someday… “ sighed Brian.
  ¶ 3:52 PM