Apathy For Destruction

"So, how was the rest of the show last night?"

Buck sidles up to the bar from the jukebox and takes a chair beside a very despondent looking Juice.
He had been staring vacantly at nothing, seeming to be extremely focused on the air directly in front of his face, perhaps listening to the song choices Buck had just made. The one currently playing was Perry Como's "Magic Moments". Buck always found it amusing to go to the Ooze on a Sunday afternoon when the bar's few patrons were most likely trying to drink away their hangovers or the foggy remnants of a Saturday night's mistakes, and while everyone was stooped gloomily over their drinks, start playing the most upbeat, stupidly happy music he possibly could.

Bobby Mcferrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy"
Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes"
Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds"

Perry Como was his new favorite, and all choices would make him chuckle to himself as his eyes panned around the bar, watching reactions, burning through people's foreheads, reading their thoughts.

I fuckin' hate my life.

It was a partly harmless, mostly playful form of subconscious sadism, if there is such a thing.

The question had snapped Juice out of his trance and he glanced over at Buck as if seeing him for the first time, hesitating for a brief moment until he registered who this person was and what he had asked, before giving a standard, non-committal kind of reply.

"Oh not bad. Fuckin' drunk." and he tapped the bar beside the empty shot glass in front of him until Muffin noticed and brought over the bottle of Sambucca and poured him another shot.

"Ya havin a shot hun?" Muffin squeaked with her characteristic sweetness.

"A Jager please and thank you, my dear."

She poured the shots, Juice slowly takes his between his thumb and index finger, and he slides it towards himself, as does Buck, and with equal speed and care he gently sips his shot back, savoring it just a little. Buck throws his back as quick as he can allowing for minimal taste bud contact.

"Yeah!" Juice exclaims, "It was a pretty crazy night, I don't recall alot, I passed out before all the hi-jinks was over, although I'm nooooooot toooo suuuure wheeen....." He trails off for a moment, elongating his words.

"Did you catch the second band's set? I completely missed it, can't remember where the fuck I was." Buck asks.

"No, I missed it too, but it sounds like we didn't miss much. The set ended short with Chops pushing the singer into the drum kit for the third or fourth time and the drummer walking off stage. They were way too pissed anyways, but whatever." Juice says, quite casually, while slowly stirring his white russian.

"Fuck, Chops was on a bit of a tear last night. He probably punched me in the guts four times, slapped me three times, kicked my leg out once, fuckin' guy," Buck says with a grin, "I miss'em."

"Yeah I guess he threw a TV out the window of the band room upstairs." Juice says without even the slightest hint of anger. Not the kind of tone one would expect from the manager of such a fine establishment, but then again this was no ordinary manager and no ordinary bar.

"What?!" Buck asks, with genuine shock.
Chops was an asshole sure, and even more of an asshole when he was drunk, as was previously illustrated, and even more of a drunk asshole when he was off his domestic leash and his lovely lady was at home. Although all of these factors were present during the night in question, it still seemed too over the top, especially in one of his favorite watering holes, managed by a guy he happened to like. Simply stunning.

"That's what all those little plastic bits in the street are." Buck stated as he remembered seeing them on the way in, thinking without much concern that someone had been having a bit of rearview-mirror-removal fun.

"You gotter. I picked up the rest of it this morning, whole thing smashed to fuck all over the sidewalk." says Juice, again, completely nonchalant, "but at least he had the good sense to go down to the store room, kick in the door and use one of the bunk TV's that don't work instead of the good one from the room."

He sipped his white russian, looking up from it once again at the nothing in front of his face as Buck snorted a laugh and shook his head.

Yeah, that sounded more like Chops.