Chapter 1 "Goosetown Tavern"

"What's up fuck stick?"

Nelson was the type of guy who used odd phrases to put you on your guard, or maybe it was just to get a chuckle out of you. Either way I didn't really want to hear his voice at this point in my night. It was like listening to a plastic bag full of shit slap against a wall what with all the hard consonants. Who says "fuck stick" anyway?

I was drinking alone at the Goosetown and I was trying to keep somewhat of a low profile. It was one of those nights where the moments keep dragging so that my thirst was unbearable. It was not only the thirst for alcohol, but a hole in my chest the size of a fist that spurns me to do anything but stay at home and watch Seinfeld reruns. If it weren't for whisky, I probably wouldn't sleep at all tonight. I was perfectly content in mulling over my less than original thoughts until the alcohol did its work. Once I'm drunk, I'm fucking brilliant.

Like cloud of methane, Nelson walks in with his "fuck stick". Nelson is a salesman of some sort. I never asked him what, because I don't really care, but I think it's those pre-fab steel buildings. He's a little pudgy and stocky with thinning greasy hair and a grey, dead front tooth. Rather unremarkable on all fronts. I guess his personality is better than a blow to the head with a tack hammer, but maybe I give him a little too much credit.

"What's up choad wheel?" I replied. I too was good at the off color insult. I added, "What do you use in that sparsity you call your hair ... fucking Crisco?" Maybe I was a little more buzzed than I thought. I'm normally not very witty.

"Ha fucking ha, ass wagon ... did you see that bitch at the first booth? I totally want to eat her butt like this..." He made a motion with his hands like he was squeezing two ass cheeks together and licking and biting the crease. I'll admit that while crass, the thought of licking a girl’s ass like that was also quite arousing... especially the girl in the first booth. I hadn't had sex in quite a while. He did this pantomime of ass eating for quite a long time. It was so long I was beginning to get a little uncomfortable, but then he said, "Waddya drinkin?" as if he just didn't spent the better part of a minute acting out.

"Whiskey rocks," I said flatly.

"Two Crown rocks," he motioned to the bartender. Well the night's looking up, I thought. I was drinking bar whiskey. It's kind of a self imposed torture.

"Make it Maker's!" I yelled across the bar to the bartender. With that, I put a toast up to Nelson and drained the rest of my glass. I managed a smile and winked at him. He didn't seem to mind.

"Maker's is stronger anyway,” I mumbled. "More bang for your drinking dollar. What's the occasion, Nels?" Normally Nelson is a tightwad.

He was quiet for a second until the drinks came and the barkeep left; then he became kind of serious. "I hooked in to something on the internet that is unlike anything I have ever done. It's fucking amazing."

"What is it?"

"It's kind of hard to explain," he was acting somewhat bewildered.

"Assfistfuck.com?" I was trying to lighten the mood.

"No."

"It's like this society of like party-ers. Dude, do I look like I've been up for four days?"

Odd question.

"Your hair does." I replied. I sipped at my drink.

"No really."

"Not really, actually you look pretty fresh. No discernable odor..."

"Yeah, I feel fantastic, man. It's like I'm living for the first time. The people I've met, and the things I've done over the past few days are totally beyond description."

I was becoming acutely aware that Nelson, from the bar, didn't really have any friends to talk to, and that I was perhaps one of his better acquaintances. I lit a cigarette and pondered my whiskey. I thought that even though I didn't pay for it, I was going to end up paying for it in the long run. I slowly turned the glass in my hand on the bar.

"Fuck, man ... I was fucking two chicks last night, and they were totally into me." He was looking deeply at me. He poked his own chest, "ME! Fucking Nelson Davis..." I never knew his last name. "And they were hot, I mean stripper hot..."

I'm a good judge of whether somebody is bullshitting me and looking at Nelson, I could tell that he wasn't. This was actually something that happened to this greasy loner, and I was most likely the first person to be regaled with the story. I thought it to be a little sad. It was sadder still that I hadn't run into the type of luck that involves consensual ménage a' trois with stripper hotness.
I acted dubious, "Are you drunk?"

"You wish," he said raising an eye brow. I threw back my drink, winced and signaled the bartender by pointing at the glass.

"So you wanna explain how the internet made you stay up for four days and get laid by stripper hotness, and how do I sign up? They don't take your credit card number do they? Ah fuck it, I don't even have a credit card," I chuckled to spite myself.

"A guy at work got me into it, I thought it was like an e-dating thing or something like that ... at first, but then it turned out to be so much more. Look!" He pointed down to his jacket pocket where there was a stitched chevron. It didn't really register with me. I sucked at my cigarette and took a closer look.

“So?”

"It's the symbol for the members, it's how you know when you see someone that's in it."
"Dude, it just looks like your jacket stitching. How am I supposed to know you from a can of baked beans with this?"

"People know," he said and he handed me a card.

I was kind of reeling from the can of baked beans comment. Sometimes I really crack myself up. I focused on the card. It was a little smaller than a business card and shiny silver. There was a red lettering under a red chevron in a really tight futuristic looking font. I squinted at it in the not-so-ample lighting of the Goosetown Tavern. It said www.666666999999.org/denver.
I shrugged, "Looks like you got yourself involved with some fancy swingers club, buddy."

"It's way more than that. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself," he did his best Morpheus impression and smiled. I took a glug of whiskey with some ice and half choked. The fucking bartender switched me back to bar whiskey! If I could only fart laser beams that fucker would be a pile of ashes and melted polyester. Fucking retro-shirt cock-ass! For some reason I was trying to figure out the name of the actor who played Morpheus in the Matrix...Fishburn something. Nelson was still talking. The whiskey was taking hold. I ordered an Old Style, and was trying to concentrate on Nelson, but he was somewhat less interesting than the girl with the butt at the first booth. He kept pointing at the card on the bar and telling me to visit the site and how he's only allowed to refer one person and that I should be happy and blah blah blah. I nodded and stuck the card in my shirt pocket.

And just like that, he was gone. He didn't even touch his whiskey. So I had to make up for his terrible lack of respect for such good hooch. I slugged it on down.

It's amazing how the littlest things, a chance meeting, can irrevocably change your life. How out of sheer boredom and loneliness one's life path can be so altered. Who cares when you got a good drunk kicking on a Monday night?

Out into the night air. Colfax Avenue. Shitty one bedroom apartment. Restless sleep, with a hole in my chest and a ticket to a war in my shirt pocket.