A Terminal Incident

[Badfellow]

The Terminal is a certifiable hole, of that be certain. It's not the type of bar that you actively seek out or desire to "hang" at. No, you just kind of end up there.

I ended up there one July afternoon, craving whiskey and the free air conditioning. It was during the quiet hours, jukebox penniless and silent, with only a few dedicated boozers tending quietly to their mid-day fixes.

"Hey, Flem."

Flem was the bartender/owner, a tall and surly old bastard who was too tight-assed to spring the extra cash for a Sunday liquor license. He was rarely friendly, and most often he made only minimal acknowledgement of his regulars as he stood like an ogre behind the bar.

I ordered a Jim Beam on the rocks. But first things first, I had to piss like a banshee wails.

Walking straight back to the rear of the sliver bar, I swung open the door to the men's room.

I was confronted by a Native American fellow in his early to mid forties. With a maniacal grin and his cut off jeans around his ankles, there this man was squatted over the urinal taking a shit. What the fuck? This was not, nor had it ever been, reasonable human behavior.

"Hey Flem," I said returning barside. "There's some guy taking a shit in your urinal!"

Flem's meaty fist slammed upon the bar. It rattled bottles for twenty feet in either direction. "Now I've got the son-of-a-bitch!" he exclaimed.

Apparently this had happened before.

He returned ten seconds later with the offending defecator literally by the collar, whom he threw on his ass- cut offs still dragging at his ankles- onto the sidewalk of East Hennepin Avenue.

I went back to my Bourbon, suddenly void of the need to pee.

[Linkster]

This is the type of dive, of which there are many, here in Hells Hollow.

[McDuff]

Brilliant post. At least it wasn't a chick... believe me, its really not as funny as it souds.

[Oggar]

That sounds exactly like the type of place I like to hang out in. Just your description of it makes it sound like the type of place adventures start in.

I was at this bar named the Oleander, although everyboby just calls it the Ole. It's the oldest bar in town and probably the place where Pa Ingles got smashed at when he went to the big city. In the daytime it is populated by old men who seem to promptly disapear at the end of happy hour. There's a strangely diverse clientel the kind of place where you never know what's going to happen. Maybe you'll get into a fight with a biker gang. Maybe you'll end up at an afterbar with a group of hippies and punk rockers. Maybe an old man will propose that you fight him in the alley for money. (All things that have or have nearly happened to me there.)

So when a beuatiful tall brunette approached me and said, "Are you the one they call Kass?"

I expected my life to turn into an action movie at any second. But it didn't. She just wanted to buy me a drink and see me set myself on fire. The ninja's never showed up. No kidnappers or international terrorists or power-mad criminal masterminds bent on world domination- nothing! Except for the drink it was all very disappointing.

[Borracho]

Oggar,

Everytime I read a post by you, I want to get on my motorcycle and drive to Minnesota. Considering I live in Wyoming and would be a popsicle before I left town all but a few months out of the year, that impulse has been restrained...

Nevertheless, I feel I a psychic bond with the Great White North, and its bars and locals that you describe... So I hope you can either provide me with a road map to some of these fine establishments, or should providence provide, a chance to clink a pint glass...

I'm moving this summer, but if I can find the time, I'd love to head up that way on my bike, until then keep defying modern science...

Borracho

[Quentin Robert DeNameland]

If the proprietor had any sense of gratitude whatsoever, you must have been spared the expense of your drink.

QRD