My sister Margaret is rude.
It's because of this that I look up to her. I love her bravado- her audacity to say what's on her mind in a loud and offensive way that hits you full in the face like icy wind off of Lake Erie is refreshing. It's exactly the sort of thing that makes hanging out with her so heart thumping like something terrible or awesome might go down. Maybe something fun.
I felt up for an adventure that evening as she and I sped through the lightly falling snow. We were a ways from downtown, right where Chagrin turns into Pepper Pike. Margaret had insisted that I meet her grad school friends, and I had acquiesced though I still hadn't recovered from the all nighters I had pulled just days before. When I asked her if we were going to a pub that she frequented often, she cackled in her rasping obnoxious way, and said nothing.
The place was noisy and dingy, and the heat was turned way up. A group of red faced guys, probably around my age, took up most of the space of the bar. They were a generic bunch: brownish somewhat unkept hair, darkish bleary eyes, slightly over weight, and loud. They wore all manner of Browns gear, and I remembered suddenly that the Thursday Night game would be on a little later.
The most conspicuous of the group, near the bar itself, was an enormous fellow with bovine jowls. He was belligerently talking to the bartender, demanding that he get a refund because his drinks had been "like waddderrr" and that he was "fuuuucking sober"
The conversation proved to be exceedingly amusing for the men surrounding him, as they egged him on with "you tell'em Johnny," and "atta, boy! Don't lettem Jew you like that!"
In the corner of the establishment, as far as away from the group of Browns fans the space would allow, sat two intellectuals. The young man wore glasses and a red beard that seemed to consume his face. He reminded me of a vodka ad I had once seen while studying abroad in St. Petersburg.
The woman next to him sported a bobbed haircut not quite unlike my sister's shortly cropped blond hair. She clutched a bottle of Stella as though it were the most precious thing she had ever held.
"Fuck you guys," my sister said by way of salutation. She sat heavily in one of the open seats next to the red beard. "Where's MY drink?"
The bobbed hairdo sucked her teeth."Why the hell are we out here," she called in a nasal whine, "Couldn't we have just gone down to Coventry?"
She and my sister glared at each other , and I wondered how often this conversation had been played out before.
At the bar, the main attraction began a fresh round of declamations, snorting that the quality of the beers he had had had actually been "dihrty waaader."
"Atta boy Johnny, atta boy," the others jeered, "You SHOW'em!"
I remained standing, caught awkwardly between the two scenes.
"Are you offended," Margaret finally hissed, leaning across the table, "Is this place too proletariat for your liking?"
Sarah's face colored in rage, and her grip on her bottle became so tight that I could see her fingers blanching.
"That's ridiculous and you know it," she huffed indignantly, "I just...I just don't think that we have to go LOOKING to rock the boat all the time."
"We're just having some BEERS," my sister returned a little too forcefully."There's nothing revolutionary in THAT is there? And anyway, you didn't HAVE to come, now did you?"
Sarah rolled her eyes, and sat back in her seat, defeated. Redbeard, who to this point had been gazing intently at his empty glass, seemed to awaken. With an academic cough, he came to his feet.
"Tom," he said, extending his hand over the table, "I'm Marcus. Margaret's told us a lot about you."
I nodded.
"Let's go get a drink. Maggie, you want Blue Moon right??"
My sister shook her head, "Guinness."
As we approached the bar, I began to acutely feel the heat of the place as beads of sweat ran down my neck . Though the place was dimly lit, I felt as though some unknown beam was piercing through me, microwaving my insides.
"Atta boy Johnny," the men whistled as the scarlet faced man in the center began to take back shots that had been laid before him, 2 at a time, "Atta boy!"
I blinked.
Somehow, I had burst through the men standing next to me, and was leaning against Johnny, the enormous jowly man. My shoulder dug against his back, and my entire frame strained in the effort to keep him off the floor.
For a moment the entire place stood frozen in place as though God himself had pressed the pause button. In the corner I could see Sarah and Margaret's ashen faces, both on their feet.
"Oh!" the drunk man wheezed, stabilizing his falling body mass against my already faltering knees. He looked questioningly at the bar stool perch from which he had begun to fall and then unsteadily pulled himself to his feet. With the slow air of royalty, he placed his heavy arms on my shoulder.
"You ...." he began solemnly, with a magisterial air, "you..." He took a moment to collect himself.
Finally, he arrived at his triumphant conclusion:"My NIGGAH! U my NIGGAH"
Marcus, a fit of intellectual phlegm seeming to possess him, hacked his way back to the corner table, leaving me at the bar. Sarah sat down at the table and covered her face with her hands. My sister took a step forward and began firing streams of curses into to the swarm of red faces. Johnny shouted about his "boyz from East Cleveland" who were actually the best friends he'd ever had. The men around me laughed hysterically.
"Buy'em a DRINK Johnny, Get'em a drink!"
It began to snow in earnest as my sister and I headed west toward the city lights. A carpet of unadulterated white heralded our journey and the hush of freshly fallen snow was all around us. I opened my window a crack to let in the crisp frigid air, and the pungent scent of wood burning filled my nostrils. Onward we flew, along the flat suburban streets, the street lights illuminating one sugar topped cookie cutter lawn after another.
"Beautiful, huh?" I said to no one in particular.
