As the last whore ass giving show to Serendipity 3 slipped out of my view and ostensibly its skirt, I fished for a purpose:

Eaten?
— Check. 

Gambled? 
— ‘Betcha.

Drunk?
— What, noon already? Not enough. 

Al Surname suddenly appeared at my side eating a carton full of hotdog.   Surname had removed his black sunglasses.  He ate, observed, and finally lit those naked eyes on me:

“Are you bored?”  he inquired.

Them eyes knew.

“You have a choice,” said Surname. “Drink gamble eat shop.”

I reflected.  (For show.) 

“Drink,” said I. 

Them eyes narrowed.  Surname leapt, poked me up too, and ran a circle around the nearest bar.

(Mongoose shushed the table. “Guys,” he said. “Surname’s taking 21 somewhere.”) 

Nobody moved.  Let them make their own mistakes, their wiser dispositions said.  And do let’s watch.

Absolutely nothing at the bar.

Booze, booze every where nor any drop to drink.1

Surname sized up a staircase nearby.  “Come here,” he said.  The stairs screamed white-hot promise.  Every step blinded me, and I wasn’t even drunk. 

Surname’s eyes scanned the strip, then darted one direction.  The strip flew by.  We turned our noses at everything.  Nothing sang to us.  A tramp or two may have, but they only fed our hunger. 

Truthfully, I believe neither of us knew exactly where we would end up nor into what trouble we would be getting.  We just kept a nondiscriminatory, open invitation. 

We hopped a down escalator.

My brain was reeling, just anticipating.  I grabbed the rail, steadied and remembered a seemingly relevant fact.

“Mongoose says these trips got tamer over the years,” I ventured.

“Tamer,” said Surname.  “Calmer?”

“Tamer,” I shrugged.

“To a certain extent—” Surname began, but

RED ALERT. RED ALERT. RED ALERT…

You could hear the electricity snapping behind those eyes, breeding reparations.  That’s when this sign appeared:

$2 TECATE BEER

Oh it nailed us.  Had Surname at “Hello.”  We suckered through Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon, wheeling past whores and slot machines and whores on slots en route to the bar proclaiming the beers.  My eyes couldn’t adjust.  This casino was a cave.  I felt like a rookie bat pushing painfully into darkness.  My eyes kept squinting for Big Elvis. 

We surfaced at the bar, me disheveled.  Surname slapped a ten on the counter.  Four TECATE appeared, clinking in front of us like a good idea.  Then the bartender slipped a lime in each and we were off. 

Four.  I mused.  That’s 13 short.

Surname and I skidattled through the casino, high-pace before stopping suddenly.

“You want lime?” he said.

“Yes!” said I, unsure of everything happening except want of lime.

He squished two into my bottles, then his.

I swigged big from each hand, at his behest.  Would we be adding more lime?  I wondered.  Irish-car-bombs?  Red-eye?  Liquor?  Midgets?  What maketh one from $2-TECATE?

“That’s your head start,” he clarified.

‘snot.

“You ready?” he said.

No.

“Yes.”

Fuck you, mouth.  You’ll pay.

No one said, “GO!” the way I remember.  The way I remember, TECATE fizzled down my cheeks almost immediately.  I remember carbonation and pain and more carbonation.  I remember TECATE creeping into my brain near second-bottle finish.  I remember an indefinable ambience of normalcy and total toleration of these two drunkards.  I remember looking over at Surname and feeling part of a species that knew how to live.

Maybe we drew because he’d raced tipsy and I sober.  Perhaps those handicaps he’d lent me really had worked.  Loosing sobriety on the millisecond, squinting, we destroyed the evidence.  The good ideas clinked into the garbage, and we returned to Serendipity to announce a new pastime.

Surname recruited three daredevils — JP, Patti the Mayor and Mongoose

— via rhetoric, while I helped by trying not to appear in pain.

*** For Al Surname’s take, click here or there.