Drunk and Disorderly at the Bartender's Ball

My fingers shake. They stutter at the joints and skid over the keys. It's Tuesday morning. I'm an hour on the throne. I'm on my second bottle of Pepto. I hit rewind once more and ask myself what became of skepticism? Me, ex-smoker turned rabid anti. I'd intended dissent. I was going to corner the preening, goateed rogue as he ran the Zippo up his jeans: So tell me cool guy, how does sucking Jesse Helms' dick fit into your rebel mystique?

Wherefore circumspection? And smug journalistic superiority? And what the hell is Ron Jeremy doing on this tape? Is that me urging him to opine on matters constitutional? No, it is. It actually is. Oh milord, that's right. He was the master of ceremonies. He cut on himself, said that he was living proof that anyone can get laid. He received this tremendous welcome when he took the stage, like he was Nelson freaking Mandela or something. But offstage he was blight. Nobody would to talk to him.

On the tape I wax imbecilic: the furry porn star sits totally alone?looks sad in clothing?a casualty of freak kitsch?a man?logy, bloated?who has orgasmed himself into cataplexy?has he a best friend? a soul mate?

Jeez, was I actually feeling sorry for him? I guess I was. And when I talked my way past those beefy security guys and sat down at his balcony table he seemed happy for the company. There, I gazed down at a bevy of writhing females suspended in a cloud of gauzy tobacco light. And then Ron Jeremy, fountainhead of testicular overachievement, spouted on electoral politics. A snippet:

"Isn't it pathetic? The U.S. Supreme Court acting like hack political appointees, voting down strict party lines. It's frightening. The Founding Fathers would've never wanted this."

Oh Jesus.

I tell the tape what I'm drinking. Beer, shot of tequila, rum and Coke, water, beer, rum and Coke, tequila, rum and Coke, gin and tonic, gin and tonic.

I approach a cigarette girl.

"Hi there. Ya know, I'd really like to learn how to smoke."

Someone nearby thinks I'm being funny.

"They're free," she says. "Good luck."

I pocket 11 complimentary packs of Camels. To what end, I still don't know. Street value, perhaps.

I interview only female bartenders. They're all liquored up, greasy-friendly and eager to talk. Hey babe, consider yourself a tool of corporate murder? That's what I want to ask. But in the light of my booze high, my prepared accusations seem a bit hypocritical. Instead I ask dull, obsequious questions like, "What's your best/worst bar moment?"

One woman tells me she'd recently caught a bachelorette and her maid of honor doing each other in her bathroom. Andrea, who tends bar at Greenwich Cafe, says she served her boyfriend a scotch and broke up with him.

"Yesterday," she adds.

She's pretty. A minute later she's programming her number into my cellphone. Two minutes later we're kissing. Then I'm in the lobby with the hiccups, asking the dictaphone is it me, or does every other downtown guy look-hic-like that Edge-hic-dude from U-hic-2?

The B-52s are what they are. Somewhere around the end of their set a sweet, squeaky-voiced girl stuffs my friend and me into a taxi cab. She identifies herself as Kristen. She takes us down to the Hog Pit and serves us Pabst Blue Ribbons. We watch as a couple of urban-cowpoke bond traders hit on her very pretty boss. It's cloudy in there, too. Everyone and everything, it seems, is smoking. Kristen, her boss, the other bartenders, the bouncer, the cowpokes, the house cat, the Christmas decorations.

At some point her boss can't locate her matches. One of the cowpokes draws his Zippo and does this one-two thing across his forearm.

"Hey Texas," I warble.

"Yeah?"

"So tell me..."

All eyes on me.

"Yeah?"

"Oh, never mind."