We didn’t wanna go any places we’d already been, so typed ‘bars near me’ into Google Maps. Picked one we didn’t recognize and started walking towards it. Way down 41st. Still in West but further south than I’d ever walked. South of Baltimore south. In that weird purgatorial area sorta by the medical school, sorta by the tracks. We’d never been down there since it wasn’t one of the ‘cool’ bars young educated twentysomethings went to. It was an OG West Philly dive. One black folks frequented sorta exclusively, seemingly. Although almost no one was frequenting it currently. Drinks mad cheap, juke box blasting current rap. Ordered some whiskey gingers that were like $3 and came in these lil skinny glasses with crosshatch zigzag indentations, all scratched up. Re-upped on the beans out front, after our first round. Sat at the bar. I said funny/interesting/charming things and got joke-handsy with her, in ways I usually did while out and lit, to make her say Stoppp, laterrr; and she did eventually say these things, only much later than usual.

At some point we went upstairs bc we heard there was pool. Tiny room with a big-ass pool table that took up almost the whole floor. All broody and weirdly lit and Lynchian in there. No music of its own, just the distant thumping of 808s from downstairs.

A little while later this rando, white, twentysomething couple wandered in. Like We heard there was pool. All awkward and wide-eyed full of wonder, I couldn’t tell whether only bc of the drugs. Everything so strange and surreal, I think bc the drugs. They asked if they could get next. The dude kept going How weird is this place, this place is so random, sorta snickering. It was, but I didn’t like how he said it. Didn’t give him the agreement he sought. Despite the euphoria of the molly, you’da thought I woulda. Maybe it was fading. Maybe it had stopped working, how much I’d been taking. Just sorta big-bro sonned him, like Sure brah, whatever you say. Shot my shot. Eight-balled tryna do a tricky double-bounce thing, on my last solid. We forfeited our sticks. Retreated to the back tables, into the shadowed area the dim lights didn’t reach. Spoke quietly and got nuzzly. But the other couple didn’t start playing. The dude was salty I hadn’t reciprocated his energy so was like overcompensating by having an exaggeratedly good time, ignoring us. Ignoring the quarters he’d stacked on the table. Someone threw on Rae Sremmurd downstairs and cranked it some notches. Wanna get outta here? I said, watching the dude sorta dancing weird and making out sloppily with his girl. We got outta there.

Back at hers. She still gave everything. But turned away. No longer took me in her arms. Into her bosom. Just faced the wall and waited for me to finish.

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