I recognized the wood-paneled walls covered in peeling posters for local clubs and music fests. Saw the show calendar for Smith’s Olde Bar featuring dates from June 2010. I’d fucking been to the Rebirth Brass Band concert the first Saturday of that month. Couldn’t tell you what they’d played past the second song, but I’d shown up.

A halved papaya marked the women’s restroom, a banana marked the men’s. On the opposite wall, a tarnished mirror advertised a barbershop called High & Tight where you could get loaded while having your hair cut and face shaved. I’d been many times, once woken up surprised to find myself sporting a Mohawk and Fu Manchu, which had been hilarious until the buzz wore off.

I heard the general bustle of activity from the barroom at the end of the hallway. A low babble of conversation, shuffling footsteps, the clink of glassware. The shock of finding myself in a place I recognized seemed to have cleared my mind some, at least temporarily. But I knew this had to be another elaborate fabrication designed to torture me, and I wasn’t especially eager to find out what was in store. I shouldered open the guy’s bathroom door, entered a restroom I’d had sex in more than once and snorted more coke in than I could haul in a truck.

It was empty. Or I thought it was until I heard a toilet flush from the one covered stall. Followed by a loud sniffing sound. Before I could turn to exit, the stall door opened and a stocky, bald man wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up walked out. He placed a knuckle against his left nostril and snorted, sucking up snot or whatever else happened to be in there.

“All yours, bub,” he said, holding the stall door open for me.

I shook my head, too stunned to speak.

He shrugged and walked to the sink and opened the faucet, scrubbing his hands as he eyed himself in the mirror. Checked his nostrils for debris. “Fucking hell, man,” he said, either to himself or me. He was a magnet for my eyes. “Bub, keep looking and I’m going to have to charge,” he said. A tribal tattoo spanned the base of his bald head. His perfect ivory teeth had to be dentures.

“Right, sorry,” I said. An OCD doctor would appreciate how thoroughly he was washing his hands. Scrub any harder and he’d slough off skin. “Wow,” I said, without meaning to.

“Fucking-A.” His smile suggested we were in agreement, there. “You got any juice, bro? Need any?”

For a moment I thought he meant grape juice or something like that. Fatherhood and sobriety strike again. Then I realized he meant cocaine, and that I indeed wanted some, badly.

“Nah, man. I’m good.”