The Hungry Brain II

I arrived at the Hungry Brain at 9:00, well before everyone else. I did this because this was the time I told Liz that I would be here. I had another vodka tonic and sat at the bar. I went over to the jukebox. I picked out songs by the Unicorns, Shellac, and Jesus Lizard. I would hear none of these selections. An assortment of college students and artsy types began to file through the door. They set up an audio system to connect a microphone to the speakers in the bar. The speakers only played the jukebox. My songs didn’t get played soon enough.
Liz came through the door around 9:15 and she smiled flirtatiously and stuck out her hand as I stood up from the bar and took her hand and kissed it. I knew I’d be getting laid immediately.
We talked about her job at the record store, our favorite bands, our favorite albums by our favorite bands, the best live shows we had seen in the last year, the project I was finishing up that night (which she said “far out” to), and our past romantic entanglements. I would tell you all about that, but that’s getting a little personal for me here. This isn’t really my story; I’m just telling you how it all happened. But rest assured, there was a very happy ending in store for me that night let me tell you! You don’t need to know about my past romantic entanglements though, as alluring as it might appear. There are plenty of other romantic entanglements that I have transcribed here, and described, filtered through my own vocabulary, and perhaps if you want to learn any secrets to my disposition you may read what you can into the experiences of my subjects, and the way I’ve talked about them.

Marcus arrived and he immediately began talking to his friend from his class on Despotism. If I hadn’t just met Liz, I would be trying to get to know the girl. She was tall, thin, had short brown hair styled in a rather punkish manner, she wore an old fashioned and conservative dress, almost something a typist would have worn to work in the 1950’s, but she pulled it off and made it very sexy. I saw her take out a blue pack of Pall Mall Lights and I briefly thought about asking her if I could bum one, since they had been my brand for a while, but I reminded myself that I should really make a valiant effort to quit. She had some eye shadow and mascara on. She wore a subtle shade of purple lipstick. I mean really, if I wasn’t with Liz that night, I would have been infatuated with this girl all night. Only I had to pay attention to Liz, so I merely noted this girl’s appearance.
Shortly thereafter, Luther and Rory and Spencer and Charles arrived on the scene. They staked out a table in the back corner of the bar, a very remote area from the performance space. I met Luther’s eyes a couple times randomly as we both observed the spaces around us.
I decided to go on over to Marcus, to finish my penultimate piece of business. He was still chatting it up with Erin.
“I always feel like I’m going to say the wrong thing in that class,” Marcus said.
“You should speak up more. You have interesting things to say,” Erin assured him.
“I just feel so much dumber than everyone there,” he said.
“A few of them are really over-the-top in their intelligence, but you’re just like the rest of us.”
Susan, the middle-aged woman from their class came through the door. She immediately gravitated towards Marcus and Erin.
“Hey! Thank you for coming!” Erin said to her.
“Oh, I was just having a quiet dinner with my husband and we had a bottle of wine and he fell asleep and I just decided, what the heck!” Susan explained, “Hello, nice to see you Marcus.”
“Susan,” he said as salutation, with a nod.
The three of them sat there awkwardly until Erin announced that she had to get ready for the performance, as she would be acting as hostess for the evening. Susan began talking to Marcus about their interests.
“What do you want to do after college?” she asked him.
“Well I can’t really think of anything to do except to write. I’d like to write,” Marcus said.
“Write what?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know. Journalism. I’d like to do political journalism. And then maybe a book somewhere down the road,” he settled on.
“Do you write often?”
“Beyond my assignments, a little bit. I can’t just think of things to write about. I need to be asked my opinion on something, or I need to have a question to answer, or a subject given to talk about. If I’m completely free to choose what I write about, I start getting into these semantic arguments with myself about what is a good thing to write about, what is a subject that makes for a good story, what is a situation that will interest people?” Marcus said.
“Well, you have to start with the germ of an idea, and just sort of free associate from there, and then look back at what you have, and kind of stretch it from where you find yourself most passionate,” Susan suggested.
“Marcus,” I said to him from behind, tapping his right shoulder as I said it.
He spun around on his bar stool. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes, are you ready to surrender your fame instrument?” I asked.
He unclipped the microphone from the inside of his shirt’s collar. Susan looked away and pretended not to notice anything.
“Thank you very much, sir. Who’s the chick you were talking to earlier?” I asked.
“That’s Erin. She was my partner in a class once. I have a huge crush on her but I’m still with Jeanne, so I have to break up with her tonight if I’m going to work it out. Unfortunately, since you’re taking my microphone away, you won’t know what happened.”
“I have to admit something brother, I’m in a similar situation to you. Only one thing: Jeanne is a great girl, and you’d be an idiot to lose her. But Erin, she’s definitely one of the hottest girls I have seen in a long time, and I mean, running this thing, being so fucking cool, that is not a small part of it either.”
“Exactly. I totally want to marry her,” Marcus said.
“Do it,” I said, “Are you going to read anything tonight?”
“I didn’t bring anything, are you?” he asked me.
“I might, but it depends on how brave I’m feeling. Like, I might write a poem on the spot.”
“That’s cool.”
“It’s an experiment. It’s a public microphone,” I meandered, “Anyone can walk up to it and relay an extremely clear message for however long they like. For once, they get the chance of everyone’s undivided attention. For you, it is an excellent method to woo Erin.”
“She’s going to read something, so I’m just going to tell her how good hers was,” Marcus said.
“What if it sucks?” I asked him.
“It won’t suck. She’s way too fucking smart for it to suck,” Marcus stated emphatically.
Around this time, Jeanne and Missy entered onto the scene. It is possible that all of the microphone-wearers were now present. Marcus walked over to talk to her. I went back to the bar to sit with Liz.
“Who was that?” she asked me.
“A 20-year-old kid named Marcus who studies Despotism with the girl who is hosting this release party and goes to school with that 50-year-old woman over there at the bar. In turn, he goes out with the girl he’s talking to now, Jeanne, who is 19, and who doesn’t know how to be normal, and she is standing next to her friend, Missy, who is also 19, and a bit less concerned with what people think of her, but is far more of a corporately cloned sheep than Jeanne.” I summed them up with.
“That’s a pretty harsh assessment,” Liz said, “But I know what you mean,”
“You would. You work at a record store,” I said, and this made her laugh.