The Hungry Brain

Ireena set the location, and Rory set the time. Neither one of them wanted to be totally decisive about the night. Their friend and their wingman, however, couldn’t have wanted to be more controlling. There was nothing at stake for them.
Take, for example, what Luther started going off to Rory about on the train ride:
“Why’d you have to tell them 11:00? Now we’re barely going to have anytime at the bar.”
“What the fuck do you need three hours at a bar to do something for?”
“What?”
“You don’t need to fucking write the Constitution, you know, you just need to be able to get to know them.”
“I like to relax, take in the sights, enjoy my drink.”
“Go out to a vodka lounge then.”
“I hate vodka.”
“Well stop complaining then.”
“I’m not complaining anymore.”
They were coming to the Western stop.
“You’re causing your own problems,” Luther said.
Ted walked onto the train.
He immediately saw Rory and Luther at the back of the car. He pretended like he didn’t see them, walked to the other side of the car, and took a seat facing away from them.
“Jesus Christ! Did you just see that!” Rory whispered.
“Wha?”
“That’s Ted sitting over there.”
“So, what’s the big deal. He flipped on you?”
“I think he saw me just now.”
“So, are you just going to ignore him? Or are you going to confront him?”
“Ignore him. Who wants confrontation? Besides, he’s alone. I don’t have anything left to prove. He wants to treat me like a sack of shit, fine; he’s the one who’s really the sack of shit though. Nobody else knows it, but he knows it.”
Rory’s voice had risen above the level of whisper. He was now talking at a standard decibel level.

Penelope also had her misgivings about the location.
“You should have chosen a nicer place. They’re going to be the ones getting drinks,” she said to Ireena as their taxicab stopped-and-went down Fullerton.
“No, we’re not going to let them buy us drinks.”
“Why not? I could stand to save some money.”
“If we let them buy us drinks, they’ll act like they have the right to get into our pants. We have to act like we have the right to get into their pants.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘we’?”
“Well, aren’t you going for his friend?”
“I don’t even know what he looks like yet. How could I be going for him?”

“Do a shot with me.” Rory said.
“I can’t afford a shot.”
“I’m buying.” “Fine.”
They took a shot of jager.
Luther started going off.
“You know, one of my friends says he was reading Anthony Kiedis’s book, and he says drinking a bottle of jagermeister was the closest he ever came to getting as high as he was on heroin.”
They were at the Hungry Brain. They were sitting at the bar. They were both drinking beers after their shot.
“What do you hope to accomplish exactly?” Luther asked.
Rory looked around the room. He looked back at Luther. “I want to be the guy, for this girl, that changes her opinion on men. This is the type of girl that still dates guys even though she hates them.”
It was at this point that Ireena spotted Rory in the bar and began to make her way towards him, Penelope in tow.
“She won’t give an inch. She makes the rules. You step aside of the rules for an instant, and she will knock you on your ass. I can tell these things. I want to get past her exterior, and I want to love her, and I want her to love me, but I’m sure she’s aware my intentions are inexplicably cruel and demented and selfish.”
She tapped him on the shoulder. And then, as he turned to her, totally un-self-consciously:
“Hey!”
“Well glad you showed up! We were about to leave!”
Luther tried to place these two girls. He knew he had seen them before. Somewhere. They belonged together, in his memory of them, they were there together. He had seen them in a setting not too different from the current one. His mind was a cloud. He could not recall any concrete details. However, he was able to associate sensual feelings with them. For the girl who said her name was Ireena, he had felt pity, and lust for her. For the other girl, he had sensed warmth, but also sadness. And he had felt lust for her too.
“What’s your name?” Penelope said to Luther.
“Oh hi, my name’s Lu.”
“I’m Penny.”
“Nice to meet you,” they both said.
Rory and Ireena were chatting back and forth.
“Penny was giving me shit about picking this bar.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought we should have tried to get more expensive drinks out of you guys.”
“Is that really how you girls think?” “No, we don’t think that way. But yes, we do think that way.”
“You are a strange creature, Ireena.”
Ireena impersonated Rory. “Yeah, I’m the guy who wants to meet up right before the crack of midnight, so I can get this girl drunk before the bars close and bring her home and fuck her.”
“You have such a mouth on you!” Rory mock scolded.
“I don’t like it when people waste all their time with hiding what they really feel.”
Rory didn’t want to answer that. “Don’t you get into trouble, acting like that with people? I mean, I’m offended.”
“People like me and people don’t like me. If you like me, cool let’s hang out. If you don’t like me, go fuck yourself.”
“You’re making me really uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry. How’s it going, dear?”
The other conversation between Penelope and Luther was noticeably more civil.
“So you work in California?”
“That’s right.” Luther said. “I do all my work in Hollywood. I mean, I go out there for most of the year for work. But I officially live here. I’m on vacation this week. I’m going back on Monday.”
“Sounds exciting!”
“Yeah, it can be. What do you do?”
“I work at Uncommon Grounds.”
“No shit! I go there all the time!”
“Really?”
“Whenever I’m back in town, it is the place to get a good cup of cappuccino. It’s my first stop! I get in my taxi, I take it from the airport straight to Uncommon Grounds, I get my cup of cappuccino, and then I go back to my home. It sets me right. The jolt is perfect. I’m ready for anything after it.”
“Wow, you should write that down and send it to us, that’s something my manager would put on the wall.”
“Enough, tell me Penny, where do you live?”
“Bucktown.”
“Oh, I couldn’t guess that.”
“Shut up.”
“What drew you here?”
“You mean to the city? Or to the bar, here tonight?”
“Both.”
“Well, I guess I came to the city to work on my career, and to escape. I came to the bar because Irene made me. I mean, Ireena. But I call her Irene. It makes me able to rhyme weird things with her. Like call her Irene Bean, or Irene Lean, or Irene Teen. Or half rhymes, like Irene Cream. It’s easier to make fun of her that way. It’s pretty hard to make fun of her I guess.”
“Those are words of admiration you speak.”
“She’s a pretty good friend overall.”
“I see. Well, I’m not so lucky with that fellow she’s talking to. He’s not such a good friend, he kind of pisses me off all the time. But I am his friend, you know. I’ve got no problems with him. I don’t always want to hang out with him, but nobody else really goes out of their way to hang out with me the way he does. So I guess he’s my buddy. He can be kind of annoying though. I wouldn’t recommend talking to him.”
“No?”
“No you should just talk to me.”
“Well, what if I want to?”
“Go ahead, test him out, you’ll see where the better choice lies.”
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Penelope calmly walked to the ladies room.
She was thinking, “What arrogance!”
In the bar walked Ted. He walked over towards the bartender.
Luther saw him and tapped Rory on the shoulder and whispered, “Did you just see who came in the door?”
Rory looked over and saw Ted at the bar and he realized he was okay, he was talking to Ireena, and Ireena didn’t like him, right? She had bitched Ted out, right? It was okay if he saw them, because Rory could laugh in his face. But then he thought about Luther. He knew Penelope was on Ted’s arm at the party.
“Look, you better get out of here, sneak out, take Penny with you. Go somewhere.”
“She’s not gonna go for that.”
“Well, if she sees Ted, she’s gonna go with Ted.”
“What?”
“Look we’re gonna get out of here too. Just come with us. We’ll leave first, and then you can leave right after us. Just don’t let Ted see you.”
“Why do you have to be so afraid all the time?”
“I’m just trying to make this a pleasant night for everyone.”
Penelope came back from the bathroom, and she saw Ted at the bar. She walked over to him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hey you, good to see you.” Said Ted.
“Good to see you. Are you meeting anybody here?”
“Meeting you.”
“I didn’t plan on meeting you here.”
“I know.” Ted struggled for meaning. “I just come here to have a drink sometimes. I’m seeing a buddy of mine tonight but he’s not back at his place yet, so I thought I’d have a drink in the meantime.”
“You’re lucky you’ve got that option.”
“What option?”
“To be able to afford a bar as a time killer.”
“I guess so. Look, do you want to get out of here?”
“I don’t know…You’re going to see your buddy?”
“You can come with me.”
“No, I’d feel weird. I’m actually out with one of my friends now so, I guess I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah, see you at work.”
The exchange did not go as Penelope had planned. She was confused again. But she had gotten Ted off of her. She wasn’t going to have to sleep with him tonight. She had other options. She was happy, and she sat back down at the table across from Luther.
“We have to get out of here.”
“Okay, where to?”
“Let’s all go hang out at my place,” Rory said.
“Alright.” They all seemed to agree.