Out on the Town

A Story

His dark eyes smoldered, as I resisted looking into the shadowed silhouette of his demonic semblance.

His smile broadened, as he displayed perfectly aligned molars and incisors, and I detected pangs of hunger from within. He wore a clear, plexiglass mask.

The barkeep gently placed a fancy glass, reeking of alcohol, in front of me, nodding with his head towards the debonair fallen angel.

I trusted no one, especially a stranger in a bar that had just opened after our confinement.

I was capable of buying my own drinks, thank you.

Where was my girl friend? Always late. Always wasting time, looking for the perfectly fashionable mask to wear. If you knew her, you would agree that narcissism was one of her better qualities.

I looked at the barkeep, with his kind face. It would be insulting of me to not drink the fancy concoction he had just prepared. It would add insult to injury, if I deprived him of the stipend and gratuity he had undoubtedly received from the demonic stranger with the smoldering eyes.

Besides, I personally did not want to be responsible for the barkeep’s children not having a decent supper on the dinner table.

I glanced at the handsome devil. I saw him watch my every move, my subtle reaction, from the other side of the bar.

At that moment, I would have preferred the barkeep asking me to join in a game of bulls-eye or billiards or russian roulette.

I took the fatal swig and found it hard and strong, like rocket fuel.

That was my first mistake.

I had not even noticed the other, quiet gent seated nearby, an illegal and immoral three feet next to me. I gathered by his next question, that he was oblivious to my verklempt, uncollected state of concerned quandary.

“Tell me, do you believe in God?” I heard him ask me. I feigned aloofness to his disconcerting question.

“Is it any of your business?” I replied, but there was an inescapable flirtation in the smile of my irrepressible eyes.

“Well, perhaps I should introduce myself, so we won’t be perfect strangers,” he said.

I expected him to perhaps reveal a white collar, or a scythe, but that did not happen. Still, I decided that humility and civility would be appropriate, until it was not.

We shook not our hands in formality, but followed the new custom of greeting, folding our arms, crisscross, against our shoulders and upper torso. I wore pretty white gloves that evening.

“Ah, so you really want to talk about God, here, now?” I mocked.

“Here’s as good a place as any,” the gent replied.

“I will say this,” I told the gent, “I am a cynic who has faith. Let’s call it blind faith in something invisible. And something that feels like love.”

Little did he know that for the past ninety days, it was I who had felt invisible, for the past two thousand hours I had struggled with faith and only wanted to feel the cuddling I had experienced as a child.

“Then let’s drink to honesty,” revealed the mystery man.

We air-toasted our glasses, since clinking was prohibited by law. Then we drank through an intravenous tube, shooting through our limbs, since mouth-breathers were in violation of the local ordinance.

The tavern’s door opened and a gentle wind entered, accompanied by my fashionably late, girl friend.

The handsome devil, seated at the bar, flashed his broad smile at her, through his transparent mask, his dark eyes penetrating hers.

How was he to know that she was searching for the ladies’ parlor to fix her hair?

I sighed, convinced that no one would spoil my first night out on the town. Still, somehow, this skeptical cynic searching for love knew better.

Connie Song 2020