I wish I could have watched the sun set on the horizon. It's always prettier the higher up you get. I could have been luckier if I left straight from work like my buddies, but I wanted to take some time to decompress at home. The office really takes a drag on me. Even though I was only 22, I felt like I lost all the energy I had back in college; to be able to party whenever and wherever. Now the sun was to my back as I drove up the mountain, and I could only catch glimpses of it whenever the road wound up. I had already been driving for twenty minutes to get to where I was, and had probably another twenty before I made it there.
It made me wonder, though, why my friends all loved going to this place? There were other bars we were practically regulars at by now, and they never seemed to have a reason to abandon them. But as the past two weeks went by, I saw that more and more of them stopped going, until last night it was just me. It's hard to beat the fact that those places were only a walking distance away from me, but fear of missing out got the better of me. Fuck it, if they're all willing to make that drive every single night, I'm sure its worth it.
I didn't realize how stuck in my head I had become - I had just passed up a sign for the bar saying it was coming up on the right in less than a mile. The sign was kind of odd, though. To begin with, the place is called "Sleepy Swallows", which is such a weird name for a bar in general. It sounded almost depressing, as if it weird made specifically for alcoholics or something. Past that, the actual imagery of the sign was just as confusing. It had a hand tracing a rocks glass with a bit of whiskey in it, and next to it was a man with spirals in his eyes, drooling with his head on a bar counter. I mean really, its as if the place was blatantly saying "we will roofie you here".
I'm sure it can't be too harmful if my friends are going. I shut those thoughts off as I rolled up on the place. I parked my motor bike and took the place in as I took off my helmet. There was similar spiral imagery around the sign that held the title. Sleepy Swallows. A shiver sent down my spine. Something was off about this place, before I have even stepped a foot in. I took a deep breath. Aside from the sign, it seemed like a totally normal little local mountain bar. My friends are here, I will be fine. I took one last look at the horizon to see the sun's rays disappearing behind it. It's time to head in.
Well, as I should have expected, the layout of the place was weird too. There were some tables strewn about.. but the majority of the space was taken up by these stalls that lined the wall. There must have been about ten of them, each with salloon-style doors that went all the way to the floor, and going about as high as maybe even five feet. Inside each stall was a simple booth seating setup, but the table space in each one was a small counter attached to the wall, it didnt match the length of the booth seating. The space between the seating was also seemingly larger than you would see for a table to be there - again, what the fuck is this place?
About half the stalls were occupied, with their doors closed. I saw one stall nearby with its doors still open, with my friend Brandon inside. I smiled a bit, finally seeing a friendly face, and made my way over to him. There was a man sitting across from him speaking quietly that I didn't recognize. I was a few feet away when I announced myself, "Hey Brandon!" It wasn't until then that I really noticed that his head was sagging down, and his eyes were barely open. Had he been drinking that much already? He began to stir when he heard my voice. The man across from him straightened up a bit and looked at me with a slightly annoyed face. "Sorry, we're busy."
I stopped before I got close to the stall. I chuckled a but nervously. "Oh, my bad. I just wanted to say a quick hello before I grabbed a drink." The stranger smiled back now and put up a half-assed wave. "Well, hello. I see you're new here - I would suggest you go talk to Matt over there at the bar." My gaze followed where his finger pointed: a burly man sat alone at the bar, reading a newspaper. He looked nearly twice my size, but only a few years older than me. "He'll break you in on the place," the man said, giving me a wink.
I nodded and smiled again awkwardly. I caught one last glimpse of Brandon before the man shut the saloon doors on the booth. He had stopped stirring as much as earlier. As I turned to walk towards the bar, I noticed something odd about that conversation. The entire time, that man was gently caressing the brim of a rocks glass, not once stopping. It was that sort of technique you can use to make glassware sound like an instrument; wetting your finger and circling the brim. It was a soft sort of humming sound. And now that I noticed it, there was a lot of it in the bar. It sounded like it was coming from every stall that was shuttered. I guess the patrons here really like playing with their glasses? It seemed so silly to me.
I made my way over to the bar, sitting a seat away from the man that other guy called Matt. I waved over the bartender and asked him for an old fashioned. The man perked up at my order, turning his head toward me with a grin and a raised eyebrow. "I wouldnt have expected someone of your age to order something like that. I would have figured you'd go for something sweeter," he said in a gruff, but kind voice. I returned the grin and responded, "I like my drinks with more bitterness to them. I feel like if you're trying to head the alcohol too much, you might as well just not drink."
