The Night

Chase shook himself slightly as he put the car into park and exited the vehicle, and entered the warm August night air. He patted his pockets quickly, double-checking that he had his phone, his wallet and his keys. As he did so he mentally berated himself, because it would've been physically impossible for him to drive listening to his music without his keys or phone, and he never left without his wallet anyway.

The bar he'd found was about two blocks away and while it was very humid and eighty out, the night made it only slightly warm instead of the sweltering heat that the summer had been providing that afternoon. Chase was caught in an odd state recently.

After no small amount of effort, he'd managed to resume his work, even if he hated everything he made. Nevertheless, he was paying his bills. It didn't help distract his mind or help him sleep at night though. After spending over three hours trying and failing to make progress on his most recent commission, he'd given up and decided to go somewhere with loud music and alcohol. Luckily August had come in on a Saturday, and one of the local bars, Outlaws, had live music on Saturdays.

Tonight, they were sponsoring a karaoke night with a cover band called Just-ice. While the idea of singing was about as pleasant as a drill in his ear, the music and drinks would hopeful help clear his head… or rather it might help drown out the thoughts that made his head buzz like a beehive all the time.

He arrived at 8:10 and the band was still in the middle of a soundcheck, although they have a few lights and a haze machine up and running already. Chase immediately grabbed a small table with tall stools you could stand or sit at, and looked at a large menu over the counter that listed several different drinks he couldn't have recognized if he tried.

Giving up, he ordered a drink that sounded tolerable—some iced tea type drink—from a waitress he figured must be in her late thirties with long, dark hair. She nodded and tried to flash a smile in his direction that failed to hide the stress she was clearly feeling from what would be a busy, long night of drinking and shouting. He mentally made a note to tip her well, already knowing he'd likely forget before the night was out.

Allegedly, the band would be taking requests from eight to midnight, but bar times were notoriously unreliable, and Chase figured it was likely to be closer to one before they were finished. It made little difference to him. It wasn't as if he'd be able to sleep either way. The guitar player was a thin man, mostly bald with brown hair around the sides. The bass player, who had the same cheek-bones and nose as the guitarist, had black hair and was talking to the bassist animatedly. Their drummer was a huge beast of a man; Chase could tell he would be well over six feet tall when stood upright, and he was heavily muscled.

For a little while, they talked to a man wearing shirt declaring Trump 2020, who held and iPad and actually sported a mohawk and a pair of gauges in his ears. Chase made himself chuckle slightly by imagining the man in biker shorts and a gold chain: a product of 1998 thrown into a strange new world, and who surely had a best friend with frosted tips and a flannel shirt.

A moment later, the waitress returned, carrying about a dozen drinks in her arms and looking flustered and hurried. She set Chase's drink down as kindly as she could while hurrying along and Chase instantly took a long sip of the tea drink. He had no idea what was in the drink, but it was very strong and as he swallowed he gave an involuntary shudder. He'd never been a big drinker, and never had strong liquor before, so he wasn't used to it at all.

Still, he continued resolutely sipping the drink and within a half hour or so, the band began to play in earnest, taking requests from the bar at large from a collection of songs that would've been dominating the The Point radio station anywhere from 1998 to 2012. Chase heard several amateur vocalists preform increasingly poor performances of Nirvana, Breaking Benjamin, Blink 182, Three Day's Grace, Jimmy Eat World and whatever else every teenager had been blasting back when he was in high school.

For a while, things went pretty good, all things considered. He watched the occasionally decent singer preform before being replaced by someone who had clearly heard of singing but never fully grasped the concept of pitch. All the while he stood at his little table, drinking the glass of whatever it was he'd ordered. Truth be told the drunker he got, the better the drink tasted. As much as he usually didn't like drinking, he also felt as if he couldn't slow down too much. Every time he did, he saw the sad blue eyes of a neglected woman at the end of her rope.

After about an hour he finished the first drink and ordered another, which got him a stern look but he ignored it and eventually the new tea drink was on his table. Eager to keep those eyes out of his mind, Chase took a large gulp of the drink, and felt the pleasant numbness take over his brain. He began swaying subconsciously in time with the music, even singing softly along with the music, enjoying the soft shifting of the room as his head moved back and forth.

He also couldn't help but realize how much he was starting to understand the people around him. After all, they were clearly in the same boat he was, looking for an out, an escape. A man with long grey hair in a ponytail, sporting a camouflage jacket and missing about half of his teeth began dancing next to Chase, animated strumming an air guitar and swinging his hair around with a drunken enthusiasm that would've made many metal-heads proud. At first Chase paid him little mind, and the man continued his drunken performance.

As the man inched closer, Chase moved to finish off the last of his drink and the man's ponytail flew right into his open mouth. Chase had experienced his fair share of disgusting foods and smells, but even with that he never could find the words to describe the putrid taste that filled his mouth. Coughing and spluttering, Chase dropped his drink and glared at the man, ready to throw a punch, admittedly for what would've been the first time in a decade.

As he started to throw his fist back and take aim at the oblivious head-banger, who hadn't noticed Chase at all, he stumbled over his feet and fell over backwards onto the floor, slamming into it with a solid thud. A few people around him laughed and he vaguely heard someone ask if he was alright, though he had no idea who.

Throughly irritated and embarrassed, Chase put his hand on the floor and tried to push himself up, only he didn't seem able to do so. For some reason, his head was incredibly heavy and his feet and arms didn't seem to work right. This would've made things difficult enough but as he was struggling to get his limbs under control the room kept spinning and blurring. He tried to force himself to sit up and everything his body gave a violent shudder before he suddenly convulsed and vomited, covering himself as much as the floor in the regurgitated drink.

He heard several people around him voice their disgust and a pair of hands grabbed him up and he felt himself being half-helped, half-dragged outside. The moment he hit the night air he started to feel a little better, although it did nothing for the warm sick that was covering his shirt. He looked up and groaned, mumbling more to himself than the other person.

Despite the copious amounts of alcohol, he was still seeing Justine's blue eyes, even now.

"What are you doing here?" asked someone, a woman, he thought.

"Go away," he muttered, curling into himself.

How had he gone this long without realizing how incredibly tired he was? If only those eyes would leave him alone, he could sleep.

"Didn't take you for the drinking type," said the voice.

"I'm not," he mumbled, and gagged, almost throwing up again.

"Clearly… come with me."

"Nah, I'm good right here," Chase said, trying to slap away her hands.

He missed, badly and forced himself to sit upright, which was easier than it had been before he threw up. The lights from the streetlamp were oddly bright and had a weird streak to them that reminded him of fairy lights.

"Look, I live a couple blocks down. You can crash at my place tonight or sleep in a drunk tank. It really doesn't matter to me."

Chase groaned and forced himself to think, even though his brain was still extremely fuzzy and thinking made his head swim unpleasantly. However, the idea of being found in this state by the police scared him. He nodded slowly and stopped fighting as the woman helped him up, throw his left arm around her shoulders and helping him down the street.

He had to focus all his remaining strength and effort on walking in a singular direction, and couldn't even manage it all that well. He constantly stumbled over his own feet or cracks in the sidewalk. He did take note of something as the woman fumbled with a set of keys: she smelled like lilacs.

That thought didn't connect with anything in his inebriated state, and he merely tucked the thought away for later reference. Then, she led him inside her apartment and more dropped than lowered him onto a couch before she stretched, groaning slightly.

"There," she said, closing the door. "You can sleep there for the night and leave in the morning, ok?"

After being on the sidewalk and a dirty bar floor, Chase felt that he'd never felt anything that was quite comfortable or as amazing as this couch. It was a deep green color and long enough that he could lay on his stomach with his arms above his head without needing to drape his feet over the armrest.

The apartment was also very comfortable at the moment. It was just a little cooler than the outside night was, and Chase felt completely relaxed as he lay there. Truth be told, he wasn't sure if he could've gotten up if he needed to. The walk to the apartment from the bar seemed to have exhausted his body of what little function it still had left.

"Thanks," he muttered unintelligibly into the couch.

"Yeah," said the woman softly. "Well, I guess I sort of owed you one. So consider this payback, alright? Now, go to sleep and you can head out once you're up."

Chase felt a curiosity rising in his chest. Whoever this woman was supposedly owed him a favor but he couldn't connect that with anything at the moment. He shrugged to himself. There would be time to figure things out in the morning. It was just so hard to focus at the moment and nothing in the whole entire world sounded as wonderful as sleep.

Grinning to himself, Chase sank his face into the cushions and passed out with the minute.