It wasn’t five minutes later we received a text from Purity.
“What does it say?”
“It says..that she might not be able to meet us for lunch.”
“Why not?”
“It says..because of that Mexican kid who shot that other Mexican kid.”
Clarity looks up from her phone.
“They might shut down the park.”
“Fuck, I was hoping to at least get some wine.”
Clarity’s eyes flash.
“Let’s go get some real quick before they close the park.”
So we run—half-run—skipping and fast-walking past cops and security guards and all out running on stretches where no one is looking and soon enough we’re at number 69, Liberty Pub, where they check our IDs and we pick a high table for two in the corner of the outdoor seating area.
“We forgot to bring our Coke glasses.”
“Fuck.”
It takes forever for a server to come to us, so when she does I say, “We’d like a bottle.”
“No bottles. Only glasses.”
“Alright we’d like four glasses.”
“I can only serve you one drink at a time. State law.”
“Oh, fuck. Can we have two glasses, please?”
“Comin’ right up.”
This fat bitch of a waitress squeezes herself back through the tables toward the bar. When they do bring us our glasses, they’re tiny, plastic, and they cost eight bucks.
“Ok can you go ahead and bring us our next two,” I say.
“Gotta drink those first.”
Clarity and I both down our tiny glasses and hold them out for the server to collect. Her name tag says Coleen.
“Two more, please.”
She shakes her head.
“I’ll keep ‘em comin’,” she says.
“Great. There’s a 20 dollar tip in it for you if you can get us tipsy before your bar manager kicks us out.”
“Forty,” Clarity says.
Coleen leaves.
“Forty?”
“Why not?”
“You’re gonna give that bitch 20 extra bucks on top of the 20 ridiculous bucks I’m gonna give her just to bring us thimbles of shit wine? What do you think this is?”
“I think it’s Sutter Home and I think this is The Day of Being Ridiculous,” Clarity says.
“Then you’ll go on Goliath with me,” I say.
“Ok,” Clarity blurts out.
“Oh! Oh! You said it! That’s a blood promise! That’s a blood motherfucking promise,” I say, and slam down my empty glass of wine.
“Careful, there, Tex.”
“No,” I say. “We are sacrificing the golden calf today.”
“I think you’re mixing my metaphors.”
“I think you’re right. This is Sutter Home Merlot. All they have back there is like a fork lift pallet of two-liter bottles of Sutter Home Merlot and they charge us their bottle price for a glass and call it Liberty Pub, Number 69.”
“Welcome to the restaurant industry,” Clarity says.
“I like it,” I say.
“You’re crazy.”
“You know, you’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Clarity asks.
“I don’t know but I do know that crazy people are better in bed.”
“So you’re saying I should sleep with you and then you’ll know if I’m crazy?”
“I did not say that. You said that. All I said was—”
“Yeah, we know. You were on safer ground drinking your wine, Big Tex.”
“Why am I Big Tex all of a sudden? Seriously. Who is Big Tex and why are you calling me him?”
Our waitress comes back with two more glasses.
“And two more after these,” I say.
“Are you drinking to remember or drinking to forget?” she says.
“You always, only, ever drink to forget,” I say.
“Alright two more. Want me to bring you to-go cups?”
Clarity and I are speechless.
The waitress leans in.
“You order two Cokes. I bring you two empty Coke cups with tops and straws and—”
“I think we get the idea. And that would be wonderful.”
So Clarity and I dump every other glass of wine from there on out into our to-go cups and eventually, drunk off our asses, we leave Number 69, The Liberty Pub and cross right over to an ice cream shop and we sit outside with our sunglasses on and eat ice cream—deep varieties of chocolate for each of us—and we drink our wine from behind the safety of tinted shades but we are both doing not one thing besides staring directly into the eyes of the other.