Revulsion.

Many years ago, when my Mike and I would tour the various nightclubs and bars, we came across a local one we never set foot in before. It was all of ½ mile from our neighborhood and being a boring Wednesday night, we decided to stop in.

Tommy's Lounge. We found it had a couple of pool tables and something of a dance floor near the back. There was nothing exceptional about it, local bars are local bars.

“I'll set up the balls...you get the beers.” Mike told me.

I go up to the bar, order two beers and glance at the kid sitting in a stool next to me. He's barely 20 and wearing a black leather jacket with no shirt underneath...in humid July. He gave the the meanest sneer he could. It was readable...”Cmon...knock this chip off my shoulder...I dare-ya ta do it!”

I've become better with my poker face, instead of showing exactly what I'm feeling in certain situations. When I first saw this kid in his tough-guy attire, my face probably telegraphed what I was thinking...”Young and dumb with no future.”

I took the beers back to the table and told Mike, “ONE game, then we're out of here.”

Meanwhile a couple of other guys showed up, filthy from working with god knows what, with a white trash girl. She was a 20 something girl with a K-Mart halter top, greasy hair combed back over and a pair of ratty shorts. Those showed off her legs with various old bruises.  For all I know, she may have been porked in the plumbing van that was parked outside fifteen minutes ago. Too add to her femininity, she was loud and brash. 

Mike and I play our pool game, trying our best to seem too interested in our shots in hopes of ignoring the threesome at the next table. Of course, white trash girl has to invite us to a game with her friends. Jesus...

We don't answer right away and I probably telegraphed another thought on my face, “Ewwwww.” This is a tip off for those kind of people to feel completely slighted and bitch about their injured self esteem. What follows is their amazing ability to read everyone elses thoughts.

I tell her that we're not finished with our game yet and when we do...we'll play. This is a lie of course.

We finish and then sit at a table and talk for a bit. White trash girl comes over and asks again. I can hear the tone in her voice already. It's adversarial.

“Yeah..in a minute.” I tell her. “We're talking for a bit here.”

“WHAT? YOU THINK I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?”

In my heart I'm thinking, “Girl...you and your kind disgust me. Your street language, street morals, street everything...and having to fight every fucking perceived threat you invent in your minds annoys me...and yes, I am better than you!”

I finally stand up, motion Mike to stand too and I say to her. “Wow, you can read minds? I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 3, can you guess it?” She was heated, she played along. 

“TWO!” she nearly shouts out. 

“WRONG!” I say. In fact, I hadn't thought of any number.

I think Mike and I had about 30 seconds to beat it before she alerted her two greasy boyfriends to come and defend her. Then again, I may have been wrong, they may have thought it no consequence at all to insult her. We left without any problems.

We never went back. I don't know if Tommy's used Clorox and a wire brush to sanitize itself since.