Circus Liquor

[jack_babalon]

Drove all night looking for the Circus Liquor. Christ only knows where we were when we finally found it, some lost corner of Nowhere, USA that stunk like Mississippi in August and where the people had no chins. None of us said a word. We just sat there in Jimmy's wine-stain-burgundy '65 Mercury Comet staring up at the giant grinning clown that stradled the white arch over the shops entrance - a kitsch Colossus of Rhodes smiling beningly upon us wary pilgrims - and finished our cigarettes. It had been bitch of a ride. There were three of us now. We started with four but lost a man at an all-nude aligator wrestling trucker-trap that served warm beer, sagging breasts and chili-fries 24-7. To be honest we were lucky any of us got out of there with our lives, much less our last dregs of sanity. We told the poor bastard not to take the bet. There's few rules on the open road - one of them is when an aging stripper named Darla-Bill throws down with an albino aligator you don't gamble money you don't have against the House.

Still it was worth it. We were here at last. We had followed the maps - the real maps - the ones written in code across a network of restroom walls scrawled across the sleeping diners of the Southeast. For it is only by navigating across this secret current of the Styx-America that an honest drunk will find the El Dorado of Liquor Stores - the Liquor Circus! It is here one can purchase not only any known spirit made by man... but also find a wide variety of those clearly not.

Here one can find a wide selection of extinct beers, mythological wines, the last remaining bottles of Kaiser Tears Brandy, Old Fightin' Zeus 20-20, Molotov Vodka and Confederate Ghost Whiskey.

You know that one, special 'secret ingredient' your favorite bar uses... the one that makes a cocktail a 'Cocktail!'. Well, this is where you can buy it.

Anyway, we all came here looking for something - Jimmy wanted a six pack of "Billy Beer" to complete his collection. Tim had promised his Grandad a shot Mitchum's Choice Rum before he passed away. Daryl, the dumb fuck and one we had to leave behind, was looking for a rare bottle of something called Shoggoth Ambrosia... whatever the hell that was.

Me?

Well I told everyone I came along for the ride, which was fine with everyone else so long as I was kicking in on the gas.

The truth though, is that I came here looking for... well, I don't know really.

See at least once a week, usually before dawn, I have these intensely weird dreams. The Most Beautiful Stranger in the world is standing by me in a crowded bar that is actually a jumble of every bar I've been in at some point or another. The place is packed, so she (sometimes... he) has to squeeze themselves real close to me at the counter. The bartender, who is always invariably someone awkwardly familiar to me, asks what I'm having. Before I can answer the Stranger orders for me.

"It's okay..." the Beautiful Stranger laughs, "it's on me"

The drink arrives. An odd cocktail that seems to be made out of fog from a lost morning in my early childhood. I sip it.

It is without doubt the most perfect thing I have ever tasted. I ask hir - "What is this?"

But before she can answer me, by alarm clock or restless cat demanding to be fed, I am woken up before they can answer.

So here I am, unfolding myself out of the Mercury Comet running on a combination of voodoo prayers, fumes and luck. Will they have my Dream-Drink, here? I don't know...

... but I didn't come this far to at least not check.

Comments

[weishaupt.livejournal.com]

On the Road with Jack Babalon. I like it.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Thanks man, glad you dug it.

I've realized that when I drink and write I start off with this sort of HST narration before I finally find my own voice a few paragraphs in. I don't know why it is that when I write under the influence I end up parroting styles (Ellroy, Bukowski... Nick Cave sometimes).

Still it's fun to work through the process.

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

that's kinda how i shop most liquor stores...
i know it's how i bought a set of wine glasses;
"there they are! those are the ones i dreamed about!"

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Where I usually shop for whatever I can buy by scrounging up loose change from my piggy-bank.

[efire360.livejournal.com]

Oh that's one scary place, indeed!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

But it looks so darn, Kid-Friendly!

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

http://joshreads.com/images/0510/i051026zippy.gif

Zip visits but provides nothing useful.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

That's great!

It's almost as good as the old Family Circus I stumbled upon and Billy was like... "But Dad I was dreaming about Zippy" (sadly I couldn't find it on the webz).

Thanks for the smile, good sir!

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Forsooth, Sirrah, thou art most welcome.