Lucky Number Seven; or The Codeine Cat

To properly achieve the mindset of the hipster one must stomach dozens of PBR's while listening to hours of shitty indie music.  Only then can one don the costume of the Hipster and mingle among their kind without its most experience of members getting suspicious. . . It is best to at least smell like them.  Other necessary items include a pack of cigarettes--the more disgusting the better, for in the hipster mind to go against the grain is choice, to be different from the status-quo means a unique acquired tasted, and if it cannot be obtained it can always be faked--a smug sense of entitlement, glasses (if you don't need them), contacts (if you need glasses), and if at all possible, facial hair strung out like spotty wisps about the neck and face.

If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, being a hipster is usually horrible.

It was outside the bar.  It had been weeks since I had seen the poor fellow get hit by that car.  It was dark, the moths tapped at the street lights with an incessant need to reach the eternal, and though the stars were somewhere out there in the sky they couldn't be seen under all the smog, the bright blinking of their everything snuffed out under so much black.  It was oppressive. The bar was cold.  Outside, he looked at me with a weird expression on his face, only handing it to me to get rid of me.  Of this I am certain.  I took a mouthful and swallowed it.  Black licorice.

I had come upon him with a silly look my face, one I adopt when I know someone is doing something they shouldn't be doing.  He had held the bottle in his left hand and lifted it, a nice swig.  The Codeine Cat.

"You sick?"  I had asked.  He had turned and smiled, his teeth still coated with the stuff.

"No," he had replied.

"Well then, you won't mind if I have some then,"  I had said. . .

It was inside the bar.  I headed in with a head full of codeine not yet tampering with the inner wires, but gearing up to.  I licked my lips and tasted it--truly nasty stuff that looked like tar and in a way tasted like tar.  It was good that I had only had a little, and my stomach thanked me by only tossing for one dizzying moment.  The bar was sad and lonely, or I was feeling sad and lonely.  I don't quite know.  A couple sat in the corner, not talking to one another but instead texting others in a bored sort of way.  The bartender behind the bar looked bored as well--I swear I actually saw her yawn.  Our eyes met, and she sauntered over with the speed and interest of an ancient, bored, blind woman.

"What'll it be?"  She didn't even look at me.

"PBR."

"Yeah, we don't have that," she laughed and walked away.  She went to the couple and spoke to them, and after she was done they were all laughing.  After a good laugh she returned.

"So?"  the bartender asked.

"Coors light," I replied, quite annoyed that she had walked away in the first place.  And what of the pow-wow in the corner?

She left and poured a glass for me.  She placed it on the bar in front of me and smiled.  There were menacing vibes all around me, I felt something horrible coming down the pike, and though I couldn't quite see it it was dark and mean and ugly.  The couple in the corner started a jovial conversation, and when I turned to look at them I found them to be looking directly at me.  Quickly, their heads dropped, and I turned back round to sulk in my beer.  I had been fooled.  A contact had given me the wrong address, the wrong bar, the wrong place and now here I was sitting like an asshole on stage conjured much like a self-degrading clown for the enjoyment of others.

"Excuse me,"  I said.  The bartender sauntered over as before.  The same look at anything but me.

"Yes?"  She asked, looking rather annoyed.  The hair on her lip twitched and her eyes wondered, but seemed angry at what ever they were looking at.  Sometimes they'd glance to the corner and soften.

"Isn't this The Pig's Whistle?"

"Yep.  You're in the right place," she laughed.  "You're in the wrong time, that's all."  She started to turn.

"Slow night?"

"No," she replied, turning back to me.  "I meant you.  Your sort of crowd generally comes in on Thursday nights.  Karaoke night.  I'm just glad I don't work Thursdays."

"My sort of crowd?"  I was confused, but the confusion came with an undercurrent of suspicion.  And anger.

"Yeah. . . you're a hipster aren't you?"

Apparently it was a rhetorical question, or perhaps she was just showing her general disdain for hipsters, for she walked to the other end of the bar, pretending to check the levels on all the bottles.  She looked like someone at the supermarket, perusing the liquor with a sort of longing and idleness that hinted at a need for a change and a general lackadaisical nature.

I had made a grave mistake.  I have spent much time surrounded by hipsters, but never before have I been the only one.  I was glad the bar was so empty, and thought to chug my beer and leave but my ears started to ring and the door to the place was kicked open.  A man stalked through the door, carrying a scent of mischief with him.  It was The Codeine Cat.  He was a tall slender guy, maybe six foot, but with toothpick arms and legs.  His head was square, with a strong jaw and a crew cut that didn't seem to help matters much, less of course he wished to look like a square headed freak.  His eyes were dirty green, perhaps hinting at some inward hatred and his upper lip sprouted whiskers like those of a cat.  He looked at me sideways and strolled his way over to the couple in the corner and sat down.  He said something to them and they laughed.

More menacing vibes.  I had to get out before the flood gates opened or drown forever.  I finished my beer in two gulps and slammed it on the bar.  Hearing it the bartender sauntered over again, but stopped to serve on The Codeine Cat, who had come and intercepted her.  He spoke loudly so that I could hear him. . . .  He sounded like a real smart ass, which in my book meant he wasn't altogether horrible.  He ordered a whiskey on the rocks and turned to me.

"And my friend will have--"

I was confused.  Was he talking to me?

"What are you drinking bud?  PBR?"

"They don't have it,"  I replied.

"Oh so you tried to order it?"  He laughed.  "What is it with you hipsters and PBR?  How 'bout a real beer?"

Normally I never refuse a free drink but I felt he was setting me up for something and politely refused.

"Will you look at that Sandy," he said to the bartender.  "Not even polite enough to take a free drink when offered--say pal, how about an Arrogant Bastard"

"Sure."

She poured me the beer while he waited for his.

"So where do you hail from? . . .  NoHo?"

"No.  But I may be moving there soon."  I was being bullied, and I couldn't defend myself.

"An artist?"

"No."

"What then?"

"A writer."  I replied meekly.

"Oh a writer. . . .  Anything good?"

"I think so."

"Cool, cool.  You own a typewriter?"  A devil's grin formed on his face.

"No, but I want one."  Which was entirely true, and still is.  I don't give a shit if hipsters want them only to be hip--I wanted one for more personal reasons, and the laugh that came from his throat offended me so badly I nearly choked on the beer.

"Woah, be careful bud, its not PBR!"  There was something about the way he said PBR that made me hate him immediately.  "Look Sally, his taste is so bad he can't even stomach the good stuff!"

They laughed openly as she handed him his drink.

"Well, see yah buddy."

"Thanks."

I had been raped, and for the price of an eight dollar beer.  He left chuckling, no doubt to give his friends in the corner the details blow for blow.  I was angry, but it soon dissipated.  After all, it was not me they were making fun of, but a hipster, and how many times had I been on that side of the fence?  Too many times to count.  This new found reality came with the realization that the codeine was also kicking in.  There was a warmth within me that didn't come from light beer, and the world was beginning to look soft and warm at the edges.  The muscles in my arms seemed to be made of soft cotton, and though I still had some sort of cognizant thought, clearly someone else was at the reins, playing hide and seek with my brain.  The lights were warm, but the people were cold. No--that was the door opening and with the cold came more people; each with a look of disapproval more discouraging the next.  All come to have a good laugh at my expense.  Or so it seemed.

The bodies crowded in, the mass growing denser as the night went on.  They were loud, as bar people often are (especially with some drink in them), but above them all was the cackling of The Codeine Cat.  He prowled around, as curious as ever, looking at the people all around him straight in their faces, as if with one look he could tell everything about them.  He would scoff and move on to the next one as suddenly as he came to judge the next soul seen the in the face of his next victim.  He consciously avoided me during these excursions, like he was done with me, or as if there wasn't anything left to decipher.

I had gone through many beers, more than I had intended on.  Before I knew it it was last call, those two dreadful words coming from the bartenders lips that always sound especially cruel and unfair after a good drinking bout.  The last of the crowd shuffled out the door, some lingering longer than the others, and there still, was The Codeine Cat.  He cackled as always, and stumbled out the door and swung himself round a NO PARKING street sign.

"I'm singing in the rain," he sang.  "Just singing in the rain."  Even though there was no rain.

It was a cold night the warmth of the codeine had long since wrong off.  A hot dog vendor put his franks on and filled the night with beautiful smells and the sounds of beautiful good.  I was quite drunk to be thinking any of it was beautiful; it was a scene played out outside of lots of bars.  I was hungry.

The Codeine Cat looked on me then for the first time since he walked into the bar.  He smiled codeine teeth at me and blinked boozy, heavy eyes as he came closer and said:

"No hard feelings, right?"

I didn't say anything.  I just looked at him.

"Guess you're wondering why I ought you a drink, huh?  Well.  Look.  I lost a bet."

"What bet?"

"Nothing, just a bet."  The Cheshire Cat in Alice and Wonderland would have been envious of the smile he gave me.

"No, what bet?"

"Just this bet my friends and I have.  And we bet on the next person to walk in the bar.  Loser has to buy 'em a drink."

"So you lost?"  The cigarette in my hand had gone out--a real shame--as I thought of putting it out in one of his cat eyes.

"No, that's the thing.  I won."  He laughed.  "My friends consider me a real moocher.  I never pay for anything.  That's what they say.  So for laughs I said I'll buy the drink if a hipster walks in, thinking there would be no way in Hell a hipster would walk through those doors," he laughed, whiskey and whiskers. "We waited for so long I had to leave for medicine.  Where you found me."

He looked at me.

"Then you walked in," a smile spread across his face, lips curling with the steaming hiss of disdain. "Hilarious, aint it?"

He let out an enormous burst of laughter.  I too started to laugh.  It surprised him, as from his demeanor he was quite used to laughing at other people's expense (probably many hipsters), but never before had the object of his ridicule shared his laughter.  He seemed almost offended, as if I had committed some grave assault on his person, or attacked him manhood.

"And you don't often win, now do you?"  I asked.

"No," he chuckled, the offense having parted.  "No, I don't suppose I do.  That is funny."

"Yeah,"  I grabbed his shoulder as if the laughter was too great to hold up posture.  "So you picked a hipster, cause you didn't wanna pay, you broke ass."

The laughter swelled now between us, a couple of laughing drunkards out of the street--perfect fodder for some bored cop on a slow night.

"Great ain it?"  He coughed up between chuckles.

"Sure is, you know why?"

"No, why?"

"I'm not even a hipster!"

The mustache came off, and the laughter increased between us.  It started off slow, but soon The Codeine Cat was echoing my laughter as if he had been in on the thing all along; had known everything from the very start and was but another player in a rather private joke made even more ripe because of its exclusivity. We laughed till it hurt, till it was a real scene for all those around us.

Then came silence.

Realization had hit The Codeine Cat.

"Hey," his face contorted back to stupidity.  "Wait--what?"

"DAAAATS RIGHHHT. . ."

I nodded to him and parted down the street.  He had a look on his face that was quite satisfying.  For once, he was the joke, and as I left The Codeine Cat had but a frown.

CASE #006: The Cha-Cha and The Dolphin Chick

To properly achieve the mindset of the hipster one must stomach dozens of PBR's while listening to hours of shitty indie music.  Only then can one don the costume of the Hipster and mingle among their kind without its most experience of members getting suspicious. . . It is best to at least smell like them.  Other necessary items include a pack of cigarettes--the more disgusting the better, for in the hipster mind to go against the grain is choice, to be different from the status-quo means a unique acquired tasted, and if it cannot be obtained it can always be faked--a smug sense of entitlement, glasses (if you don't need them), contacts (if you need glasses), and if at all possible, facial hair strung out like spotty wisps about the neck and face.

If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, death is a horrible thing.

CASE #006:  The Cha-Cha and The Dolphin Chick

You can hear happiness staggering on down the street,

Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers Cha-Cha

The Cha-Cha would look much like the restaurant Joe Pesci set fire to in The Goodfellas--with the cheap tiki theme of bamboo bars and stools, strung up cheap lights (for ambiance), and husked roofs--that is if it were not for the hipster element.  It is responsible for such artifacts festooned about the room as Dia De Los Muertos skulls and skeletons, OBEY stickers, retro Pac-Man machines, vending machines filled with condoms and SPAM products, a photo booth for all the fond memories, fluffy gondola balls, sombreros, Foosball tables, tacked up album covers, faux paintings done up to look like masterpieces of pirate ships and women wearing pirate hats with their tits hanging out, fake flowers speared in immortality, a disco ball, Chinese hand fans spread exposed, luchadore posters, clown pictures, and simple but always festive Christmas lights.

Here's the part where I would include a clip from Goodfellas, but seeing as how YouTube is a little bitch, it no longer allows the embedding of videos that include copyrighted material. 

But don't get me wrong, that's just the inside. . . The outside looks normal enough--like any other place--with a simple LOUNGE sign outside and a dull drab color painted on the exterior walls.  Its a ploy that makes the inside even more menacing.  You may think, upon first entering you are embarking upon just another bar, but you would be dead wrong.

It's necessary to give your mind a moment to adjust.

I too, had to, the moment I first entered the Cha-Cha.  It was a damn fine Summer night, one of those nights where it's warm and comfortable almost like Hawaii in its best season.  It was far too fine a night to spend indoors so I went to the Cha-Cha.  It was referred to me by a friend who described it as follows:

"Its hipster heaven--(a pause here)--PBR on tap."

Enough of an endorsement for me, upon entering I felt much like a poor kid at Disneyland.  I knew not what good thing I had done to deserve such a trip to such a reputable place known to be a real play land, but I felt ever grateful.  There were treasures and all kinds of fun everywhere, complete with lots of idiots walking around in silly costumes.  I scanned the room and quite frankly didn't know where to start, for the Cha-Cha still remains to this day the most retarded place I've ever been; more retarded than that place with the DJ's who just hook up their iPods and walk around expecting the same amount of respect a real DJ would ask for, and even more retarded than that bar that smells like mold and features a giant water slide in the middle of it.

I made my way to the bar, taking particular notice of one fellow sitting off by himself in the corner, with no beer by his side.  Only a bottle of water.  I thought him to be a total pussy for drinking something that should only come out of the hose, especially while in a bar, but soon forgot about it and ordered a PBR for a dollar fifty.  Even at such a paltry sum I felt it too much, but then again, I dread PBR and feel that people should be paid just to consume it.  To enjoy it is a whole other fee.  It did help with blending in with the current scene that was all around me, and what a scene it was.  I turned to survey it all, and found that even more Disney characters had shuffled on in to be hip and utterly full of shit.  There was the Beast, minus his Beauty--this fat hairy man with a lazy eye hidden under big bushy eyebrows, a massive hairy beard, and yellowed teeth that seemed dripping with drool; Dumbo with big flat ears flopping out at the sides of his face, big enough to support the Coke bottle glasses he had attached to his face; a modern Quasi Moto, looking distraught without his bell to ring; Jafar, complete with some strange head wrapping and a snarled look upon his face; and two of the Seven Dwarfs (Sneezy and Dopey).

There was a problem though.  There was no place to sit.  I could have easily stood around watching the lumberjack and his lover play Foosball, or wedged myself between the photo booth and a table, or waded through the sea of human bodies, but I wasn't in the mood for too much strain, and instead my eyes fell once again upon the man sitting all by himself in a booth with a bottle of water.  He looked sort of dejected and uninterested in everything that was going on around him, as if at any moment he was going to get up and leave.  I made my way over and plopped myself in the booth, sitting opposite him.  I lifted the beer to my lips and took a swig, then placed it gently upon the table.

"Where's your beer?"  I asked.

"PBR makes me sick."  He said, after eyeing my like a kid in a playroom that wants only to be left alone.

"I thought that was its purpose."

"Yeah.  Maybe.  They all sure seem to love it."  He moved his hand and gave a general sweep of the place.

"They?  So you're not a hipster?"  I asked.

He took one look at me and said:

"Oh and you are?"

"You first."

"Nope.  Tried.  But they don't want me."

"Me neither."

There was a moment of understanding there, between two outcasts in a world full of people who seemed to gel with one another.  He was a little older than me, maybe twenty five, with a face that seemed stubborn when trying to grow facial hair.  He looked like a hipster I suppose, but there was a look in his eyes that seemed to be missing that same sort of self-righteousness that so many of them possessed.  He looked down at his water as one looks at incriminating evidence.  Without his hipster gear he was just another human being, and the hipsters in their cruel and callous ways had seen through his threads and had deemed him as such.  A mere mortal.  I wondered why they couldn't accept him, but never second guessed me, perhaps the biggest phony in the whole damn place.      

"You know you're the first to notice."  I said.

"You kidding me?  That mustache of yours is fake as shit."  He pointed at it, laughing.

We talked some more, about real, non-hipster shit.  He seemed an alright dude, and although we often had to yell at each other over the din, I didn't totally hate him, which says a lot considering he found alcohol to be detestable and all around stupid for the soul as well as the body.  The area around us was thinning, a massive group of maybe twelve hipsters had shown up together, and in turn left together, perhaps to attend some other sort of orgy involving plenty of genital copulation.  I left this fellow, explaining that I had to further take in the scene and learn even more about these horrible creatures that neither of us could truly comprehend.

It's strange going to a trendy bar by oneself.  One will often find it's hard not to look like a real creeper.  You have to force your way into conversations and lean in from the outside of groups like a truly lonely bastard just looking for someone to talk to.  At dive bars, it's entirely different of course, especially during the day--it's almost expected that you come alone to drink away your sorrows and flirt with the ugly barmaid, but at these trendy places it's entirely different.  It's playtime, and all the kids are out.  I wasn't feeling drunk enough to bother anyone or shoot the shit, so I took in the place a little more.  It really was annoying; looking at it you're led to believe the place is decorated by someone terribly hip, and in true hipster fashion its thrown right in your face with the pretentiousness of a person that cares very little what the status quo has to say about the subject (or anyone with sense for that matter).  I found myself staring into the eyes of a majestic unicorn, which had been painted in front of a fantastical backdrop and placed up on the wall with all the other bullshit.  It looked more like the cover of a trashy love novel than anything else, missing only a bare-chested Fabio placed riding atop the mystical beast.  It was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, a sad example that an arts degree doesn't always equate to art, but instead often makes a shitty artist an even shittier one due to too much theory and not enough substance.  I wondered what sort of asshole would paint such a thing, and then what sort of asshole would buy it and put it up.  If anything, the latter was certainly a bigger one than the former.

"Oh do you like my art?"  A voice said.  A woman's voice.

"Huh?" Turning I saw an aging chick in her late twenties.  She had a ring through her nose like a bull.  There was more to her, but I couldn't get past the stupid ring.  I kept staring at it.

"My art."  She repeated.  "The unicorn."

"Yeah, it's great."  A total lie.

"Unicorns," she smiled at the very thought of them "I think they're real, only no one ever sees them because they don't believe in them.  You know."

I nodded, forgetting the fact that though she adamantly believed in them, had probably never seen one herself, less it be in a dream, or drug induced hallucination, or madness induced hallucination.  From the looks of her, they were all plausible.

"Hey you wanna hang with us?  Come on."  I followed her, my head ringing.  I had hit the jackpot--the dumbest hipster in the place had fallen into my lap, and was sure to bring me to even more of them.  After all, birds of a feather flock together.  She led me to a table that could hardly be seen under all of the glasses.  There were people huddled all around it, each one looking more hip than the next.  She introduced me to all of them, and had I been listening I probably would be able to list them here, but alas I was not.

They talked a lot about art, stuff I knew nothing about.  I didn't pretend to know what they were talking about, but made it seem like I was really interested in what it was they were saying.  For the most part I just cut them out and listened to the noises all around us.  I did though, catch some snippets:

"Its all about gestalt," one said.  The others all nodded and I nodded too.

"Yeah, the less the better, I always say," a chick piped in.  I know not whether she actually said it all the time, but I was certain she had not applied this philosophy to her use of perfume; she reeked of it, even over all the booze and cigarette smoke.

"What about Warhol?"  Another asked.

"What about Warhol?  Every asshole who knows nothing about art knows about Warhol."  A chick replied. "In fact, get out of here."

People at the table started laughing.

"No seriously.  Get out of here."  She said.  She was adamant and mean.  The offending hipster got up dejectedly and left, no longer deemed hip enough to be a part of the conversation.  The unicorn painter was silent the whole time, in a real creepy way.  One could even say she looked totally uninterested in the whole situation.

Pointillism, surrealism, naturalism, they were all a bunch of words they threw around to impress as the conversation grew more and more heated.  I felt foolish sitting there nodding away like it was all so interesting, if only to hide my intense boredom and offend some die hard wanna-be artist.  They kept going and going and going, talking like characters in a Jack Kerouac novel, full of life and speed and bullshit, and yet all the while the Unicorn Painter kept quiet.  Her face seemed set in a smile; porcelain, her ears seeming not to hear, as if she were day dreaming about her beloved unicorns.  Still the others kicked up their discussion, still more terms and theory.  I was drowning in the stuff.  They'd discuss and grow heated, and quiet down to all sip their beers like race cars refueling and then they would all start up again with a tremendous sound louder than before.  Sometimes someone would have had too much and just flip out and storm out the door.  They'd come back cooled down and smelling of cigarette smoke.

. . . And still the Unicorn Painter kept quiet. . . .Even when one of her friends who looked like he was trying awfully hard to look just like Pablo Picasso got heated and slammed the table causing a few glasses to fall and break upon the floor she kept quiet, locked in some sort of coma with her eyes open. . . .Even when another outburst caused beer to spill on her, she simply smiled and looked blindly down at her dress.

I looked at her, and suddenly her eyes blinked clear and she was staring right at me.  It was frightening.

"Come on," she said.  Her icy grip ran down my back.  She got up and I followed her.  She entered the ladies room and I paused but she soon returned and pulled me in.

There were no other women in the bathroom.  I smiled, as who doesn't like happy endings?  But then she turned around and lifted up her shirt rather unceremoniously.

"You like it?"  She asked, looking at me over her shoulder.

I found myself once again staring into the cold black eyes of a unicorn.  It too was atop a fantastical landscape though it seemed to be running out of her ass crack.  Also, an amateur had added a rainbow arching over the beast, unlike her painting.  She seemed to have read my mind, or maybe I just have an honest face:

"The rainbow I had first.  But I tired of it, and had the unicorn added.  I think it looks nice.  Its familiar isn't it?"  She smiled.  "You like it?"

I didn't know what to say.  I have seen some dumb tattoos in my day, but this one took the cake.  Not only did she used to have a rainbow tramp stamp, but she had added upon it, with an image even more disgusting.  She might as well have tattooed a warning over her ass, something like 'THIS PERSON ISN'T MENTALLY STABLE.'  I started to back away.

"So what, you don't want me to blow you?"

"Well. . ."  I thought about it, and she got to her knees, but then a torrent of vomit shot out of her mouth and all over the floor.  It stank and pooled around her, all over her shirt and jeans.  I promptly left, half-disgusted half amused.

I stormed through the bar, parting the hipsters like so much water.  By the time I got to the outside door I heard her screaming, and with the cold air and suction of the door it was drawn silent, a blown out candle.  The cold air rejuvenated me, along with the night, for I knew I had just avoided a horrible situation and an awkward morning.  You've got to worry about unicorn chicks.  Most of them grew up horse and pony dykes who just couldn't take the real world, and succumbed to fantasy.  I lit in a cigarette and sucked in death, unaware that it was closer than I perceived.  There were hipsters out there, mingling about and smoking cigarettes just as I was.

A car zoomed down the street at great speed.  Everyone's head turned in an instant to watch it, and in an instant we all saw the young man in front of it crossing the street.  The car hit him, and he tumbled back several feet, to lie in the street in a puddle of his own blood.  It all pooled up around him, and those around me took to their phones to Tweet things like "just saw the worst accident ever, live."  As I drew near I found it to be the young man who had nursed a water all night.  He looked at me with dead fish eyes, his mouth spitting blood and his fingers pointed up towards the stars.  Not long after, he stopped moving, lying there in the streets, dead.

In a rage I ran back to the bar, too stupid to think of anything but revenge and hatred.  He had tried to be apart of them, and like callus bastards the had shunned him, even in death.  It was just another moment for self fame on the internet; look at the heart ache I witness; shower pity upon me now.  I hit the sidewalk and punched the nearest hipster I could find, the blow taking him and his cell phone to the floor.  I stomped him a bit, before a fist came out at me from my left.  I hit the floor and felt the kicks hit my stomach and legs.

I let out an awkward cry, for myself as well as man. . . And then came darkness.

Flashes of boobs. . . and darkness.