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.
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