Just like I love my guitar (a love story)

[Sepia]

You've been out drinking for the past week and yesterday, as you knew you were going to wake up broke today you went the whole nine yards and you know this because you can vaguely recollect snorting coke from a strippers bared tit, licking the nipple afterwards and you know you spent your last money on a vintage moet and you're not really a man for champagne but there was this beautiful girl you saw there sitting with her friends, bubbling like the way the bubbles do when they reach your brain. This is how it happened:

She was sitting with a party of 5-6 people, people came and went and the seat next to hers was always empty. They sat on the inside but came out withing regular parameters to have a cigarette. You and your friends, of which one of them was most assuredly a chainsmoker, sat on the outside, the hope of a summer soon to come and cheap blankets from ikea to keep you warm. You knew there was about 2000 kroner on your card and you wanted to go out in a bang, you wanted someone to notice more of you and while you played with the thought of giving everyone at your table a round of moscow mule and a tequila slammer, your brain, which was more disconnected than connected with the rest of you thought the thought "When in Rome, do as the romans do". You bought a round of cheap champagne for your table, nervousness striking your heart and impairing you when you had to open your mouth.

They brought it out together with some greasy tapas which you thought was nice of them because you didn't see the crust and the dead parsely on the aïoli, didn't really taste the chorizo and never wondered how the pretzels came into play and you tipped too much. But it was okay. You'd met up with your regulars a few hours earlier, drinking swivel beer from a swivel place, talking the same shit you always thought and you thought it could be nice with a quiet night, go home, smoke a joint and watch a movie, perhaps play some warcraft and perhaps do something on the internet. It was an uncertainty that was sweet, an uncertainty where everything that could happen would be positive, would be good but the door opened with a bang and one of your other friends whom you loved dearly came in and shouted Bubbles for everyone! to the barman which swiftly brought forth one of the shittiest and cheapest bottles of cava and put it on the table along with enought white glasses for all. You stopped him. You were calm and touch his arm and said

wait
what?
what are we celebrating?
they're putting up my piece on the national theater this coming fall
we shouldn't celebrate with this shit, let's go somewhere nicer

And you did. By taxi, an expensive luxury for those almost unemployed and students. What you had in your mind when you were driven in that car was the desire for debauchery, a hope that this night would amount to something similar that you'd seen in the american pie movies, you wanted madness and you would welcome it but the fatal flaw would always have been that you didn't seek it.
You came to Champagneria, laughed at the westsiders who sat there beatifully like people only can when they've gone through life without friction.

You ate your tapas and drank your champagne and for you it was like drinking bottled sunshine, you'd never been one for the one good versus the many poor and you thought about the things you've never tried because you've never had the money or the cash for it and it was your face, lost in thought that brought real champagne to your table

'scuse me, you got a light?
huh? oh, yeah, sure
thanks
...
...
so, hi, my name is Darryn, nice to meet you
Linger here and yeah
You're called or you're named?
Named. My father, a professor in english literature at the university fell in love with that word, or, really, his highschool crush fell in love with the word and he could never get unstuck from that word
whoah, it is a beautiful word though
Yeah, not like cellar door but it's up there somewhere
open throat
huh?
I always liked open throat more than cellar door, you know mountain goats?
nuh huh
well, there's this song I can't remember but it's the tale of the singer and he's being abused when he's a child and there's a line there that goes "and the cellar door is an open throat"
huh
doesn't do it much justice spoken like that but it's really beautiful and powerful
...
So, Linger, what do you like t-

You talked for five more minutes than the cigarette lasted, she went in after a while and you resumed your drinking and the bullshitting. The round was ending and everyone was flat broke so you went inside yet again and while you stood there you saw her, distanced from everyone else she was talking to and you knew she thought of you as she did everything she could to avoid looking in your direction and it gripped you, you've been gripped like that earlier but it was about other shit, stuff you knew you didn't really care for, small trinkling epiphanies, how to solve easy mathematical questions or the reason for plot devices in movies or books but for the first fucking time you understood something about life, you couldn't define because you didn't really know but it was something, there was something there. You checked the prices and you picked what you estimated would be cleared on the mastercard and you pulled forth a napkin and a pen, wrote your phone number down, your name and asked the waitress if she could attach it to the bottle five minutes after you left.

You went out to your friends, exclaiming there was no more cash to be had, the feast was over and you trudged along, four eastside buddies heading east on the bus, broken memories was all that remained. You talked about the piece, the play and you talked about how weird it was to drink on the westside before you went back to your swivel bar where you knew you could pay later and the bartender greeted you with love, greeted you with the biggest smile and opened that bottle of cava and proclaimed that for the rest of the day, you all drank for free. You cheered and laughed and your table grew bigger and you felt you were sitting at cheers for a while for there were smiles everywhere and everything got this beautiful tint as you sat there with other students and alcoholics, your pride swelling for your friend and life was better than it'd been and you knew summer was coming soon when you could smell the asphalt and hear the trams.

It came around to closing time but you were allowed to sit there still, even smoking on the inside past anything when your cell lit up and you answered

it was cheeky, i'll admit
it was nothing but cheeky?
it was filled with fear but it was kinda beautiful
sorry, I was drunk am drunk
don't say sorry for you're in a state you want to be in
uhm, you're right, I'm sorry that I never sat myself in the chair that was always vacant
you should be
I'm just and eastside boy having nothing to do on the westside
bullshit
scuse me?
bullshit and you know it
...
Fuck you, fuck all of you wellmeaning geeks who've seen too many fucking romantic comedies you'd never admit you've seen trying to nab girls by playing all mystic and shit, I mean, fuck why does so many of you have a fucking jim morrison complex, why can't you begin to see, why can't you begin to move yourselves out of the sphere you were in when you were fucking sixteen, why the fuck?
I'd never think I was anywhere near the league I'd needed-
FUCK YOU. FUCK. YOU. How the fuck can you be so blind? This is nothing about leagues, this is nothing about fucking class or racial or whatever fucknut reason you have, fuck you.
Well, you're the most-
*click*

You went inside again, it was raining and you'd just gotten blue but you knew you had failed, you knew there was no way for you to repair this. You cursed yourself silently for your cowardness, for your retardedness and you joined your friends and while you laughed, it rang too hollow and your compliments sounded too insincere and you wanted to be in america where atleast one of your friends or perhaps yourself that had a gun at home or in your pocket, gnawing.

You became greedy, hawking tequila made in germany and smoking up to three at a time, crying silently and you were down and blue, quoting bukowski for yourself as you sat over by the bar alone, thinking of everything you should have done but never did and there's a brief flash infront of your eyes and there he is, your old gramps. Sitting in his rocking chair on the patio with you on his lap, how old were you, eight? He looks at you, straight into the eyes and says

You know son? I've never been a smart person, I've never been intelligent, never went to school but I can tell you this, if you're ever given the option of doing something or not doing something, whatever it is you should do it and you wallow in your own pity and remorse before you get the grip of yourself and you join your friends and discard the hollowness and bathe in the radiance and the love, a bartender from turkey which barely speaks norwegian, his wife who drinks alot when she's allowed, the writer who's gotten his play on the biggest stage in this shitty little city and two of your soulmates and you think, fuckit, to hell with it. It was a weeks salary and an angry phonecall but hey, that's life, let's move on and you begin silently to sing that song, kråkevisa which you and your friends have been singing since time was conceived as a concept

Og mannen han gjekk seg i veda skog,
- hei fara i veda skog. -
Då sat der ei kråka i lunden og gol.
- Hei fara. Faltu riltu raltura. -

Mannen han tenkte med sjølve seg;
Skal tru no den kråka vil drepa meg?


It was so perfect as the last line translated poorly is I'd wonder if that crow would kill me? and there was a banging, a distant banging on shatterproof glass, a dream, a movie, a play and a song coming to life untill you turned your head and it was life that was here for you now and life had kind eyes and skin that smelled of grapefruit and looked like golden bubbles, curly hair that was nothing short of perfect but most of all it was beautiful because her makeup had begun disintegrating in the rain and she stood there still, banging on the door with a poor exspensive champagne with her eyes alight and her soul on fire.