On a Night with Old Friends (part b)

A wine bar in the heart of the Castro district was to be our curious meeting place. After a walk up and around a wrong-way hill for a while, we made our right-way down to the bar. The two of us scored a great people watching seat at the front. The cool breeze came through the open window off of the street. There was room enough for a third. He was to show up halfway through my first drink. I sat in our self created oasis of heterosexuality with these two gentlemen while sipping a light, crisp and fruit forward New Zealand Sauv Blanc. My second glass was of lesser quality, but the man behind the bar knew one of my friends, so the pour was heavy.

Two, coupled, naked gentlemen out on a walk proudly passed our perch. They seemed to be getting a lot of attention from the flaming hordes prancing about the neighborhood on a Friday night. We may have all taken note of this spectacle but the conversation didn't miss a beat. Our desensitization to the wild urban happenings of San Francisco is sometimes astonishing to my better judgement. I was halfway through my second glass. The weight of it, and all of its' new friends in my belly, hit me suddenly right between the eyes, rendering me diplopic.

I continued to rediscover two friends who I had long forgotten to miss. For whichever reason of convenience that struck them, both were fantastic drummers before they decided to opt out. They both say they miss the facet of them that they formerly so wholeheartedly commit to the tubs. I plan to be a part of the retrieval.

One of them had a spliff that his former girlfriend had rolled before leaving him for the East coast. We smoked it, fairly unceremoniously, and he saved the last bit for later. He felt he had driven her away. It turns out, it was an airline pilot who was behind the wheel and her idiom, and certain bio-sociological urges, that put her in the seat. Women can create and destroy many a security in a young mans life.

Sometimes it takes the shattering of a heart to find where all the pieces truly lie. Mine has become a callused calico tapestry pinned up between the wants and needs of a romantic mind.