//------------------------------// // I love this Bar // Story: I love this Bar // by Ron Jeremy Pony //------------------------------// I love this Bar Tie in with Room for Rent by Drax99 It’s funny how life is. You can find out something absolutely horrible, life changing, and yet for some reason it only makes everything funny. A couple of months earlier that happened when I went to the doctor. Still, I don’t want to get in on that. Instead I want to talk about the strange shit that’s happened in the last two days. I nudge my rainbow haired drinking buddy and grin. “Hellva party huh?” I ask. She shakes her head and slowly stands. “Told you I could drink you under the table,” she say. “You passed out a good three bottles behind me,” I reply. She looks at me and grins a little. “So, what’s the plan for tonight?” she asks. I stand and stretch. I drew my life savings out, and so far I’ve got another twenty grand to blow through. I’ve just got to remember to keep back a couple of grand at the end of it. The idea of hitting another bar comes to mind. So far that’s what we’ve been doing for the past week. Hitting every bar in this burg, but the one I really wanted to visit was an old bar from back home. It meant a road trip, but the bar was worth it. The kind of hole in a wall where fights broke out, guys drank to forget their problems, and what happened in the bathrooms was kept in the bathrooms. “I’m thinking about a place that would be fun, but it means a little road trip. A couple of days heading out to the middle of nowhere, but it’s a good place, easy enough to have a drink, and its got a good atmosphere,” I say. She raises an eyebrow at me. “Aren’t you tired of bars?” she asked. “The bars around here, sure, but this place is kind of special,” I say. She looks at me and shakes her head. I watch as a grin forms on her muzzle. “Why not? I’m supposed to study human behavior anyway. I’d say this is human behavior,” she says with a laugh. We walk out to my old truck. I open the door for her and she climbs into the cab. I crawl into the driver’s seat and start the old ’77 ford. The engine catches after a second and purrs. I pull it down into gear and start driving. It’s a good three hours away, and on the way we can hit a few tourist spots. I think about our meeting. I happen to be out at the river, ice chest full of beer in the back of the truck, and stuck in a funk. The sound of something hitting a might too into the water gained my attention and that’s when I saw her. She came up for a breath, struggled to swim, and without thinking about it I dove in. I swam out to her. The sounds of Toby Keith singing ‘Good as I once Was’ playing on the one working speaker in my old truck the background noise to my heavy breathing. I pulled the little cyan creature to the shore and was surprised to learn that she could speak. Of course I was asked where in the hell I had been, once she caught her breath, and I explained that I hadn't really cared about current events for the last few months. The little creature preceded to tell me about her and her friends, the portal opening over to Equestria, their coming over and learning about humanity, and a few other odds and ins. I suppose I should have been more freaked out than I was, but a few good Boston loggers tends to make seeing some surprising and odd a bit easier to deal with. After that, and a couple of beers for the both of us later, she asked if I minded to give her the grand tour of the town. This place is just like my own hometown. It’s small enough to be somewhat safe, big enough to draw tourist, and out of the way enough not to have a shit lot to do except drink. We hit the tourist crap first. The waterslides, historic route 66, classic dive-in theaters, and the historic village with amphitheater were all on the list. Once we hit those it was time to hit the bars. Roxies, Tuxies, Torches, and The Little Black Room became a staple for us. Lots of debauchery and all kinds of fun was what we were enjoying. Granted that’s what we were heading toward right now. She reached over and turned on the radio with her hoof. It’s still a little weird to see how that works. The old radio crackles a little and she digs around in the console for a moment before she brings up an old tape of Aerosmith’s ‘Toy’s in the Attic’. The sounds of Steven Tyler singing ‘Sweet Emotion’ blares through the speaker on my side. I crack up as she sings to the lyrics she’s just learned a couple of days ago and finally I join in. Our voices are a far stretch from Steven’s as tape turns into a hiss before the next song begins to play. “So, why this place?” she asks. I look ahead at the road and think about the bar. Ned’s was more than just a landmark in my hometown. It was special, special in a way that I couldn’t really even begin to put into words. One of my hands finds my old worn wallet with a picture of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker on the front of it. I fish it out and open it to show a picture of myself, two beautiful women, a couple of other guys and then another guy sitting down in front of me. I hand it to her and she takes a look at it. “I grew up in that town. My friends and I always hung out at Ned’s. We’d play pool, maybe hit one of the old video games in the back, and more than once I helped my buddy realize that he was better off that some girl decided to dump him. We listened to damned near everything on the jukebox a hundred times over, but it was a place where we all felt at home together,” I say as she hands the wallet back to me and I put it away, “The truth is when I make a good friend I have to take them to Ned’s. It cements the friendship so to speak.” She smiles and punches my shoulder. “So, a good friend huh?” she asks. “Damn straight,” I reply. We stop at a BurgerQueen and hit the drive through. She looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “Don’t want to take your good friend inside?” she asks. “I don’t mind, but there’s every chance that if we go inside that you’re going to be mobbed by a huge group of kids,” I say. I watch her think about it and she nods. We pull through and I look at her. “So, what do you want?” I ask. “A large order of waffle fries, and a strawberry shake,” she answers. I shrug my shoulders, make the order, and soon we’re heading out toward the open road again. I watch her wolf down the food and she looks at me as I pick at what I ordered. “Not hungry?” she asks. “Just need to focus on driving,” I answer. The truth is I haven’t had much of an appetite for a while now. It’s gotten worse the last few weeks, and it’s just something that I’ve been expecting for a while. Still, I don’t want my friend to worry about it. Hell, I just want to hang out with her, have a good time, and make some decent memories. Another hour passed and soon I found us pulling over at a wax museum. She looked at me like I was nuts, but I promised that she would get a kick out of it. Twenty minutes later she was laughing at the Warlock of Emerald City display. The monster area was another thing though. All of the movie monsters on display and I noticed how she studied the Frankenstein monster. She looks toward me and then back at him. “He doesn’t look scary,” she says. “Well, compared to a lot of the other monsters he really isn’t,” I reply. “No, it’s not that,” she says studying him, “He looks sad. Like he hates what he is, he hates even existing.” she says. I look at the creature and notice exactly what she means. Hell, I’m where he is most of the time. This last week has been more than a distraction. It’s been reliving a part of my life I thought was over. Looking at the monster makes me think about how I was. “He is sad. He’s sad because he never asked to be in the situation he’s in. He never wanted to be there, never wanted to see the things he did, or go through what he had to,” I say. She looks toward me with her violet eyes and studies my face. “You sound like you know about that,” she says. “Just like to watch a lot of old movies,” I reply. We continue to walk, but the rest of the museum doesn’t seem as much fun. The thought of the monster and how he reflected physically what I felt inside was sticking with me. I hate it. I hate feeling like this, but I don’t want to make her trip to this museum end badly, so I just enjoy it the best I can. We finally leave the museum and I find myself having a huge case of cotton mouth. The doc’s words come back at me and I grumble. I grab my now watered down soda and take a drink. She watches me and touches my shoulder. “You okay?” she asks. I put on a half-smile and nod. “Sure,” I say. She studies me for a moment, but doesn’t say anything else. We laugh after a few minutes when I start talking about Ned’s again. I tell her about how one of the girls in the picture caught her boyfriend fucking around on her with another guy. She wasn’t really upset that he was bisexual, but she was pissed that he didn’t think he could come clear about it. So, to get back at him she hit on his fuck buddy, but it turned out horrible because his buddy was really only into dudes. “Oh Sweet Celestia that had to be awkward!” she says with a laugh. “Awkward wasn’t the word for it. We ended up talking late into the night, and she crashed over at my place. Hell, we watched bad horror flicks and pizza most of the night,” I say. A couple more hours and I feel myself getting tired. We’re a good hour outside of my hometown. I could make it, hell I’ve done it before, but I also know that I need to get a little sleep. I start looking around for someplace to crash when the coughing starts. Dash looks at me and taps my shoulder. I pull over and find myself coughing even more. It feels so violent, that I can barely contain it. She looks scared. I had never seen her look scared before. She gets closer to me. “Hey, Bryant, you okay?” she asks. I pull my hand away and look at the blood. It’s more than it’s ever been before. She looks at it and then at me again. I cough again and feel everything getting very light around me. She grabs my phone and thankfully the voice command is already activated on the older generation Robotz phone. I hear her shout at the phone to call emergency services. Ten minutes later I’m in the back of an ambulance with my friend sitting next to me. She has her hoof on my hand as we near the hospital. I groan as the doctors begin poking, prodding, and running an MRI on me. After a few minutes the doctor walks in. He has a large chart with him, and I know he’s already contacted my own private doctor to get all my medical history. “Mr. Williams, I have some news that I’m sure you already know,” he says. “How long?” I ask. Dash looks at me and then at the doctor. “Wouldn’t you rather have this news alone?” he asks looking at my little cyan friend. She gets ready to leave and I shake my head. “Not really, this is the first time I’ve had a real friend with me when I’ve heard this kind of news. Go ahead and tell me,” I say. She sits down on her haunches as the doctor clears his throat and opens the chart. “The MRI along with blood tests that we’ve run are showing the same information. The cancer around your lungs has metastasized further into you. Your original diagnosis of a few months… is very close to wishful thinking at this point. We could start Chemotherapy, but…” he starts before I stop him. “There’s no guarantee that it will work, and to be honest it would most likely do more harm than good right?” I ask. He nods. “The only thing we can really do at this point is keep you comfortable,” he says. “How much has my insurance paid on this?” I ask. “Well, you met your deductible already, so technically it has paid for the entire trip and room stay. It would more than pay for another three weeks with all ease...” he says before I shake my head. “Sorry doc, but I’m all aboard the nope train to fuck that ville,” I say. Dash looks at me completely astonished. “Sir, you realize that right now you’re on borrowed time at best,” he says. “I’ve got a place I want to be, and it sure the hell ain’t a hospital room. So, I’m checking myself out,” I say. “Mr. Williams, please, think about this,” he says. “He doesn’t want to stay, so why make him?” Dash asks. “Look, I don’t care if you are a visiting dignitary from happy magical pony world. He is my patent, and in my opinion I believe he needs to be kept comfortable,” the doc says. “Hey, thanks, but no thanks and fuck you buddy. I want of this damned place, and I’m going to be leaving. So, either let me go, or I’ll pull this shit out of my arms and just walk out,” I say. He looks at me, walks out of the room and a few minutes later there is a couple of nurses coming and removing all of the IV’s in my arms. “Thanks,” I say as I get dressed, grab my clothes, bag, and head down stairs. Dash follows me downstairs and watches as I call a taxi. As we wait for it come and pick us up she looks at me. “When were you going to tell me?” she asked. “After we got to Ned’s is when. Dash, I don’t want to be in a hospital when it happens,” I say. “So you want to go in a bar? What the buck is wrong with you?!” she shouts. “No, I didn’t want to go in Ned’s. I wanted to go at home, in my home. I’m sorry, I really am, but my taking you Ned’s wasn’t to lay this on you. It really is because you’ve become one of my best friends. I wanted you to know that you’ve made a good friend,” I reply. “You’ve been hiding this the entire time. The not eating is part of it right?” she asks. I nod. “Why?” she asks. “I don’t want you to do what my other friends did. I don’t want you to desert me because of this,” I say. She shakes her head and looks at me. “I don’t abandon friends. Even stubborn mules,” she says. The taxi arrives and I give him directions to the old ford. We get out there and she looks up at me. “You really feel like driving?” she asks. “For a while, and besides, if you’re half as awesome as you say you are I’m sure you can get this old girl to do tricks she never even knew existed,” I say. She laughs and touches the old truck. “I bet that I could get her to scream my name,” Dash replies. I laugh and we climb into the truck. I feel the tickle of the cough, but I hold it back. I don’t want another episode, and I really want to get to Ned’s. We drive the hour, and the entire time Dash asks me about Ned’s, my friends, the girl, and I begin telling her everything. I show her another picture of the girl. She’s wearing a wedding dress, and standing next to a man that resembles me, or would if I was completely clean shaven and not wearing an old ratty t-shirt and jeans. She looks over at me for a second completely confused. “Jessica… That’s her, we married about three months after her breakup with her old boyfriend,” I say as I flip to another picture; this one is a little boy and a little girl both with red hair like their mother, “That’s Tim and Barbara. They were my entire world.” I hear a question trying to form in her throat and I save her from asking it. “A drunk driver, icy road, and breaks I swore I’d fix the next day. Jess… She wouldn’t let the kids play hooky from school, and the school board thought that since the superintendent could walk the sixteen foot from his home to one of the schools without busing his ass everyone could make it in. The roads were really bad, and I told her that it would be best not to take the kids. I even offered to take them, but she told me no. I had just got off of a late shift at the foundry. Three hours later I got a phone call from the hospital,” I laugh with a lump in my throat, “I thought my idiot brother had done something again. I was ready to tell them off when one of them asked if my wife was Jess. I knew, fucking knew, what was happening. I drove this old girl straight up to the hospital and the doctors lay it on me. Tim and Barbara had both been killed instantly. The impact was in the side, in the back, and Jess… She had been knocked out for a couple of hours. They said that if she would have made the call a little sooner, even twenty minutes sooner, they might would have had a chance.” I feel her not just touching my arm, but I feel her front legs wrapped around it in a hug. “I went in to see her, and she already knew. She asked if the kids were okay, and I told her they were fine. I lied to her. I lied to Jess about them, but… I didn’t know what else to do. She told me that she loved me, and I held her. I held her until the monitor stopped beeping, and a long time after it,” I say. “Bryant, I’m sorry,” she says. “Not your fault. Since then I’ve been spending a lot of time working. I just worked, went home, worked, went home. I didn’t hang out anymore, and there wasn’t a whole lot else to do. I actually saved up a few hundred thousand dollars. After I started coughing a lot I went and got a checkup. I mean, it was like having a smoker’s cough, but I’ve never smoked a day in my life. The doc said the fumes from the foundry had reacted just right. A few months at best. Most men and women would have pissed their pants at that. I was happy. I don’t know why,” I say. “I called my boss, told him that I was taking vacation time, hell I had a couple of months saved up, and that I wanted to take it all. I figured he thought I was looking for something else, so he didn’t argue. Most guys that’ve been there that long usually do that you know?” I ask. “Bryant… is that why you were out at the river drinking?” she asks. “Yeah, and then I met you. I wasn’t lying about current events. This is the second month of my vacation. I hadn’t watched TV or really listened to the radio. I’ve just been playing video games, chilling out, and going places. My friends who basically abandoned me before told me I should be in the hospital, but I don’t want to be. I want to enjoy life while I got it,” I reply. She looks at me before I know what’s happening I’m getting Frenched by my little friend. She grins and as she pulls away and smiles at me. “So, enjoy it. Let’s go the Ned’s and then where ever and whatever after that I’m down,” she says. We get to Ned’s and walk in. It’s the same smokey bar, the same people in there, and behind the counter is old Ned. He looks at me for a moment, and then without a question he fishes out a Boston Logger. He hands it to me and grins. “I never forget a customer,” he says. “Thanks, say, what you want Dash?” I ask. He looks at her and then back at me. “Reliving some of the old college days?” he asks. “That was Bobby, not me,” I say. Dash looks at me and I shake my head. “My friend bobby got piss drunk and busted his cherry with a Shetland Pony. He earned a little nick name around here,” I say. “What nickname is that?” she asks. “Farmer Brown,” Ned says. I almost expect her to frown, but Dash begins laughing hysterically. “Wait, he… he bucked a farm animal?!” she says through the tears. “Like it was going out of style,” I reply. “Oh Celesita… Oh that’s too good… I thought that you humans were all kinds of stuck up, well like my friend Pinkie’s new friend, but… he bucked a farm animal and busted his cherry doing it!” she fell on her back laughing. “She’ll have a beer as well,” I say. We drink for a while, listen to some Chris LeDoux on the jukebox, and after a while we finally leave the bar. I call a taxi and we take it back to my house. We get there and stumble inside. She’s still laughing about Bobby as we crash out in the living room. I pull out the futon and we both just fall asleep on it. A couple of hours later I wake up to a warm body snuggling close. “Bryant,” she says. “Huh?” I ask. “You know… Celestia could maybe help you. I don’t know for sure, but she might could do something,” Dash says. I smile and touch her muzzle. “I don’t know about that… but I know that I haven’t had so much fun, or felt so alive in so long. Thanks Dash. Thanks for making me feel alive again,” I say. There’s a kiss, and to be honest I’m drunk enough still to just go with it. I’m not sure what happens exactly throughout the night, but I know enough to know that there’s a threshold that I’ve crossed that, while not exactly like Bobby is close, but the difference is I’m too far away from caring. We lie there next to each other and she snuggles close. The hours pass and everything feels light again. I touch her and she stirs. “Hey, if… if you want to talk to this Celestia, go ahead,” I say. She smiles and borrows my phone. I’m not sure how it connects, but I hear a motherly voice on the other end. It sounds so peaceful, and to be honest I feel so tired… Sleep seems good right now. I love this Bar Chapter 2 – auf Wiedersehen The house is so quiet. It’s not like the other places I’ve been so far. In front of me is a few dozen pictures, and the Television has a little static from having ran through a VHS copy of a movie called Bachelor Party. I’m glad that I watched it. It helped a lot. Well, it helped by making me a little less sad. The pictures lying in front of me show a life that I can so relate to in parts. Hanging out with friends, having a good time, being awesome, and trying to live twenty percent cooler than anyone else. I touch one of the pictures and I feel a tear threatening to escape. I sniff it back and instead go through them some more. I study each picture with great detail until I find one that shouldn’t have been in the stack. I don’t know how it got in there, or even why it’s in there, but there’s a picture of the both of us, singing along to Tobey Keith’s ‘Red Solo Cup’ in Tuxies. I pick the picture up and carry it with me as I walk outside. Twilight looks up at me with a sad pair of eyes, and Pinkie… I hate seeing her hair straight like that. It reminds me a little too much of her going off the deep end that one time. I get a hug from them and Rarity. “AJ said that she’s on the way, but to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t be here before it happens,” Twilight says. “It’s fine girls,” I say. We start to walk away and I hear Pinkie sniff. I look back and my friend wraps me up in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry Dashie!” she wails. “Hey, I’ll be all right. I’m a tough mare,” I say. She nods, but continues to hug me. I hug her back and to be honest it feels good to get a hug like that. She steps back and straightens out her black dress. I try to do the same to mine, and suddenly I feel it straighten itself out. I look toward Rarity who smiles softly. “I don’t want you to say goodbye to your first real human coltfriend looking like, how did Simone say it… A hot mess,” she says. “Thanks Rarity,” I say. She nods and the four of us start to walk toward town. I stop once more and look back over my shoulder at the house. I know what’s waiting me we get to where we’re going, but he isn’t there. Who he is, who he was is still in that house. “Bye Bryant,” I say.