THIS IS NOT FOREVER NIGHT

Every normal person’s night out can be predicted to a tee. They may as well be scheduled, penciled into spreadsheets, and agreed upon by all included parties.
Seven o’clock, everyone meets to drink before they go out to drink.
Eight o’clock, pregame member is unsure whether or not he really wants to go. Another is too drunk already, constantly asks when they’re all leaving or maybe can’t ask anything at all.
Eight-thirty, nobody has called for the car. A small argument erupts. Someone is making excuses as to why they can’t afford it. This one just fixed their girlfriend’s windshield or something.
That one gets paid every two weeks and this week isn’t it. The music isn’t right. Someone is mad about the song.
Nine o’clock, in the car heading over. This song again? The one who chooses music falls victim to complaints, puts on something more obscure. He was just trying to stay upper-mainstream. Minutes later, arrive at bar. It’s not as wild as everyone pictured. Where’s all the party movie moments, the fuckable women, the covert exchange of mood-shifting drugs? You’re in Maryland, what did you expect? The cocaine is cut with Stevia and all of a sudden you’re keto.
Ten o’clock, and it starts to pack in. The kind of girls you want are coming now in waves. Someone’s electric cigarette is being passed around, almost empty now. Who has a fresh cartridge? Is that question worth using to start a conversation with the girls in the corner? Did he say cartridge? Someone comments on the “crackle” and someone else agrees. Beer on everyone’s shirts. “How the fuck did you spill that much beer on your shirt?” As a result of the spill, the group has been relegated from standard bar goers to frat war refugees.
Eleven o’clock, everyone is belligerent. Chairs are falling and card balances are dropping amidst the heat of a hundred bodies moving. The more money spent, the quicker the sexual hierarchy fades to black. Heaven or Las Vegas blares unnoticed. Should you find the girl who played it, the one who thinks she’s different? Stealth bumps of “cocaine” from the divot of someone’s wiry hand. The Juul smokers give up on their new-age tech, move outside to smoke real cigarettes and share empty thoughts. Some of your friends are dancing, some with girls, some alone, some not at all. You realize it will never get better than those old high school house parties. They were predicated on chaos, amplified by uncertainty and inexperience, always becoming either the best or worst nights possible. You realize that many of these people have their own houses now, or not really. You realize that parties there would still outclass these nights at the bar. Why the fuck do you do this anyways? Seven dollars for beer, nine dollars for a watered-down whiskey shot. Tastes like soap. Card empty, it gets refilled again next week. Your job is a sinkhole and it makes you think of suicide. It’s a job that gives you an allowance, not income, for nights like these and a little chunk of dog food. Why the fuck do you do this?
Twelve o’clock, those who say “I think I’m gonna head out” begins to clash with those who say, “We’re already here so just stay”. The ones who have found a girl to take clash with the ones who either can’t or no longer want to. From the start of the night until closing, a class structure is built upon the bar’s floor upwards. It fills out as time passes, and by the end, you’re met with the fruits of many factors. Enter the temporary party class war. Everyone sees it differently but it’s there. Is the guy who came with a girl at the top or bottom of our pyramid? Is the handsome one who came and left alone the victor? Or is it the one who’s so drunk he forgot he has feet? What becomes of the girls who sleep around? Do they retain their ranking next weekend? No, not at all, as they are reassigned to the bottom with every new night. Rarely does a whore find footing on the liquor-soaked sides of the eternal and nightly pyramid. You’ll have to find another way up, or be a different kind of slut.
The tiers are always shifting, higher rankings are always lost. Some puke and drop down ten spots, some puke and play it up to a better status. Some wear the wrong thing, talk the wrong way, show up to the entirely wrong place. Some get stood up by dating site matches and sit at the bottom for weeks, certain that something is flawed. In place of actual combat, we see subconscious mind-wars present at any turn inside the liquor arena. Still though, actual combat breaks through — this too can affect the rankings. Natural order will still shine on, even in the most manipulated environments. All nights at the bar are predicated on some form of chaos. If none exists, it will be made. Liquor plus man equals always a bastard Greek tragedy. Especially when they’ve been working retail all week. Finally, his hands are unbound, his confidence is boosted, and there are prizes to be won. Blood flows and the neon pyramid flickers.
One o’clock, and the people who “never smoke cigarettes” are now ripping them back to back. To food or home, to home or bed? What’s open right now? Who’s riding in our car? Is anyone threatening to drive home themselves? If yes, cue Degrassi-style monologue about how unsafe that could be. “We love you too much to let you do that, man.” How considerate of them to say. Mentions of a late-night deli not so far down the street. Already poor diets are compromised even further. Mountains of bread soaked in seed oil, pasteurized cheese doused in pasteurized cheese. The overture of gulped tap water, the group’s nanny suggesting Pedialyte, to which nobody responds. It’s dead quiet as everyone tears into food at a drunken pace.
Two o’clock, the hour where some stay on the couch while others make it back home. Everyone’s saving they love one another. Someone telling the drunkest of them all to sleep on his side, reminding him what happened to the late Jimi Hendrix. Side-sleeper mumbles that he’s twenty-seven now too, how crazy a realization that is. He falls asleep with a white lighter in his back pocket.
The morning comes and now begins a Saturday totally wasted. Everyone is too tired, too hungover, too broken to commit to any kind of meaningful activity. At the very best, they’ll meet for late breakfast or sit in a circle and smoke a bag of shitty weed, but generally nothing more. They work all week for a few brief hours of minor chaos and are often met with zero reward. They work all week just to kill their drive, their chance of well-used free time. Even if they did get pussy, even if they did have a little bit of fun, it is likely soon forgotten. Too much has crossed the blood-brain barrier. Their chemical receptors are confused, rewired, and frayed on the ends.
Much like how some are meant to stand behind cash registers for a lifetime — 1 call them the “cashier race” — some are meant to see these nights as the ceiling of adventure and conquest. You could say that those two groups overlap and you’d probably be correct. They find comfort in successions of bar nights and perhaps a wacky, impromptu vacation to Cabo. Despite all of these words, I’m really not bitter about the existence of these people. It is clear that they are here for a reason, to keep a sort of balance in check. If the world was comprised entirely of system ditchers there would be no system for the piratical to take from. There is no matrix without its computer generated images. No human world without its human bodies. There are more alcoholics on this Earth now than ever before. More cashiers too. In turn, this makes it more impressive to swim against the current. The timing is ripe for those who wish to be different. Masculinity and heroism are glorified tenfold when the world is in such disarray. There is nothing to be sad about. You were born in the golden moment, in the meat of the golden ratio. Go set something on fire.
“Sound the Dionysus bell — send them all back to Hell.”