“To be sure, he’d never been inside the place before, but he’d driven past it often enough, and past it was the obvious place to go. Scowling at its repulsive dark-brown facade, its filthy windows behind which a couple of neon signs advertising beer glowed dully in the places where they glowed at all, he could not imagine anybody going there to have a good time. They must go solely for the purpose of getting drunk. Men—probably no women—would be slouched over the bar having endless, dreary argum...ents about nothing in particular. The bar itself would be chipped plastic laminate, most of its pattern worn off, smeared with dirt and puddled with stale beer. Messy ashtrays would be sitting around full of soggy, stinking cigarette butts. Maybe there’d be a bowl of stale cheese popcorn, kernels spilled over the edge by unwashed hands that had glommed into the bowl when their owners had stopped in for a couple of brews after pumping out somebody’s septic tank. It would be the kind of scene angry young dramatists liked to present to their angry older audiences as stark realism.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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