the start
I was poor and had all but accepted the inevitability of my upcoming homelessness. I kept the restaurant open late one night in an attempt to get better business with the late-night drunks and punks. im sure you are expecting some klesha of a bright full moon or something, but no, it was a cloudy night, and I could not see the astral body. I looked it up later, though, waxing gibus.
It was almost midnight; sadly, the late shift left me with as few customers as the morning shift. But that changed when the old cowbell above my door rang. “ a customer, holy shit! And here I am sitting at the bar drinking Kentucky Delux out of the bottle like a homeless man, well not far off, im sure he will leave when he sees there is no one here.” I thought this to myself, but my inner monologue was mistaken. Heavy boots stomped their way to my side, and the stranger plopped forcefully on the stool next to me.
At this turn of events, I let out a breath and put on my best; how can I help you smile, then stood up, facing away from the patron. Before I could take my first step toward the other side of the bar to take their order, the “person” spoke. “service, please,” the voice was guttural and alien. It was like someone shoved broken glass and an old trumpet down their maw and then tried to hack up the words while coughing blood, rust, and glass shards!
I turned to face the customer only to feel my mouth morph from a shit-eating grin to a gaping jaw! It was horridness in the chair; it hunched over but still sat over 6 feet tall! The thing must have had to stoop down in order to get into the building! It had four limbs, but its hands only had three fingers, no thumbs. Its skin was gray and rubbery; it had short hair up top cut into a fade with a strange sigil cut into the side. That part looked cool not going to lie. The strangest thing was the tentacle-like protrusions atop its back, hanging down to the floor.
I gazed at the freakish thing for Cthulu knows how long before it turned and met my stair. Its eyes were rather pretty, all 5 of them. Light blue like ice sitting atop a winter lake. Before I could make a move, it did; it reached out one of its hand-like things and opened its finger-like things to show me! Three green bills, in particular, three, one hundred dollar bills.
“strawberry daiquiri, please.”
part 1
At some point during the night, my front door goes from a regular entrance for normal humans to a portal of sorts. For not-so-normal creatures, freaky, right? Anyway, these customers have started showing up more often than my human regulars, well, regular; shut up!
In particular, I should talk about my first repeat customer. He is one of my best and nicest patrons. He is a six-foot-tall sweetheart of a swamp monster named wegrar. I call him by the nickname Reggie; he seems to like that.
I met Reggie on a slow rainy night around 2 am I was sitting behind the bar drinking a porter from Breckenridge, Colorado. he walked in covered in mud, dripping from head to toe. Before he could make it past the door, I let out a piercing “oy” This shrill sound seemed to startle him since he paused his motion and met my eyes. I silently pointed at one of the many signs near the door. The one that read, “please wipe your feet.”
The gentlemonster did as requested without protest, and He even tried to pad the water off his slippery green body. After this, he dragged his feet toward my par, pointed to my porter, and claimed in a higher-than-expected voice, “that black thing your drinking looks good. How did you get a glass of my toilet water?
I had no choice but to let out a belly laugh before asking if they had porter beer where he is from; he informed me they did not.
I asked if he would like to try one, assuring him it tasted at least twenty percent better than his toilet water. It was his turn to let out a chuckle before informing me he would love to try it.
At this point, I didnt have the vanilla porter on tap, but I did have the coco jones by black raven in Washington state. Before I could even set the flight glass on the table, he had taken it out of my hands and thrown it back like a shot of cheap vodka! Reggie smacked his lips a few times before speaking inquisitively, “reminds me of coconut”?
With this proclamation, I couldn’t help but smile before asking if he would like a glass? He replied in the affirmative, requesting a tall. I pulled out a chilled 22-ounce glass and began doing what any good salesman would do; I asked if he would like a menu. He waved me off silently and commenced looking around the bar. “How many beers do you have on tap,” he questioned. We have 85 beers, 6 hard ciders, or just ciders if you are from somewhere other than the united states. And a few soft drinks.
“If you have any more porters, id like to try them.” he lay a small bag on the table; id looked at the contents and found it was filled with tiny yellow coins that shinned in the light. I gazed at them, almost forgetting his beer. It began to overfill, and if not for the cold frothy liquid dripping onto my hand, who knows how much id have wasted!
I snapped out of my stooper, cleaned the glass, and sat it with a salted coster in front of my guest without breaking eye contact with the bag. “this could salve everything if it’s real.” I thought to myself. “whatever, this is a problem for future eros. I have a customer who is already done with his 22-ounce.” I looked up to see a long blue tongue lapping at the suds of an empty beer mug.