David Jure, Victoria

   Playwright Harold Pinter often talks in his play about the necessary and the possible. I seem chained to the necessary, as my friends will tell you.
   However, the other night young Eddie Wright phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to go to the V Lounge, the pseudo-Roman entertainment bar in the Red Lion pub. I knew I had to go. It was the possible crying out, not the necessary. A chance to kick Eddie’s ass at pool, smoke a cigarette and pretend, for the nonce that I belong to some psycho-sophisticated A list, that folk from Biggar Saskatchewan, are clamouring, like the Masons, to join.  I knew I might not get another chance. It would account for an amelioration of the vicious sense of blacklist I had received from the Black Press in the past few months. For the evening I would belong.

   Playwright Harold Pinter often talks in his play about the necessary and the possible. I seem chained to the necessary, as my friends will tell you.
   However, the other night young Eddie Wright phoned me up and asked me if I wanted to go to the V Lounge, the pseudo-Roman entertainment bar in the Red Lion pub. I knew I had to go. It was the possible crying out, not the necessary. A chance to kick Eddie’s ass at pool, smoke a cigarette and pretend, for the nonce that I belong to some psycho-sophisticated A list, that folk from Biggar Saskatchewan, are clamouring, like the Masons, to join.  I knew I might not get another chance. It would account for an amelioration of the vicious sense of blacklist I had received from the Black Press in the past few months. For the evening I would belong.
   Ed was late. Thunder and lightning had been called for… a change in the usually mundane and placid July weather conditions. I paced up and down in front of Burkingham Palace, nervously smoking.
   Finally he arrived in the Diamond Eagle touring limo. In other words, his familiar blue car. We drove out Douglas with the sky threatening mayhem and silver streaks of lightning etching zig-zag patterns in the pearl-gray sky. We parked in the Red Lion lot and climbed the thirty-nine steps to the lounge. There was a five-dollar cover. Bullriding. Mechanical bullriding. Oh No.
   I felt Ernest Hemmingway in me shrivel and crawl away. We paid the cover, went in and ordered drinks. I looked around. The place was filling up with svelte beauties in their twenties, their troglodyte hairy boyfriends hanging on their every word. Eddie and I played bad pool. Finally I beat him with several more than adequate coups and, feeling victorious, ordered a beer I could ill afford.
   The music was grotesque techno thrash pop. Not even hip hop. It was loud and unbearable. We had to shout to be heard. Roman columns circled the stage, backed by dozens of visual screens. Again the war between the necessary and the possible. Even a visit to the loo was a welcome silent respite.
   I studied the bartenders. They would be working till well after two. Better them than me. It was hot in the club and I studied the satanic configuration of the stamp or brand on my left hand. What a symbol of a freedom surrendered and forsaken. The music grew louder. I started to sweat. I ordered another beer. Eddie and his charming wife Little Flower were saying little, keeping up a brave front. Eddie had opened for The Doors one night at the Memorial Arena way back in G.O.D., the ‘good old days’.
   All I could think of was the chicken in my fridge, the jar of Hellman’s mayo and how good that would ultimately taste once I got home. I went on the smoking deck to light one up and the sky crackled and the thunder boomed and I thought Good Lord, I’m in hell. I had spent time on the locked ward in the past, but with the Roman columns, the flames on the projection screens, the atrocious cost of beer, the lightning and thunder… yes, by crackey I had stumbled upon a writer’s hell on earth.
   The bartender sported a devilish goatee. I decided what the hell… approached him and shelled out six bucks for the bubbly golden liquid. Perhaps that would make the music easier to bear… it didn’t.
   Then the bullriding began. By this time the place was packed with adorable sexy forgettable sybarites. Man after man braved the bull, only to be thrown off in short order, the flames on the screens licking ever higher… the sky booming over Douglas St.
   I virtually begged Eddie and Little Flower. Let’s get out of here… I’ve figured this out… this is hell on earth. In the car, I pontificated. Hell is not just a place… it is other people. If there were no other people on the planet there would be no one to determine if I was sane or insane. Savoury chicken with mayo called out as the little blue car pulled up in front of Burkingham Palace and I knew then and there I had had a life-changing epiphany worthy of St. Paul on the Road or Savador Dali in the train station at Perpignan. The lightning crackled and sizzled overhead as I gratefully put my key in the lock… cheers.