I decided to take a walk to clear my head a little before getting behind the wheel. Two blocks into it, I passed a bar and decided to go in. It was dark and sad inside, so it felt like I’d found the right place. I took a seat at the bar next to an older man, who was hunched over his drink.
He looked over, so I lifted my chin. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” he grumbled, not very welcoming.
When the bartender came by, I ordered a beer at first. “Actually, I need something stronger.”
“What do you want?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. Something strong.”
The old guy next to me frowned. “Bourbon—make it two, one for me.”
I smiled at the bartender. “Two bourbons, please.”
The amber liquid burned going down, though the guy next to me didn’t seem to notice. He gulped three fingers back like it was nothing.
“Your generation’s soft,” he sneered.
I chuckled to myself. He wasn’t wrong. About most people, anyway. Though I liked to think I was a little different than most of the people born the same year. I nodded. “It’s the trophies.”
The old man’s face wrinkled. “What’s a trophy?”
“You know, metal statues, or these days they’re mostly plastic I’m sure. Kids get ’em when they play sports and stuff.”
“Oh, a trophy.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I figured there was some new meaning I didn’t know about. What’s a trophy got to do with why you people are soft?”
“Well, in your generation, there was only one trophy. It went to the winning team. Nowadays, kids get trophies when they finish a season—just for finishing. Even the last-place team gets a trophy.”
The old man thought it over and nodded. “That’s just stupid.”
I finished off the liquid in my glass. The third gulp went down as hard as the first. I shook the ice, rattling it around. “How do you drink this? It tastes terrible and burns going down.”
He smiled. “I never had a fucking trophy.”
I laughed and lifted my chin to the bartender. “Another round for me and…” I looked to the old man.
“Fred.”
I nodded. “Me and Fred.”
For the next few hours, I sat next to my new friend and drank too many bourbons. Turned out Fred was down on millennials because he had a grandson about my age who had disinvited him to a party he was having this weekend and wouldn’t take his calls. “He wanted me to go to a gender reveal party. Who the hell throws a party and has a cake baked to find out the sex of the baby?”
“Actually, a lot of people do that these days.”
Fred frowned and shook his head. “Like I said, soft.”
I smiled and sucked back my third bourbon on the rocks. It was starting to hit me now, which was just fine.
“In my day, men didn’t even wait at the hospital to find out what they were having. We just dropped the woman off and went home to get some sleep. If you married a nice girl, she wouldn’t call you until the morning to tell you what she’d had, so you’d get your rest.”
I laughed. “Pretty sure that wouldn’t fly with women today.”
He waved me off, grumbling.
A little while later, I stood to go to the bathroom and stumbled. Shit. I was drunker than I thought. I went to relieve myself and intended to close out my tab. But when I returned, Fred had bought me a round for a change.
He tilted his glass toward me. “You’re not so bad for one of those alphabet kids. I can never remember what ages are for generation X, Y, or Z.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“So why are you sitting in this depressing place trying to outdrink an old pro like me?”
“Woman problems.”
Fred held his glass toward me to clink. “Fucking women. Gotta watch out for them. They’re dangerous. You know any other animal that can get juice from a nut without cracking it?”
I laughed so hard, I fell off my seat. Fred offered a hand to help me up from the floor. His grip was pretty strong for a guy who had to be pushing eighty.
Once I was standing, I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks a lot, buddy. This was just what I needed.”
“To fall on the damn floor?”
“Nah. To not be able to stand.”
I said I was going to head out, but Fred convinced me to have one more. That last drink totally did me in. I went from happy drunk to feeling pretty miserable about Autumn again. There was no way I was driving home in my condition, so I started toward the train, figuring I’d get my car tomorrow. But at some point, I veered and walked back to Autumn’s place.
I had no idea what time it was, but it had to be after midnight when I buzzed.
“Autumn…it’s me.” I looked up at the camera and pointed to my face. “Please let me in.”