Weak (A Dilemma)

In the centre of my native city is a street that consists almost totally of bars and fast food shops.

The bars are officially owned by a foundation, which is in the hands of the local bikers club. Police is seldom seen over there, the bikers are used to solving their own problems. And they don’t like to see the police being involved. I’m not a regular visitor over there. The last time I was there I witnessed something that I didn’t like.

In these days I followed a course of a few months to get a better position. The schedule was quite nice: one day I would have lessons, the next day was meant to be dedicated to homework and there was no work in all this time. The homework was supposed to be a lot and would keep you busy all day. I might be different than most other participants in the course. I would have everything completed in a few hours and had the rest of the day to relax.

Once in a while I decided to get to a bar in the afternoon, sometimes I would meet people I knew.

So on this day I ended up in this infamous street. Only a few people were in, nobody I really knew. But I had set my mind on a beer, so I got one.

After a while a guy came in. I didn’t see him for ages. We both years ago were members of a chess club. We played in the club house of a football team and we had a bad name. The chess club drank per head more beer than the football players. And instead of playing our game we had fierce political and cultural debates and had a lot of fun. Not a normal chess club I would say!

It was not hard to see it was him, he still had the same kind of glasses on his head as he did in these days. It gave him the looks of a scholar.

The guy already had drank a few I noticed. He recognised me immediately and we talked about the old days and had a good laugh. When he ordered, the girl behind the bar gave him his drinks without hesitation.

He told me had quit chess too. After the club house had burnt down the club was moved to a former city hall where they didn’t serve beer or liquor. So the fun was gone. I didn’t know about this at all, had left the club years before. He told me that one of the chess players had dropped a cigarette stub in a plastic bin. The stub had been smouldering and had set the bin and the club house on fire in the night after the members had left.

We had two more beers and we talked about jobs and such. All of a sudden his tone of voice changed. He was in the middle of a divorce and was very angry. He blamed all the women in the world for his misery and so started to call the girl behind the bar names. It was quite awful and I felt embarrassed. So I tried to quiet him a bit. It didn’t work.

When he asked for another drink the girl refused and he became really foul mouthed. She asked him politely to leave the bar, which he didn’t. Instead he went on with his swearing.

Two bikers walked up to her and offered help which she eagerly accepted. They took his glasses of his head…

I asked them to just push him out of the bar, explained he was in big trouble. But they just slapped him in the face. I pleased them to stop. And they offered to give me a few. But they did stop, put his glasses back on and told him to pay. He paid and even wanted to tip the girl. She refused the tip and just told him to get out immediately. He did without saying anything to anybody.

My beer suddenly had a weak taste, just like I felt myself. I paid and left.

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