"You sure you're in the right place buddy?"
(Hey look! We're developing a theme! Cool.)
Okay, given where I was and what I was immediately doing, it's a fair question. One does not usually see someone with an old-school leather notebook (A gift to myself a long time ago after getting my first novel published.), scribbling away while the room around him pulses with music and laughter.
Me again- Max Connors. Still on my book signing tour. Grabbing some dinner and a couple of beers to wind down from a day of signing books to an adoring crowd of about fifty-some-odd fans. Yeah, ok, not a strenuous day by any stretch, but a man's gotta eat and take his mind off of things once in awhile.
After my last signing in Macon, I had three whole days before I was scheduled to be at my next stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Not exactly a whirlwind tour you see on all the TV shows, but you remember I set up breaks for myself when setting it up. Rather than jam myself into a short commuter hop and brave another airport, I rented an SUV and drove myself. I wanted to get out, explore a new state and just sightsee. Avoiding the highways, I puttered around bouncing from town to town, always heading generally East in the direction of my next signing.
On the whole, I had a good time. Visited a few flea markets and antique stores that looked promising, hit a few scenic overlooks, poured a small bit of cash into the local economy and all was good. What I forgot was that I'm from the North and have the accent to back that up AND I'm driving a rental with Michigan plates. For 99.5% of the population who recognized that I'm just passing through, none of that is a problem.
It's that brain dead asshole 0.5% that equate 'Northern Tourist with Money' with 'Invading Army Out to Ruin the Confederacy More' (Sorry boys, you did that all on your own. Back in 1865. Get over it already.) that tripped me up. Honestly, I should have known better than ask directions of someone with a Stars and Bars hat but I stupidly thought that local boys would know the best places to eat.
I desperately wanted a pulled pork sandwich.
I stopped in Columbia well over an hour later than I had intended after being sidetracked by a couple of good ol'boys driving a primer-grey Pontiac with red doors and a spray-painted eagle on the hood. Again, SHOULD have set off alarm bells but didn't because I'm occasionally an idiot.
(And yeah, I remembered a lot of details about these two jackholes and their Piece O'Shit-Mobile. People who piss you off to just be petty are memorable.)
So that brings us here, to the bar of a club in Columbia outside the college district that promised food, drinks and music on their Yelp reviews. I went in, found a seat near the bar and pulled out my notebook. Writer Brain had kicked in and I wanted to grab my impressions of the place for a) practice and b) use in a later scene somewhere. It never hurts to have an interesting bar scene in your back pocket when writing. And I'd put at least ten pages of notes in this book so far today during my travels so I was just continuing what I'd been doing all day long up until then.
And please don't get me started on the research rabbit hole that is the internet! Nothing like wanting to grab a quick bit of info on the... I don't know... if a '54 Pontiac has two or three driving mirrors and surfacing six hours later with notes on the War of the Roses and how it affected trade with shogunate Japan during the Ashikaga Era.
But I digress.
Blinking, I beat down Writer Brain with a stick, realizing I'd gotten very focused and missed the appearance of the waitress. Which, in all due honesty, I shouldn't have because she was something else- about my height if you counted her hair, which was cut short(ish) and dyed a bright neon pink, a stark contrast to her dark skin. She wore what a quick glance around the room told me was the norm for the waitresses- short shirt tied under her well-endowed bosom, cut-off jean shorts a size too small, and cowboy boots.
"Ummm.. yeah. Hi." Again, me pulling out all the stops on the 'smooth and witty' parts of my personality. "I hear the pulled pork sandwich is pretty good. That still the case?"
Billie the Waitress soon presented me with a thick, meaty sandwich heaped with pulled barbeque pork and a small hidden layer of coleslaw next to a warm pile of fresh-cut fries and a bottled beer. The smell was divine, with each bite sending rivers of grease out the far side of the sandwich to patter-patter on the butcher paper serving as a plate. My original intention of eating slowly, savoring every bite, went straight out the window as I plowed through the sandwich with gusto. By the time I sat back, sopping up the drippings with the fries, felt more at ease, flipping my notebook open and jotting down a few more lines.
All around me, the evening was really starting. The room got more and more crowded, so I decided to give up my table and move to an open spot at the bar. I chatted with the other patrons and the bartender for a while before someone asked the inevitable question about my notebook and scribbling. I explained that I was a writer and took notes on interesting places and people to keep things fresh. When asked, I admitted that I had indeed been published and introduced myself fully. I honestly didn't figure this to be the sort of crowd who read my books, which was one of the reasons I stopped.
That's when the bartender stopped smiling and looked at me in a way that made me feel weird. I mean in a 'do I owe this guy money and don't know it' sort of way, not 'did I shoot this guy's dog in another life?'. Instead, he just turned away and called Billie back to the bar.
"I want you to take this guy over to 'The Hole' and jump the line. When he's done, stick your head in and tell Shondra..." Whatever he whispered to her shot her eyebrows up so high I thought her piercings got caught in her hair. In turn, she looked at me and grinned wickedly.
"You are going to make her night and ruin so many others studly," she declared, taking my arm and pulling me off the stool. Knowing better than to protest, I followed her around the dance floor to a non-descript door painted black near the DJ booth. The three men standing in line for the door without 'standing in line' (leaning on the wall, trying to look cool, not talking to each other, etc..) started to protest but quickly stopped when Billie fixed them with 'The Stare' and they all suddenly found someplace else to be.
