The street was empty as he walked to the bar. The wind came in frigid gusts which sprayed his face with rain. Condom wrappers, fast food containers, disintegrating bits of yesterday's newspapers, spent vials of street pharmacology, cigarette butts and the collected grime of the polluted city all washed down the gutters in gray torrents of icy water. His boots crunched on the broken glass of countless discarded bottles of booze as he crossed the street towards the entrance.

You would miss it completely if you didn't know it was there. The bar had no sign or indicator that it was even an open establishment. The front of the joint was flat black and the door was not immediately visible. It had a tiny recessed handle that you had to locate before you could enter. Most of the locals didn't even know about it. In many ways, it truly was just a hole in the wall.

He pulled the heavy door open and red light spilled out onto the sidewalk. Conversations and blues music pierced the quiet street as he slipped through the opening. It was warm inside. The walls were crimson with black embellishments. Twisted limbs of leafless trees, crows and bats in flight, stalking cats, cobblestone roads and shacks stood in silhouette against the red walls. Paintings of black and white portraits hung on the walls at regular intervals like a collection of mug shots blown up to extreme size, the artwork of the month on display.

All around the bar, the young and depraved sat in conversation. Strange, youthful, intelligent, tattooed, pierced, stoned, shabbily dressed and drunken creatures surveyed each other with hungry eyes and engaged each other with sparring wits. He posted up on the end of the bar, closest to the whiskey, and took off his field jacket.

"How's it going, T? Maker's Mark," the bartender asked, "or Jack Daniels?" He was in his late twenties with a shaggy beard, worn flannel shirt, stained white tank top and a giant red circle tattooed on his forearm to cover up the name of his ex wife.

"Feeling like a Maker's night," T replied to the man. "I have some writing to do, Dan."

"You got it," Dan said as he sat a tumbler down and began to pour. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Wilco," T said as he got to work.

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