It was eleven o’ clock when Gill floundered through the swinging old-style wood doors of the taproom with a loud {kathunk}. He waltzed his way through the teeming crowd with a girl in each arm. In his left arm, he held, as she liked to be called, the Lovely Lover Loretta. She was plastered with makeup; a true cake-face. Bleeding red lips, large blue stains where her eyes ought to be. It was as though someone took a fistful of blueberries in each hand and mashed them in the middle of her head. Her masquera was running too. She probably spilled booze on herself while downing shots like a genuine sailor. It made her look like she had been crying, and, to tell the truth, most normal people would if they had been that boozed up. Loretta had long blonde hair – for the most part. The back of her head revealed a large portion that had just been awkwardly clipped off. Its fate remains a mystery.

In Gill’s right arm, he held the ever so risqué and recherché redhead Rachel. She was exhibiting light, probably blue, greatly dilated eyes. It was ambiguous as to whether or not you could even call what she was wearing {clothes}. Both Loretta and Rachel were glommed onto Gill like crazed Twilight fans to Taylor Lautner.

“Alright, lovelies, why don’t you say we hit the bar? Drinks on me, as per usual, ja?” Gill drunkenly inquired.

“Oh, drinks on you, eh?” Rachel asked through a fit of giggles. “Why not? I’m sure Loretta would be more’n willing to catch a few drinks, if you’re feeling my drift.” Loretta exhaustedly tittered, signaling her agreement – at least that was how it was interpreted. So the trio clumsily sashayed their way to the barstools. Luckily, there were three seats all next to each other. Gill had to guide Loretta to her seat to ensure she did not hurt herself on the way. Rachel was still functioning well enough that she could ease herself into the stool without assistance. Gill sat in between the two feeling quite cozy. He was the least inebriated. Over the course of his college years he had developed quite a tolerance for alcohol.

“Bartender, a round of Guinness hither, please.” The bartender nodded his understanding.

“{Hither}? Really?” Rachel sneered.

“But of course. I’ve always been a bit of a renaissance man,” Gill countered.

“Yeah, a real Jack of all trades!”

“Ace.”

“I wasn’t making the card analogy.” Rachel grinned at her own cleverness.

Gill purred to himself, “Oh, well aren’t you a naughty one?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Rachel then lowered her voice, “But when it comes to Loretta, you don’t know the half of it.”

Gill gleefully quirked an eyebrow. It looked as though he was about to say something, but was interrupted by three glasses of Guinness hastily sliding down the counter.

Gill announced this to his comrades by shouting, “My goodness! My Guinness!” He grabbed his Guinness sliding down to him and immediately stood up and out of his stool. He spun around for a second; by some miracle he was still retaining his balance. He climbed onto his barstool, standing up on it, he shouted to the rest of the bar, “Alright lads! What do you do when you’re drunk?” No one paid any attention to him. He recognized this and died a little inside. He asked again, “Hey! I’m talking here! I says, what do you do when you’re drunk?” Gill then took a large swig of his Guinness.

Loretta was the only one to speak out, “Drink more!” She almost laughed her way out of her seat. The bartender began his slow dread walk over to where Gill, Loretta, and Rachel were seated. With each heavy step he took the taproom seemed to shake and rattle. The walls slowly closed in, as though they were trying to squeeze the fun and life out of the room. Loretta saw everything turning blue of hypoxia.

“Sir, exactly how inebriated do you think you are?” asked the bartender. Gill was more just being himself than anything else. He had consumed more than a couple pints that night, but he was extremely tolerant of alcohol and was less inebriated than he let on. Gill elected to have a little fun with this bartender.

“Bro, I’m as sober as a donkey,” Gill falsely hiccupped.

“Right… Lookie here pal. You’re a li-a-bility to this establishment. Need me to spell it out for you?”

“No sir. I can spell just fine. L-I-E-A-H-B-I-L-L-I-T.”

“Wrong. Now if you don’t sober up or simmer down, I’m going to have to call the bouncer. See that large, husky fellow over there? Yeah, that’s the bouncer. I don’t think you want to p*** {him} off.”

“I’ll let it simmer.”

“You do that.” The bartender walked back to his alcohol dispensers and resumed his job of pouring drinks. However, he continued to keep a careful eye on Gill and the gang. Gill sat up and cajoled the Lovely Lover Loretta and the risqué and recherché Rachel into stepping up out of their stools.

“You know what’d be fun, lovelies?” Gill asked.

“Was that a rhetorical question?” asked Rachel. Gill waved off the question.

“What’d be fun?” Loretta asked in a squeaky sort of way. She then giggled. Gill knew she had one too many glasses. He was certainly not disappointed by that.

“Dance a jig, perhaps? It’d be a work out,” he winked.

“Oh Gill, there are other ways to get exercise without embarrassing ourselves,” Rachel said softly.

“Oh, such as?”

“Well, jogging, biking, swimming, and unicycling, to name a few.”

Gill was nodding his agreement when Loretta chimed in through a cracking voice, “Well I, for one,” she paused and regained her footing, “would love to jig about.” Loretta began a pitiful attempt to maneuver her feet in whatever her view of jig-like was, and was rewarded with a test of gravity. This stumble led her to wave her arms in the air like a hooligan as the Earth’s gravity yanked her off her feet and she came crashing down. The reverberations knocked down and spilled the rest of Gill’s Guinness. {That was strong. Either this building is very fragile, or she is just very dense}, thought Gill. Loretta’s drunken laughter spluttered through her lips along with particles of spittle and booze.

The bartender came marching over, “Alright, alright. That’s enough of that now!” He glared scornfully at Gill, and then shouted across the room, “Bouncer! Get him and his companions, out of my taproom!”

“My pleasure,” said the big Bouncer, happy to be doing his job. He practically glided over to where Gill, Loretta (still lying on the ground), and Rachel were glassily staring at him. He said to Gill, “Alright, come on big guy. Let’s get you out of here.”

“What if I don’t wanna?” Gill indignantly countered.

“Well that don’t matter, ‘cause you’re gonna have to.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Rachel contributed, “Look, Gil, maybe we should just do what he says. I mean, this seems to be the sort of situation that could turn south real quick.”

Gill retorted, “Well hold on a ‘sec. I came here to have a good time. And I intend to do just that.”

“In that case, I just may have to forcibly remove you.” The bouncer began to crack his knuckles in a rather threatening manner. It was more of a gesture to reassure himself rather than to intimidate Gill.

“Yes, you may have to do just that,” Gill responded eerily. He had a certain primitive glint in his eye, which seemed to suggest he was getting in the mood for a fight. His facial features deadened and all jollier self was but a ghost. His hands began twitching and his feet were starting to move, getting a little restless.

“Forcibly removed it is,” the bouncer said in an almost lighthearted voice; something in his tone, though, seemed to suggest he knew that this would be the outcome all along. The bouncer began to walk towards Gill and Gill started to move back, keeping his distance.

Gill was never a man to be pushed back too much. He was dominate, authoritarian, and proud of it. It was only so far until the bouncer pushed Gill back to the point where Gill refused to be pushed. In a fit of drunken rage, Gill raised one dark-blue clad leg folded in front of him. Then, he lashed his foot out in an attempt to hit the bouncer squarely in the chest, and plop him right on the ground. However, the bouncer had had experience with this before and simply side stepped to the right, out of the way, while he raised his left elbow and brought it crashing down on Gill’s extended leg.

Gill neither said nor wore anything but a pained expression. He dropped his guard and hobbled over on one leg to Loretta and Rachel.

The bouncer understood that Gill was abandoning the fight as Gill said to Loretta and Rachel, “That’s going to leave a mark.” Then he clicked his tongue twice in quick succession. He was in a lot more pain than he let on. He wrapped his right arm around Rachel, his left around Loretta to use them as crutches. Together the proudly drunk trio stumbled out of the taproom and into the cold grey night, with nothing but liquor to warm their bellies.

The next morning, Gill woke up Rachel with a flurry of colorful language as he realized the extent of his injury. And so Gill began his perilous trek to the Doctor’s office.