A Wink and a Smile

We drank all night.

Me and he, the brothers three, the poet, the doctor and the runner of guns. Add to the clan the moppet, the rake, the cad and the flake, the gambler, the trucker and the weaver of thread. We were poor and still fighting, the war still inviting, the enlistees are enlisting again.

The shots we lined up on newspaper bins outside the silent auction kickstarted our devolution from checkbook patrons into that of weepy weepies, our eyes red from sobbing, our posture poor and sadly authentic for thus far into the ritual. We are a far different breed than the consortium of seal trainers and society hounds gathered inside the aquarium cum gallery behind us.

I began alternating servings of whiskey with cups of coffee, and discovered, if by chance, that no friend pays your tab without wincing. Even if he is a seal trainer with the most vile of crimes to his name.