Chapter 6: The Bar       The Old Philadelphia Bar was an odd, but usual sight to behold for The Occupant. Despite growing up in a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia, The Occupant had never quite belonged to Philadelphia’s working class. His parents were not rich, but they had come from outside the city, and had some modicum of education. The Occupant had never gotten the shit kicked out of him when the Eagles lost, so he could never truly be a Philadelphian, despite his birthplace.         Florescent lights blazing dimly during the early morning hours, the center bar was an island unto itself. Behind it lay glass bar refrigerator cases, stocked with a wide variety of shitty domestic beers and classless imports. This was a bar designed for people who thought a bucket of Heineken was a classy night out on the town. The Occupant simultaneously reviled the classlessness of the bar, and his own false sense of superiority over the classless bar clientele.         The steamy scent of warm hot-dog water filled the air with its meaty musk, as the crock-pot in the corner, full of water and free hot-dogs, steamed on with the infinte promise of free food for all. It was uncertain if anybody ever had, or would, eat those hot-dogs. But, like all things in life, they were there for the taking. As long as you had enough ambition.         Standing behind the bar was a sweet looking Kenzo of indeterminate age. A shaggy blonde-haired women who was either young-looking 55 or a decrepit-looking 35-year old. You can never tell with Kenzos. The constant exposure to cigarette and crack smoke aged them like charcuterie.         Sweet as honey emulsified with tobacco tar, she perked up when she saw The Occupant.         “How’s it going, dear?” She croaked. The Occupant was regular enough to be known by her, but withdrawn enough for her to know nothing substantial about him. Just his usual in-house preference of bottom-shelf gin mixed with tonic in a pint glass, and his to-go preference of seemingly randomly chosen 6-packs of mass produced generic pilsners and lagers.         Fortifying himself with false perkiness and zest for life, he smiled at her, making an effort to look her in the eye for just a moment. His eye met hers, and he gazed into it for a moment, just long enough for him to pretend to be human.         “May I have a 6-pack of Rolling Rock, to go?”         Dry, delicious, effervescent Rolling Rock. Brewed out of Old Latrobe, in glass-lined fermentation tanks, it presented the clean, dry taste of an extra-pale lager. Or at least that was what The Occupant had read on the back of the bottle.         Smiling back at him with her craggy, pock-marked face, she leaned down into the reach-in to procure the 6-pack for him. As she did, The Occupant noticed how her ample, saggy breasts hung low in her v-neck t-shirt, and immediately felt a modicum of sexual arousal. Immediately after he felt it, he felt somewhat pathetic for having such an engaging sexual impulse towards such a filthy, deplorable Kenzo. Immediately after he felt pathetic, he felt guilty for judging a woman based on her age, appearance, and birth. It was a real, odd mixture of emotions to feel when one was doing something as simple as ordering a 6-pack of shitty beer.         “Six Seventy Five” She spoke as he reached into the back left pocket of his pants to procure the payment. The occupant pulled out a messy wad of mis-folded bills and various cards, fumbling through them to find the amount of bills he would need to complete his purchase. He did not own a wallet, as he did not believe in putting all of his eggs into one basket. Awkwardly pulling the necessary bills from his crumpled wad of cash, he stumbled his way upon to a single five and four ones. He handed them over to the oddly-arousing Kenzo of indeterminate age, and refused change as he began to leave the bar.         It was then that he heard an Ancient Rumbling Sound. Deep and Thunderous, it shook with a ferocity all too familiar to the Occupant. He felt it deep down in his viscera, down in his innermost guttural organs, protruding towards his colon. His anal  sphincter tightened in anticipation of inevitable deluge. Had he been a simple Kenzo, he would've rushed towards the bar’s bathroom, or perhaps shit himself without repentance. But the occupant came from a Higher Class of Society. He asked:         “May I use your bathroom?”         The question was not needed, a mere formality, at best. The Shaggy Blonde Bartender pointed him towards a corner in the dark recesses of the bar, a place he already knew intimately. He dreaded his entry.         The entrance to the bathroom was an old-fashioned swinging saloon door. Whoever had thought to design it that way must of had a sick sense of humor, or perhaps, more likely, a distrust of the possible activities patrons would partake of in such private quarters. Kenzos did love pills and powders, and often consumed them in copious amounts when given access to bathrooms with doors that locked. Regardless, it entailed little privacy, as a man standing at the entrance could look down upon another seated at the single toilet, and stare in judgement of the repulsive act.         The occupant entered the bathroom stall, feeling the pending pressure build in his bowels. Quickly pulling down his pants, he sat himself squarely on the chilly white toilet seat, and stared over the top of the saloon doors, hoping nobody would pass by and look in. Although the urge to evacuate the contents of his colon was insatiable, he resisted immediate gratification. Shame and modesty had gotten the best of him, and he knew that every sound and sputter he made would be a sonorous thunder, echoing throughout the nearly empty bar.         Slowly, and with Spartan restraint and discipline, he unclenched his sphincter, letting force a small trickle of completely liquid, and extremely hot, brown fluid. To an impartial outside observe, it may have sounded simply as though he had sat down to urinate. As he continued the shameful act of forced and partially-public defecation, small amounts of gas came with liquid, sounding off in sharp spurts and stutters, oddly arrhythmic as he attempted to regulate his output via control over his external anal sphincter. Feeling great shame towards his body’s natural excretion of waste, he debated his options. He could shit out everything all at once, it would be loud and noticeable, or he could continue upon his path of forced moderation, and it would be slightly less loud, but still noticeable, and take considerably more time.         Opting for the latter, he let go of all restraint, sacrificing dignity for instantaneous gratification. A seemingly relentless torrent of loose and liquid stool voided itself from his bowels, splashing down into the water with such violent force that he felt a few drops of liquid shit rebound onto his scrotum. It produced a loud and lustrous cacophony, foul-smelling guttural flatulence, splashing, squirting and trickling, but the relief he felt from the lack of pressure in his bowels was nearly orgasmic. He no longer had a burden to bare.         The relief that he felt was short lived though, as, when he looked to his right to find toilet paper, he saw a roll that was nigh-exhausted. Four single sheets left, to clean up after such a tremendous mess. Worse yet, they were single ply.         Removing two of the four remaining sheets, he folded them in half, and then halved them again. As he shifted his weight towards his left side, he lifted up his right buttock, and proceeded to wipe from back to front, despite knowing damn well that he should be wiping in the opposite direction. As paper met mostly liquid excrement, it was quickly absorbed and the paper overwhelmed. Discarding the used TP, he repeated the process with the last two sheets, and was still nowhere close to being clean.         Gazing sadly at the barren brown card-paper tube that had once been a bounty of fresh white paper sheets, The Occupant evaluated his options. He could further his shame and indignity by calling for help from the bartender, or he could use his enterprising spirit to make due with what he had. Desperation gave birth to resourcefulness, and he began to deconstruct the toilet paper tube as best he could.         Peeling off the spiral of brown-paper, he used it to coarsely rub the loose stool off of his anus. He felt little chunks of semi-solid feces here and there, but mostly sought after the vast amounts of fecal liquid that temporarily absorbed into his ass-hairs. He scrubbed roughly for a few moments, and finally decided that he was about as clean as he would ever get via that via this unsavory methodology.         As he pulled up his began to pull up his pants and stand, a large, red-faced Kenzo suddenly appeared on the other side of the saloon doors, looking not in towards the bathroom, but apparently finishing his his conversation with another bar patron, as he laughed and nodded, towards an unseen person, completely unaware of the occupancy status of bathroom. As he casually pushed through the saloon doors he turned his head to look towards his destination, and was greeted with the unwelcome sight of The Occupants naked crotch hovering above a porcelain bowl of shit.         His initial reaction was instinctual; his nose crinkled up and his brow furrowed into a contemptuous sneer of disgust at this pathetic display of biological necessity. What was worse was how quickly he changed his face and mannerisms. He immediately raised his eye-brows and tilted his head back, and put up both of his hands, palms facing forward, backing off apologetically. “Sorry bud, I didn’t know you were in there.”         The stark dichotomy between the Kenzo’s conscious and unconscious actions were particularly humiliating and painful for the Occupant. The Kenzo’s had no mind to offend or judge The Occupant, and was as polite as was appropriate, given the situation. But deep down, on the instinctual level of his reptilian brain, he looked down upon the Occupant and his situation with deep-seeded loathing and revulsion.         The Occupant felt so low and pathetic in this situation that he hard a time gathering the gumption to stutter out a response. “I-It’s ok.”         The Kenzo quickly extricated himself from the situation, and the occupant flushed away his shame and washed his hands.         Deciding that a mere 6-pack of mass-market pilsener would not be enough to wash away the indignity of the preceding events, The Occupant took a seat next to his takeout beer, and attempted to make eye contact with the bartender. It did not take long for her to notice his shy gaze. She came over to him with a pleasant smile on her face. “Can I get you anything else, honey?” “May I please have a gin and tonic?”         Old Philadelphia Bar was a truly Blue-Collar bar. It’s clientele consisted largely of overweight Union members, rail-thin independent contractors, and pouchy, shallow-eyed indolents who had spent the past 20 years on Social Security Disability. As was such, the clientele mostly ordered massive amounts of Budweiser and Yuengling Lager. Sometimes they would order citywides, the ubiquitous Philadelphian combination of a PBR pounder and shot of shitty well whisky or bourbon, usually Old Crow or Heaven Hill, but sometimes, God Forbid, Bankers Club. But nobody ever ordered gin and tonics. It served as an immediate, yet subtle indicator to any observant Kenzo that he was not from around these parts. But that didn't matter, despite their gruff exteriors, and dangerous dispositions when they were drugged out of their minds on opioids or crack, they were among the most welcoming and friendly people he had ever met. Kensington was a real fucking shit-hole, but it was one of the last places in Philadelphia that was a true community, still largely untouched by the influx of edgy sub-urbanite Art Students, ever ready to showcase their blasé about living in a dangerous neighborhood to their friends who still lived back in the ‘burbs.         Regardless, what happened next was very predictable, as The Occupant had seen it happen nearly every time he had ordered this particular drink. Do to the infrequency of it being ordered by all the regulars, they did not have tonic available on their soda gun, but instead kept in in unopened 1-liter bottles kept in their cold storage. As every who drinks enough Gin and Tonics knows, the unopened bottle of tonic is perhaps the most explosively carbonated of all beverages, prone to erupting violently if the cap it twisted off too suddenly. He felt as though he should warn her, he had seen her make the exact same mistake nearly every time he had ordered this drink, but he also felt as if that would be presumptuous, and perhaps imply that he knew better than her. So he remained silent and conflicted.         She filled a pint glass with ice from the well, and, with a heavy hand, poured at least five ounces of Fortis gin into it. She then bent over and and searched for the rarely used bottle of tonic water that was kept in the reach-in. Finding it after a brief search, she held it up at chest level, and quickly unscrewed the cap, and as the plastic seal broke, thin spurts of highly pressurized tonic spewed forth, drenching her hands and soaking her shirt, along with the cleavage the low-cut v-neck shirt revealed. “Aw Fuck!” she said to herself in an extremely pissed off tone, but at a very subdued and restrained volume. “That always happens to me.”         She completed the beverage by topping it off with the tonic, and garnishing with a lime that looked so desiccated and dry that The Occupant suspected that it had probably been cut several days ago. The bartender then asked him for three dollars. That was one of the reasons the occupant had loved this place. The amount of gin in the drink would’ve amounted to about three 5-dollar gin and tonics at any other bar, amounting to at least 18 dollars when you included tip, but here he got the same amount of liquor a single 5 dollars, including a healthy tip.  The occupant often spent time thinking about the cheapest possible way to get drunk.         Sucking down the sweet quinine laden liquor provided him with the first true pleasure of his day. Bitter, slightly sweet, and with a dash of effervescence, it provided proper palliative care to his case of incurable self-incarceration. Gin and tonic always has been a medicinal beverage.         Smelling the acerbic tinge of old limes perked him up a bit. He sipped upon it, and then took and honest gulp, and felt briefly like a sophisticated brit dwelling among savages during the height of the empire. But that is the nature of drink preferences, they serve nothing more than to give you an artificial sense of superiority to those who surround you, when in reality, you want to get drunk just as badly as those who are around you.         There were very few people in the bar, which is the way The Occupant typically liked it. The Kenzo who had been there earlier seemed to have exited at some indeterminate point in the past, and although a few drunks still dwelled and milled around, it was mostly empty. Time was, and always had been, immutable in certain ways, but that didn't matter. The Occupant desired to nothing more than to be alone after a certain amount of time, and his time had been well spent at the Old Philadelphia Bar, so he decided to walk out.