The group went to Coney Island, stocked up on Nathan's, and then quickly retired to Ruby's, a wonderfully decayed bar that is covered wall-to-wall with pictures from Coney's finer days. Today the place is deep down market, and the owners could be evicted any day.
And frankly, when we got to the boardwalk I was wondering where the Coney magical realism of yore (being seven years ago) had gone. It had started raining outside, and the planks that looked charmingly warped looked like they could bust open under your fatness at any second.
Inside Ruby's, the juke was too loud, blasting some Adrenalize-era Def Leppard. The first booth we tried to grab smelled like a dead animal, and the second one smelled like a bum and the third one was tolerable.
But soon enough, the whole shack shimmied. The juke switched to Ray Charles, and the place flooded with people of every demographic in from the rain. There was the middle-aged salsa dancing senoras, each bearing a resemblance to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Returns. An old latin dude rocking the eff out to "Don't Stop Believin'," and white people who were far too cool to acknowledge the Journey but sang along to the Counting Crows.
Gabriel and I played "How Did That Douche End Up With She?" and K-Dubbins outlined possible financing option for her new play. Damn Wifus dispensed sober, bosom-ey advice. I told tales about what I saw in Ruby's horrid bathroom.
Everyone was taking pictures, which gave me cover to rip off the roll below. If the pic looks unclear, don't worry, it will be gone in a second.
I had one more beer than anyone else, so I will close by hoping I did not annoy the life out of any of the assembled luminaries. My only defense is that when I got up to get my last beer, I met the white lab pictured. If you look closely at this muzzle, you can still see pink traces where the hoochie momma kissed him.
He played it off well.
