It’s always that second beer that gets you.

Joy could hear it in my voice. I wasn’t scared… I’m too lucky to get scared; I was just flustered.

It’s that second beer - the one right after the beer you have after the one you had after the last one. It’s the second beer that really gets you.

As if he was attempting to be stereotypical, he had a white crack head chick (a few dominoes short of a full set of dentures) sulking behind him. “Gimmy your money!”

Fuck that second beer. If it had been my first beer, the first beer, that is, after the last beer, I might have attempted to be reasonable with him. But, no, I had to take that second beer with me. I love it when someone offers you a plastic cup for a beer take out.

The bartender knew what he was doing. He saw the swagger in my step. He knew that the beer I just pounded was the first beer after the last beer. He was the one who closed my tab. He knew…

“This one’s on me.”

Staring at him through the Sammy Oktoberfest, fresh off the tap, I asked him, “why is this one on you?”

He didn’t answer. I missed the train. Some black kid with just enough crack to keep a whore in toe thought he could bow up to me.

If it had only been the first beer after the last beer I would be asleep by now, Cartoon Network my only lullaby, but no; there had to be the second beer.

“Hey Joy, I need to get across the river.” She probably thought that I was just drunk and being bitchy. Unfortunately there was another reason for the tone in my voice, that damn second beer!

I took the train to the central station. When I got there, I was supposed to switch trains. I got off, and saw the black kid in the hoody with his crack whore. I stepped off the train and watched him watch me. He stood between me and the train I needed to get on. “Gimmy your money!” Honestly, I was a little shocked. If I only had the first beer, I might have realized that I didn’t have any money. Of course, we know by now that this was not the case; I had the second beer. “Fuck you!” I yelled. He pulled a knife. We stared at each other. I thought about flexing my pecks, then I thought about how lame that would look, as I do not have pecks, then I noticed that the train behind me was about to leave. I backed onto it, and watched the kid through the closing doors. After a lot of heavy breathing, my train came back to the central station. The kid was not there anymore. I crossed to the train that would take me home, and waited. I waited. Then, I waited some more. I looked at my cell phone. 11:12 PM It was at this point that I saw the sign. “Trains hours: 6:00AM – 11:00PM Mon – Fri”

Fuck.

Because of the second beer I was still at the central station. I was across the river from my hotel. I started walking, and after I was thoroughly lost, I called Joy. My cell phone battery was dying. She probably thought I sounded like a little bitch.

“Hey Joy, I need to get across the river.”