Two Men Walk Into a Bar

Two Men Walk Into a Bar

Author’s Notes: School assignment.
All of us had to write prompts and then give our prompts to the person sitting
three chairs from us. There are two of these, the
other one is called ‘Runaway.” This prompt was to use the opening line ‘two men
walk into a bar’, it had to be a father and son and they had to be talking
about some life changing issue. I kind of fucked with it.

          The two men walked into a bar, but the subway train had
been too dark to see it, so they simply laughed together, and grabbed at the
silver pole as the train turned down a corner and the overhead lights flickered.
The train was otherwise empty except for an old lady who was asleep and snoring
loudly, a single can of peas clutched in her hand (1).

          “So, you’re finally going to be a father?” The older man
said, fiddling with his pink and white checkered baseball hat. His son beamed
up at him.

          “I can’t believe it, Steph (2)
and I have been trying for so long!” Jessy said
excitedly.

          “Yeah,” his father said wistfully, “Having a kid is a full
time job, but I know that you’ll be a wonderful
father,” he patted his son on the shoulder as a sparrow flew overhead and the
lights flickered again. The old woman looked at them suspiciously with one open
eye and clutched her can of creamed corn (3) tighter.

          “I hope that I’ll be as good as it as you,” class=SpellE>Jessy said, feeling tears prickle at the corner of his
eyes. The train rumbled on, shaking them back and forth and someone started to
play a banjo in the back of the train.

          “You will,” his father said with a confident grin. class=SpellE>Jessy hugged him tightly, ignoring the snake that was
curled up on the seat next to them, looking annoyed at being on such a noisy
train.

          “You’re so grown up, now!” His father exclaimed and hugged
his son tighter. A bee with long, thin tentacles buzzed past (4).

          “I’ll always be your little boy, daddy,” class=SpellE>Jessy exclaimed. It was then that the old lady had had
enough and threw her can of candied beets at them.

          Jessica awoke in the darkness and groaned.

          ‘I have got to stop eating pineapple pizza before bed,’ she
thought and glared at Steph as she slept fitfully
next to her. Jess wondered if gerbils had strange dreams, too. (5)

style='mso-list:Ignore'>(1)           
There are class=GramE>several homage’s in this story. This one is to class=GramE>Jacob’s Ladder and The Mist.

style='mso-list:Ignore'>(2)           
Another Mist
reference/homage.

style='mso-list:Ignore'>(3)           
If you’ve read through
the entire thing, then you know that this is not a mistake. The creamed corn is
something that my uncle Bob eats every time he comes over and yes, it’s from
the can and it’s disgusting.

style='mso-list:Ignore'>(4)           
Another Mist
reference/homage, not exactly like the bugs from the book, but that’s what I
thought of when I wrote that part.

style='mso-list:Ignore'>(5)           
My cousin has a
gerbil named Steve that used to sleep on his pillow every night back when he
was single. Now Steve has a very large tank all of his own with plenty of
little gerbil toys