prose

A Pirate in Disguise

Depending on which direction you’re traveling, our street is one block past Sunshine St. But the direction of approach is important. One block past Sunshine from the wrong direction and you end up in front of a long line of apartment complexes, the check cashing place, the laundromat Señor Burbujas, and the shady liquor store my wife is scared to go into. There is also a dive bar called Catfish Charlie’s.

I thought it might be a fish market or a sporting goods store at first, but when I finally got the courage to enter and explore all I found was a dingy hole in the wall that smelled like a recycled ashtray. The two guys sitting at the bar each had an eyepatch. What was the chance of that? I wondered briefly if Catfish Charlie’s was actually a pirate bar, which would explain a lot.

The inside of the place was greasy, smokey, sticky. It felt if someone actually lit a cigarette the entire place might ignite, including the two dirty pirates bellied up to the bar. At least the bartender had two eyes. But upon closer inspection one was a glass eye that seemed to be pointed in the wrong direction, like a pirate in disguise.