Swill.

First time I went into town at night, me and Snitz went to The Swill.

Swill was the most recent underage hangout. Back then it was difficult enough to get a pint at sixteen, but the odd bar would chance serving youngsters for a while before getting caught, or more likely, they were planning on not renewing their license so it didn’t matter a fuck for the month or two they’d remain open.

The Swill was such a bar. Whispers spread around about some place. I only got to go the once.

This time it was me and my buddy heading out to town for drinks – no older cousin or friend’s brother ‘chaperone’.
The Swill was a small enough, run down enough square room, upstairs on the corner of a building overlooking the street from small windows both sides. The walls were painted dark yellow as well as nicotine stained. The bar was dirty and old, but the room seemed to take on a hue of delightful peach to me as I ordered, from the exquisite bartop, two of the cheapest – bottles of san miguel. Never have seen them in this country before or since.

But what really shook me about the place was the girls. Girls I’d been to school with until age twelve, girls I knew from the school down the road. Girls I’d see out and about during the week or hanging out in the evening and weekends. Girls. Girls? Girls no longer! These were women creatures all around us.
Women, sipping alcoholic beverages with style, class and sass – like they’d been frequenting trendy cocktail bars for years.
Women with made up faces; huge sparkling eyes, brilliant strings of pearls shining the from the dark ruby drapes of parted lips, then pouting out to grace a cheek in a flirtatious playful formality I’d only before witnessed on television.
Figure-hugging dresses and skirt/top combos cut low to show off something I’d never imagined were beyond these women… eh, girls’ clothing until then.

A beer dangling in one hand, the other snaking around an old classmate, eyes peering into batting lids, this was a level of sophistication never dreamed of.

Of course, we were playing ‘grown-ups’, but it was new, it was exhilarating it was an eye-opener to say the least; and it was fun. The best.

I got tipsy but not drunk.
Snitz led me a new way to the last bus, through a dark arch/alleyway.
A bum lay seeking slumber under cardboard covers. His cup lay by his head to catch coin while he slept, his bottle, no doubt tucked safely by his chest.