Oregon Tavern Age: VR

A kid sat at the lacquered wooden bar at the South Jetty Bar drinking a shot of something blue on a gray afternoon. His true face was reflected in the Bud Light mirror of the type that hung In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. His true face was etched OTA.

I sat a few feet away at a lacquered wooden table that used to rest in a galley of fishing boat. I love to write at this table and imagine the stories and shots and arm wrestling and clandestine fishermen french kisses swapped across the lacquer during dangerous seas.

The kid sipped the shot and launched into a story to the chef, who had absolutely nothing to do because the kid and I were the only ones in the joint besides the bartender. The story went something like this: the kid was playing a virtual reality shooter game while someone performed fellatio on him. He was drunk and looped on cough syrup and ended up walking naked into the back yard (goggles still on), but didn’t recall doing so. Someone found him an hour later, around midnight, and escorted him inside. He woke up playing the game.

He laughed and finished the shot. He ordered another one. The chef smiled and shook his head. The kid was just being the kid. The chef had heard it all before.

I laughed, picked up a Keno pencil and Keno card, and went to work, but not at Keno.

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