Memories and Melodies

The bar was a dive. They tried to hide it with minimal lighting, but Damian thought the effort was in vain. Light didn't hide the fact that the tile floor felt coated in grime underfoot. Neither could it help the awful crooning that played on the jukebox.

At least the music is good, Inigo said.  He was still in control, and had Damian bobbing his head in time to the dreadful beat.

Ugh, Damian replied, I hate country.

It is not so bad, Inigo replied.  Besides, your women appear to enjoy it.

Damian's head swiveled toward the dance floor.  Even calling it a dance floor was generous.  It was simply a space where they hadn't set up tables.  Several scantily clad older women gyrated in the middle.  The clothes they wore might have looked at home on a girl half their age, but they obviously took pride in the fact that they could still rock a mini-dress.  Damian supposed they had a right to that opinion, since they were very obviously in good shape.  He was probably being unfair.

Cougars, he sighed.

What do felines have to do with anything? Inigo asked.

Damian chuckled.  His mind companion sometimes had difficulty with colloquialisms.  Then, he realized that they were just standing halfway from the entrance to the bar counter, grinning like a pair of idiots at the women.  One had already begun to smile back.

Just take us to the bar, Damian requested.  We're supposed to be destroying memories tonight, not creating more I'll wish to forget.

Inigo acquiesced and they glided across the room with far more grace than Damian thought he could manage had he been in control.  Not for the first time, he puzzled at why this was.  How would a fragment of his mind be able to coordinate his muscles better than he?  Why should it make a difference?  Nothing he'd studied about schizophrenia had shed any light on this.  In fact, most of it suggested that he shouldn't even be aware of his other consciousnesses.

Easing onto the wobbly wooden stool, Damian-Inigo turned to look at the row of gleaming taps.  If there was one good thing that could be said about the place: it carried a good variety of beer.  At the current point in time, though, there was no bar tender to be seen.

Just my luck, Damian whined.

Let me deal with this, Inigo said.

"Barkeep!" Damian-Inigo hollered.  "I desire ale!"

Several of the patrons turned to glare at the strange newcomer who was obviously already drunk.  Most, though, simply didn't hear.  Damian snickered at Inigo.  In previous centuries, maybe yelling for the barkeep would have worked.

Then, she appeared.  Spilling from beneath her classic stetson were dark ringlets of perfectly shiny hair.  Her skin was sun-darkened with an olive cast to it and her red lips shone like sin.  She wore an understated tank-top that bulged in all the right places, though only a modest amount of cleavage was exposed to the - though it was a smoke-free establishment - smoke-laden air.  Her jeans appeared to have been painted on, though most of the fun views were obscured by the half-apron she wore with the implements of her trade stuck in it: straws, napkins, a bottle opener, among other things.

Damian was willing to forgive her the cowboy hat.  Hell, he was willing to forgive her anything.  Quickly, he snatched back control.

Hey, Inigo whined.

Shut up, Damian replied.  Suddenly, I feel the urge to keep my memory.