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| - When Huxley recommended we go to Heist on Friday night, I was less than enthusiastic. We'd just finished watching the most recent episode of Girls, so Hux was really overwrought with placid angst and sexual energy. "Oh, come on," she said. "Don't be a downer. I wanna go out and make it a night." She said the word 'night' in that heavily inflected way of hers that lets me know with a drop of her eyes and the angle of her chin that this 'night' could involve anything.
I envisioned my girl all tweaked and wild and sweaty, possibly in some condition of undress, and most likely getting me at some point punched in the nose. "Okay, I'm in."
We sashayed into Heist like c-list movie stars. When Hux fires up, she really comes out: ankle-boot wedge heels, tight black leggings climbing shear up her fecund thighs, some oversized top strewn sloppily about her soft long torso, and all that hair there playin' round her shoulders like the gods in the box of the heathers in the vale.
Heist is a brew-hall, for sure. It's a brew-ha-ha. It's a gorgeous dungeon of a bar, replete with heavy wood that anchors all around you and seals you in, lavish lights and golden ornamentation, harsh acoustics lapping the same dull roar back and back on you like succeeding waves. In an instant, I sank into it. In an instant, I needed a beer. "This is me," I said to Hux, eyes alight with glitter and glean. "How did I not know?" She rubbed one tiny hand into my shoulder and led me forward through the room.
We ended up spending most of the evening at the downstairs bar. We elbowed and angled our way up to the black marble, visions aglance to all the beautiful people wilting and undulating all about, forearms crossed, eyes squinting to note the options on the little white drink placard before us. There were no clever names or silly mix-breeds here. This was beer, labeled as it is, stripped down, honest, and pure. "I'll have the IPA," I heard myself say seven or eight times in a row.
Some blond bird, a real horrorshow display of pixie sexiness at its most unbreakable, was shoving her face full of chicken wings at the opposite corner of the bar. As I watched her unabashedly suckle honey glaze from each twiggy fingertip, a comely waitress sauntered by, wooden slats of flatbread pizzas in each hand, and the aroma drifted hot behind her in a trail like savory smoke. I slung back my first drink fast and deep, then gestured in the blond pixie's direction with my chin. Hux glanced her way, narrowed her eyes, processed, and then her face softened into a lurid glare. "God, I love this place," I said to her. "Get me drunk," she replied.
Our man, our bartender man, was a handsome grizzly of a bloke, bald head, exquisitely manicured beard, dark and throaty, barrel-chested like a viking king. Women approached him like giddy schoolgirls. He had this way of shaking their hands, where he'd clasp each of theirs in one of his and bow and shiver in a little curtsy, and dear god those girls just ate it all up. Hell, so did I.
This ravishing songstress scampered by, raven-haired and goddess tall and all lean up and down and beneath and below the shimmering strands of her flapper gown. She met another girl, almost equal in design, and they alit in a white-hot embrace. They turned to me. "Can you take our picture?" they asked.
"I'll take all your pictures."
They kissed cheeks and kicked knees high and tilted their heads and flung their curls and I captured it all, each gesture, each wildly waving hand, down forever in a digital frame. "Are you lovers?" I asked.
"No, we just met."
I felt Hux grab my cheeks, hard and tight, her thumb and forefinger crushing my mouth in against my lower teeth. She twisted my face to meet her own. "What are you doing?" she said.
"Making new friends."
The two girls laughed and flashed out their neon bomb smiles and they grabbed Hux and hugged her and complimented her hair. "What are you drinking?" she asked them. "Anything," they replied.
Hux turned to me, lips apout, cheeks high and fiery. "Buy them drinks," she commanded.
After a few Oatmeal Stouts and Red Ales and way too many perfectly-formed novelty martinis, we and our two new friends were all exactly where we needed to be. Heist is a place to get drunk. It's a place that makes you get drunk; it forces you to. It pulls it over on you. I grabbed Hux deep around the waist, snatched her in, foul breath expelling hot between our faces. "I get it," I said to her in a leer, "Heist... it steals us." Hux rolled into my shoulder and purred furious at my chest. "You're silly," she mumbled into my sweater.
I stood there, my girl in my arms, drunk in my veins, blood in my heart, and all this noise and racket of lust and love pounding full and through me. I looked up to see the beautiful barrel of a bartender watching us and grinning. I nodded to him. "What's your name, man?" I asked.
"I'm Stefan."
"Stefan," I said. "Thank you, sir. I have a feeling we'll be seeing you again soon."
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