The man shrugged, but he popped the top of the can
one-handed and took a long pull. The
thin beer seemed to calm his nerves somewhat, as I find a familiar taste often
does. “I was trying to get to Library
bar,” he said after he swallowed. “It’s
the five year reunion for my frat – Xi class,” he added meaningfully. I hadn’t the faintest idea what this meant,
but I nodded understandingly.
After another pull, the man crunched the can in a meaty fist
and slid it back to me. I was surprised
by his speed, but I dropped it behind the bar and withdrew a second. “This was my high point,” he said
mournfully. “I mean, to be honest my
life has been pretty much in the crapper since college. Seeing all the guys again was all I’ve been
looking forward to.” He opened the
second beer without asking about the price.
I nodded again, doing my best to appear sympathetic. He sounded like the classic Flotsam type –
someone who didn’t have anything in the world, no ties or connections to
prevent him from being swept away. I had
heard variations of his tale too many times before to count. “What’s your name, friend?” I asked.
“Tommy Bach,” he said, holding out a hand. He had a firm grip, but I’ve had much
stronger fellows stumble into the bar, so I wasn’t put off. “My bros call me T-Dawg.”
“Tee dog?” I tried.
“Nah, it’s one word, more accent on the w. T-Dawg,” he repeated.
“Well, Tee Dawg, we might not be holding your reunion, but
you’ve still made it to a bar,” I said.
“Look on the positive side! What
were you looking forward to doing tonight?”
Tommy sat up from the bar and swiveled on his stool to look
around. Now, I’ll be the first to admit
that Flotsam doesn’t have a lot of high-tech gadgetry. Touch screens don’t respond well to claws or
paws, and the robots’ circuitry seemed to always interfere with the pinball
machines. We had a few large tables and
a couple of dart boards in a corner, but that was about the extent of
things. Most patrons focused on their
alcohol.
After a moment, Tommy’s brow furrowed. “Where’s the beer pong?” he asked, his
affronted tone suggesting that I had just kicked a small child.
I gave him a blank look.
I’ve had a lot of time behind the bar to practice this look, so it was
very blank indeed. “Beer pong?” he
repeated, and I carefully didn’t shift a single facial muscle.
“Oh man, you guys don’t have pong here? No wonder everyone’s so gloomy!” he cried,
sliding off the stool onto his feet. He
threw a hand across the counter. “Red
solo cups, dude. I need about twenty of
them.”
After a moment’s rummaging under the bar, I found the red
plastic cups he wanted and passed them over.
Somehow, the bar always seemed to have what I needed. I had never questioned it, just wrote it off
as one of Flotsam’s little quirks. Tommy
seized the cups and made for one of the large rectangular tables. He kept one stack of cups and slid a second
stack over towards the sole occupant at the far end of the table, a wide-eyed
teddy bear in a booster seat. Tommy
began setting up a triangle of the cups at his end of the table, and after a
moment of helpless confusion, the bear began to do the same at the opposite
end.
“Can I get a pitcher of water?” Tommy asked once the
triangle was complete. I filled a
plastic pitcher from the tap and slid it across to him. He filled each cup about a third full of
water, and then passed the pitcher over to the bear. The bear was forced to hold the pitcher with
both paws, but it managed to fill its cups without too much spillage.
By this time, quite a few of the other drinkers had begun to
gather around the table, curiously watching with their eyes, cameras, light
sensors, feelers, or other sensory equipment they possessed. Tommy wasn’t put off in the slightest; he was
in his element. “Balls, dude,” he called
out.
I looked down and saw a package of ping-pong balls sticking
out from the same shelf that had held the red cups. I tossed the pack to him, and he removed two
of the balls before returning it. Tommy
climbed on top of one of the chairs so he could see over most of the assembled
crowd.
“Rules,” he announced.
“You gotta throw from behind your edge of the table – no leaning, or
that’s a cup penalty. If you get it in
their cup, they have to take that cup away, and they have to drink. Once the ball bounces, it can be grabbed by
the other person. If it bounces off the
table, though, and lands in a cup, that counts as two cups they gotta
remove. If you make both your shots, you
get the balls back as well as clearing those two cups. If both shots go in the same cup, you get
balls back and they clear three cups.
Two re-racks – that is, two chances to, at the beginning of your turn,
ask for them to change the shape of the cups to whatever you want. Losers need to finish their drinks. Bear-” he pointed with his beer can at the
teddy bear across the table- “-you’re up first!”
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