My Beer With George W. Bush

The thing I like about George is he’s the kind of guy you can have a beer with.

7:30 PM – George agrees to have a beer with me! We’re meeting at the Hightower Bar. I’ll get there early.

8:00 PM – George walks in right on time with a big Hello and promptly gives everyone in the bar 30 bucks each. The place goes wild! Awesome. This is going to be a great night.

8:05 PM – (George’s generosity must’ve gotten the best of him because he quietly borrows some cash from Harry Wong, a local manufacturer who sits in a darkened corner booth. But, hey, everyone’s having a good time. It’s worth it).

8:15 PM - George goes into the kitchen and makes them turn off the fan over the barbecue grill. Smoke fills the bar, and it's hard to breathe. People try to open windows, and we all get used to it.

8:30 PM - After a short time, I've had a couple of beers, and it’s really relaxed. We talk about all kinds of regular stuff that guys talk about, and everyone in the place is having a pretty good time.

8:34 PM – Everything is good.

8:35 PM – Some scary guy I’ve never seen before walks into the bar, punches George in the face for no apparent reason, and walks out. I think ‘what the f**k’ as George gets to his feet pretty shaken.
George goes outside to find the guy to give him the whoopin’ he deserves.

8:40 PM – George comes back in and says he can’t find him. I say relax, we’ll find him, lets have another beer. George grabs someone else sitting at a table and hauls off and belts him. I say whoaa, that’s Hassan who owns the Kwik Mart. He’s not the dude who hit you. George says that if Hassan had the chance he’d kill everyone in the bar. I’m like, I heard he’s an asshole, but are you sure? And he says I KNOW he would.

8:45 PM – Some goons I’ve never seen before, but look to be friends of George, drag Hassan out the door giving him a few extra shots to the gut for good measure. The mood is a little tense, but George announces loudly to the whole place that “it’s taken care of”. Just drink up, and go shopping tomorrow he says. We order another round.

10:00 PM – My friend Tony who I went to high school with says “Pssst” to get my attention and calls me over. I ask him what’s up. He says holy shit I just walked into the men’s room and there were some goons forcing a hooded guy to strip and masturbate while they took pictures of him. Blink. What?
They had a car battery hooked up to his balls!
George calls me back to the table as Tony disappears saying, if you gotta pee, go outside! I don’t see Tony after that.

10:30 PM – George says, see that blonde sitting over there, she’s an undercover agent for the CIA. I ask, if she’s undercover, shouldn’t it be a secret? He says it’s not a secret because he just told me.

10:45 PM – An Arabian man walks in wearing the full outfit. He and George walk together to the pinball machine and stand there holding hands. I think to myself, that’s weird.

10:55 PM - The bar owner announces the bar won’t be closing at the usual 11PM but will stay open until 2AM. Half the customers seem happy about it. Everyone else looks a little nervous. I ask George is he feeling a little hot in here? He says no - it’s just right.

11:00 PM – A big fella at the next table takes a bite of a chicken wing and keels over clutching his throat. I yell that he’s been poisoned or something. George says that Harry Wong makes those chicken wings so don’t worry about it.
Also, someone near the jukebox is being held down and water is being forced down his throat.

11:10 PM - I'm holding my pee in really hard because I'm afraid to go into the men's room.

11:15 PM – I almost have a heart attack when I hear a shotgun blast from the back of the bar. Tables go flying and all hell breaks lose. I can see through the panicked crowd that old man Crowley, the retired lawyer, has a face peppered with birdshot! Someone screams go f**k yourself Cheney!
George yells relax! He ain’t dead.

11:20 PM – There’s a crack of thunder, and it starts raining damn heavy outside. I’m already feeling uneasy when the men’s room door is kicked open and a friggin’ dead guy is carried passed me – his face all bruised and swollen. George says he hates to see that kind of thing, but one hand has to feed the other. I ask what that means. He says put another beer on you.

11:30 PM – It’s still raining real bad as George borrows more money from Harry Wong, and then, from a lot of other people.
I feel badly about not saying goodbye, but I decide to slip out, but I can’t because the door is locked. People are looking just plain scared now.

12:30 AM – The rain finally stops but the building must have some kind of a serious drainage problem because water comes pouring in from the back of the place like I’ve never seen before.

12:45 AM - Everyone scrambles to get the water out. I turn to ask George if he can find a bucket and help, but he’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere.
After that it’s just a whole lot of frantic people trying to bail the place out and lets just say it doesn’t go very well. Everybody collapses from exhaustion, and it’s pretty much a total loss. George walks in. I ask him where the hell were you? He says he left because he had to go clear some brush. Anyway, he says, there’s no more money. The front door that was locked most of the night is somehow not locked any more, and he just walks out and says he doesn’t think much about short term history.

2:00 AM – Closing Time!
Barack walks in. Everybody notices because, I’ll be honest, a guy like that doesn’t walk into a place like this very often.
He says, damn, this place is a mess. I say, yep. He says we have to stop that stuff that was going on in the men’s room. I say, no argument here. He says we’ve got to bail the water out, clean the place up and rebuild from scratch, And that we can’t just keep borrowing money from everyone. And if we all pitch in, we might be okay. And, oh yeah, the man who took the shotgun blast to the face should be taken to the hospital.
I say all that’s a tall order, professor, can we do it? He says we’ll try.
I say, darn, I should’ve had a beer with you. He says we better get straight to work. I say, good idea, I’ve had too much to drink already.