The Bar

Hi. My name is Jerry McBrian, and I’m about to tell you a story about how my life was taken over by drunk people. It all started when my dad decided to take me to the local bar. “You're not a real man in Brighton until you’ve come to the Brighton Bar”, he said. And he was right. Every grown man in Brighton had gone to the Brighton Bar at least ten times. But to be honest, I wasn’t that excited. Some of the kids at Brighton Elementary have been there a few times, and they said it was the most chaotic place they had ever been to. They said that there’s always at least twenty drunks roaming around, and that was only on a Tuesday.

I’ve always gotten this weird feeling when I’m near drunk people, like something bad is going to happen. But my dad always says “You'll be fine, as long as you stay near me.” And don’t get me wrong, I know he’s right. But it’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially when the place has over one-hundred people in it.

I usually do pretty well in these sort of situations. But this time, not so much. My dad said he was just going to run to the bathroom, and he told me to wait right by the bathroom door. So I did. But I wasn’t very happy about it. Everyone around me was either drinking beer, or already drunk. So you can probably imagine what I was feeling. And if you can’t, I’ll tell you: SCARED. VERY, VERY SCARED. “Are you almost done?” I said, “Almost. Just hang in there. You’ll be fine.” I wanted to say otherwise, but I decided that I would just listen to him. Well, I can say that that was one of the worst decisions I have ever made in my entire life.

After four to five minutes of waiting, three drunk men started to walk in my direction. I was hoping that they were just going to talk to someone else, but I was wrong. “Hey! H-how are, uh, you, um, uh, doin’?”. “Um, good, I guess.” “That’s, uh, uh, say, what are you doin’ here all by your, uh, self?”. “Actually, my dad’s just in the bathroom. I’m just waiting for him.” “Ah, I seeeeee. Well, why don’t, um, why don’t me and, uh, my friends, um, just take you to our place, and will, uh, cook up some, um, grub?”. Now, I know that most people would probably sprint away at this point, but I didn’t really have much of a choice. My dad was in the bathroom, so if I ran away, I would probably never find him in that sort of crowd. And even if I wanted to run, I wouldn’t be able to because these guy’s beer bellies were in the way. “Uh, I think I’ll go get a drink. Could I, just, uh, get through--”Oh no you don’t! We’re gonna have some fun!”.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was being taken to three drunk people’s house, while my dad was probably out of the bathroom looking for me in a bar that had at least one-hundred people in it. “Here we, uh, are!” When we walked up to the house, I expected it it to be small and trashed. But these guys must have been rich, because their house was huge. It was about three times bigger than my house, not including their huge outdoor pool. They even had this gigantic garden that had a mini waterfall with a golden fountain. “Here it is! Home sweet, uh, home!”. I was in complete awe. When I think of really drunk people, I think of people that spend all of their time at the bar, and because of that, live in a tiny little house with holes in the roof. But, I guess I was wrong, because these people were the exact opposite.

When I walked into the house, I was even more amazed. The entire ceiling was covered in gold, and the floor was made of pure polished porcelain, speckled with dots of silver and gold. They also had a golden fountain inside in the middle of the house. This place was fancy enough for the Queen of England to live in. “Well, what do you, uh, think?”. I didn’t know what to say. “It’s, it’s--”Amazing?!”, one of them said in an absurdly loud voice, “Yeah. Amazing.”

It was weird. One part of me never wanted to leave, but another part of me wondered what my dad was thinking. For all I knew, he could’ve thought I was dead. I thought it through while I also tried to take in the awesomeness of the house. But there was one thing I didn’t get: if they had an awesome, huge house like this, why would they spend all of their time at the bar? I thought about asking them, but then I figured that I would wait until they were sober, or at least sober enough to take me seriously.

“So, uh, what’s your uh, name?”. “Um, Jerry. W-what about you guys?”. I couldn’t believe I was actually having a conversation with these guys. “Well, my name’s, uh, Tom. And he’s, uh, he’s Jim. And he’s, he’s, uh, Hank.” To be honest, I was surprised that they could even remember their names.

“Well, uh, we better get to, uh, our sober machine.” , “Your what?”, “Our sober machine! Haven't, uh, you, uh, ever heard of one?”. And without letting me answer, they left. But I had to see what they were talking about, so I followed them. And when I found them, I saw something that, at first, looked completely stupid. It almost looked like they tried to build an elephant out of metal, but completely failed. But when I got a closer look at it, I saw something that kind of looked like a door. And sure enough, all three of them walked right into it. At first it didn’t make any noise, but then it started to make a sort of humming sound, and then that turned into a growling sound. And when they came out, they looked and sounded completely different. The machine must have changed their clothes, because when they came out, they were all wearing tuxedos and top hats. They even had fancy canes.

“How do we look?”. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, watching three drunk men going into what looks like a deformed elephant and coming out with the most expensive clothes you could find isn’t something you would see every day. Especially when you’re still in elementary school. “Look, you guys are really awesome and all, but I really need to get back to my dad now. Could you guys give me a ride?”, “Sure!”. I thought that it would be a lot more complicated than that.

When we got in their two-seater Lamborghini, I wondered for a second how we would all fit inside of it. But then I remembered that they were rich and they could do anything they wanted. And I was right. When two of them got in, the other one said, “Watch this.” When Tom started the car, it started to turn into something completely different: First, the car created two more seats by scanning the first two and somehow using that information to create two more. Then, the wheels of the car lifted off the ground and turned sideways while, in the process, lifting the car off the ground. “Come on! What are you waiting for?”, said Tom. “To be honest, I have no idea.”

When I finally got in, Jim started the car. The first sound the car made was kind of a whirring noise. Then, it started to hum. “Is that supposed to happen?”, I asked, “No, but I’m sure it will work okay.”, Jim said in a kind of nervous voice. But then, I had an epiphany: “Wait, if you guys are as rich as you say you are, then shouldn’t you have some sort of private jet?”. There was a long, random pause. At first I thought they all passed out or something, but then Hank, who didn’t say more than two words the entire time said, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before! We do have a private jet! Or, something like it, anyway.”

Hank, who also never led the group the whole time, took us to their garage. When we got to the back of the building, there was gigantic tarp covering something even more gigantic. When Hank took the tarp off, it uncovered a huge helicopter. But this wasn’t just any helicopter, this was a Military helicopter. The first thing I thought was how the heck he got the helicopter in the first place. I mean, I know their rich, but even they shouldn’t have something like that. “Um, where did you get that?”, I said with kind of a nervous voice. “That’s not important. What is important is that we get you back home. By the way, where do you live?”.

See, when people ask me questions like this, I don’t usually want to answer them. But in this case, I told them. What other choice did I have? I would’ve called my dad, but I didn’t have a phone, and I also didn’t know my dad’s phone number. So this was my only option.

“Okay, I’m ready.”, I said. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I went with it anyway. We walked into the helicopter, and the first thing I saw was a whole wall of high tech Military weapons. The only thing I could think was that Hank was some sort of secret agent (and from what I had seen before, that was probably the least insane thought I had had the entire night). “Alright”, said Hank, “everybody ready?”. Nobody answered. But, apparently, that didn’t matter to Hank, because he just took off anyway.

When we got into the air, Tom and Jim automatically got sick, and threw-up all over the floor of the helicopter. But, of course they had something for that, seeing as a small, circular robot came and cleaned it up for us. Other than that little mishap, the flight went pretty well. Hank was a lot better at flying then I thought he was. He knew what practically every button and lever did, and he was even contacted to a secret base. The only thing he wasn’t to good at was communicating with us. For example, whenever I would ask him where we were, he would just keep flying and not say anything. But, I guess communication wasn’t as important as us not crash-landing, especially when we were flying over mountains (which didn’t make much sense to me because I only lived a few miles away).

After we had gone about twenty miles, I asked, “Where are we going?”. Of course there was no answer. But after about two minutes, Hank said, “We’re going to your house, of course.”

“But, we passed my house ten minutes ago.”, I said.

“I know.”, Hank said.

“Then where are going?”, I said with a soft and nervous voice.

“Hank, what the heck are you doing?”, said Tom.

“My job.”

“What are you talking about?”, Jim asked.

All of a sudden, the helicopter started to tilt downwards. At this point I knew Hank was going to crash the helicopter, I just didn’t know why. “Hank, why are you doing this?!”, said Jim. “Reasons.”, said Hank. And those were the last words I heard.

The next thing I knew I was on a stretcher being carried into an ambulance. “What -- what happened?”, I said. “You crashed.” That voice sounded familiar to me, and when I looked up, I saw my dad sitting next to me. “Dad?”, I said. “Hi Jerry.” After that little talk, I fainted again. But this time, I woke up in my bed, or in a bed. “Welcome to the Brighton Hospital, Jerry. My names Harriet, and I’ll be your nurse for the remainder of your stay.”

“Excuse me, ma’am.”, said another unfamiliar voice.

“Hi, Jerry. My name is agent Barrow, but you can call me Alex. I’d like to talk to you about your accident.”

“Am I in trouble?”, I asked.

“Not at all, kid. I just want to talk to you about what happened.” He said.

“Okay.” I said in a kind of confused voice.

“The man that was flying the helicopter, his name was Max Abrams. He was part of an American terrorist group called ‘A.C.’, which stands for ‘American Cobras’. His mission, surprisingly, was to eliminate you. Obviously he failed, but that doesn’t mean that they will stop trying.” I was in complete shock. Not the kind of shock that you would experience if you found out that your dog got run over by a car, the kind of shock you experience when you find out someone has been trying to kill you. “I don’t under--”, “I know it’s a lot to take in, and you probably are thinking why the heck they would want to kill you, and the only answer I can provide is that you have something that they want. Right now, the only thing you and I can do to prevent this from happening is keeping you out of sight at all times.”

The only problem with this plan was that I still had to go to school, and if I need to stay out of sight like agent Barrow said, I’m going to have have a lot of trouble doing it. One of the problems would be leaving all of my friends behind. Another problem would be that if my dad wanted me to get a good education, that might be kind of hard. “Now, I know what you’re thinking: What about school? Well, lucky for you, the military has a special school for kids in your situation. The system is called ‘Undercover Education’. Each student that is part of the system has a private teacher, or in some cases, teachers. But, don’t worry, you’ll make plenty of friends while your there. There are different periods throughout the day where the students can get together.”

This was actually pretty cool for me. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to worry about anything (at least when it came to terrorists who were trying to kill me). The only thing that I wasn’t so sure about was my dad. “What about my dad?”, I asked, “What’s going to happen to him?”. “Don’t worry”, said agent Barrow, “He’ll live with you in your own private bunker.” That worked for me. As long as he wasn’t in the same danger I was in, I was perfectly happy.

But, there was one other thing I was concerned about: What happened to Tom and Jim? “DUN, DUN, DUUUUUN!!!”, “Dad, what the heck was that?”, “Sorry.”