The Bar

I once was a regular of a bar that was not meant to be a bar but rather the drug-storage and antechamber of some yakuza who held meetings in the rooms next door. It was only frequented by me with either a Chinese girlfriend or some American buddy of mine. We always were the only customers- only once, two scared looking young men in black suits were there and another time two old drunks. I guess as foreigners we were tolerated there cause we were considered as outsiders anyhow. Of course there was also the barkeep called Hiro, a.k.a 'Hero' (he even had that moniker printed on his business-card, too).

The place was very small and dirty only consisting of the bar, two tables with seats and some bar stools, some posters and graffiti and what looked to us like dirt mixed with fluorescent goo on the walls. Hero was always stoned and in the rare moments when he was there talked about his daughter who wanted to build a career as an idol-singer in the capital, but most times he had to do some business-errants. In the interim we were unofficially given responsibility for the place and could help ourselves to free beer and the small range of hard liquors they served such as Cutty Sark, Stoli or some other basics of that kind. Basically it was irrelevant what we took as this went under 'calculated risk' for the people doing business next door- or so we suspected.

But unfortunately this period of unhindered boozing did not last for long. One fateful night we stood before closed doors and later we heard that our dear barkeep and hero was in jail on the charge of possession of illegal substances. After a few months, when he got out, he never seemed to be the same again...from then he seemed nervous, always kept a close eye on his merchandise and wasn't as talkative as before...absentmindedly he stared into nowhere and if we hadn't known it better we would have thought that it was not the drugs but prison combined with the absence of former that did that to him...