The Prey

C and I and

Joe. Our. God.

were en ville and at the convivially crowded Barrage on Saturday night. We stood at the angle near the Suzy-homemaker DJ, and huddled over our three beers on the bar. Without warning, a sallow-eyed fellow with badly shaped black hair framing taciturn features hanging over thin shoulders under the oppression of a dark long-coat inserted himself with this line:

"Excuse me. Mind if I join you? I just got robbed and I don't want to be alone right now."

Before finishing this announcement, he boldly placed his drink on the bar in the center of our three beers as if to nail down his positioning.

Joe's eyes turned a glowing red as he sniffed fresh blog meat, and he asked the man where it had happened.

I, with the scepticism of Judge Judy, narrowed my view of this critter, wondering how he had purchased a big ole drink if he had just been robbed, and why his announcement rang with the indifference of someone channel-surfing through an evening of CSI reruns.

The surprise reaction however was from C who is ordinarily compassionate and benevolent in his acceptance of the premises of confidence men everywhere. Without a moment's hesitation, he said "Yes".

The guy seemed surprised by this, but chose to ignore it. C persisted.

"Actually, yes, we do mind if you join us."

The guy silently retrieved his drink and wandered back into the crowd in search of better victims.

This left Joe mildly chagrined, and it left me with a strong desire to claim that I had to piss, pretend to head toward the bathroom but run back home to post this before Joe had a chance to deliver his iteration.

Really, we actually do have lives.