one night at the red lion

i met my friend jeremiah at the red lion. he was talking to a girl. she was cool. i was out of money. at that time i was so messed up in the head that even if i had money, i would say, i'm broke. i couldn't make sense of things. the only thing i could make sense of was music and getting a beer.
but, i had no money, as i just said. so, in terms of reality, things were shifting the way they do when i am lost. i've been lost a few times, but i'm not lost now, so i can stand outside of myself or float up in the air and look down at myself typing and tell you that this nearly shaven girl bought me a drink. i can't remember her name. what was her name? fuck. i hate that. anyway, we were talking about nothing, the way you do when you get drunk and kill all ordinary human pain. and in the middle of the nothing she started talking about music. she told me she had this tape and she wanted me to have it. she disappeared for a while. like maybe a half hour or something. jeremiah and i just kept drinking our pints laughing about nothing happy to know that we existed on that patio, in that bar, right there, warm from the inside out knowing that we had one person that we could count on for laughter if nothing else. we had a sense of loyalty. there's very little sense of it in the real world, but in the world of bars, it's HUGE. the girl, let's call her baldy for the sake of things, came back, she handed over a tape, it was back when it was tapes, that's how long ago.
anyway. it was the geraldine fibbers. i had never ever heard them. i don't know how that happened or what the girl's name was, the singer. something like black sand. that's all my brain can come up with. i'm sure one of you will tell me, but. a few weeks later---CARLA something whatever her name was or is was appearing at a secret location downtown. it was a shit hole. i can't remember where it was, but i was with my friend and he thought this fat girl was cute. i got so mad. she's not cute, how can you think she's cute, but i didn't say anything because i like fat girls as much as anyone else. sooooooooo, this story goes somewhere, i promise. Carla sang her guts out, but they weren't songs as much as they were her vomiting up her sadnesses and rages. it was mesmerizing ONLY because it was her, she's this amazing thing and all, but to tell the truth, it wasn't music. it wasn't close. the fat girl played the fiddle or the violin and was very good, she was like regina spector, but with something else added that i didn't know about. i liked her and wanted my friend to get with her, but if my friend was jeremiah or another friend, i have no idea. see how this is. how it was? it was like that all the time. anyway. back to baldy. a few weeks later, i saw baldy out on the corner with her stuff. she was homeless. i couldn't get my mind around it. she was homeless buying me drinks. it made me sick to think of it. i still had her tape and i wanted to give it back, but i didn't want to embarrass her or myself seeing that i had her buy me a drink and all when i actually had money, but lied for what reason i will never ever know. back to me. at the time i was working the door at a few clubs. i never stole. not once. i also never let people in unless they had money. the girl, baldy tried to get in, once but that was before i knew she was homeless. i didn't let her, even after letting her buy me a drink. i was a dick. then after i saw that she was homeless, i always let her in free, but i never knew how to ask. look, do you need some help? i was afraid, i guess.