I look at the clock . Time is creeping along too slowly , and I can ’ t hold out any longer , so I get up from my stool and walk in a loop around the perimeter of the bar , and as I ’ m walking past the front door I notice , from the corner of my eye , the hulking shape of Randal entering the bar to start his shift .
Perfect timing . All passengers aboard , the crazy train is about to take off !
In any other context of our lives , Randal and I wouldn ’ t have been friends , and even in this setting we are no more than casual acquaintances with a mutual interest in seeking the same mind-numbing distraction from life that only the crazy train can deliver .
When Randal comes through the front doors , his large round beer gut enters first . He seems to take great pride in this . He is a loud talking , rough-around the edges steel worker who is strong and rugged as hell . He wields his large stomach like a symbol of pride because he ’ s earned it by out-drinking , out-eating and out-partying everyone else . To Randal , his girth is symbolic of a life of pleasure-seeking at whatever cost . The ladies love him for his outgoing personality , for always being the life of the party . Everyone knows when Randal is around , and that ’ s the way he likes it . The louder , longer , more extreme the party , the better . He can always be found at the center of the action .
Randal needs the crazy train to keep rolling along just as I do , but for his own reasons . Because if the train stops and the lights go down and Randal is left alone with his own thoughts , that ’ s when the demons will come . Just as it is with me , Randal mustn ’ t ever allow the crazy train to stop rolling .
Randal was the first one to start referring to the wild nights of cocaine fuelled partying as “ The crazy train ” because of how people throughout the night hop on board and get swept up in the action . I ’ m the main supplier of cocaine that spreads through the bar each night like the unstoppable rapids of a river that sweeps up everything in its path .
It hasn ’ t always been this way , but even after just a few months it ’ s hard to remember exactly how it got started in the first place . What is unanimously agreed upon as the best cocaine available in the city has become a selling feature of this bar . Everyone , including management , knows it . The crazy train will keep rolling for as long as I keep the product in circulation .
“ I ’ ll be back ,” I tell Randal .
I walk around to the back of the parking lot and return to my car , reach under the driver ’ s seat and remove a plastic bag containing several little folded pouches of thick yellow paper . It ’ s a bold move leaving the drugs in my car , especially when my car is so far out of view . I ’ m unconcerned by the risk though .
If the weather was cooler , I would have worn a jacket and kept the drugs in the inside pocket and then kept the jacket behind the bar hanging on a hook in plain view , but out of reach to anyone but the staff . The bartenders would then steal glances of my jacket hanging there , inanimate and lifeless , and it would make their mouths water . Bryson and Phil would try not to look at my jacket , as if doing so would lock them into a tractor beam that would pull them to it against their will . Even some of the patrons , regular passengers on the crazy train , would see the jacket hanging on the hook in plain sight and struggle to restrain themselves from jumping across the bar to snatch it .
It ’ s no big secret that I keep the cocaine in my jacket pocket . People are less aware that I sometimes keep it in my car . I don ’ t care either way .
What the fuck do you have to lose ? You ’ ve already lost everything .