The Liars' Guide to Escaping Reality

         There were three or four people inside. A couple of middle aged women who had fallen on hard times were perched on bar stools and ogled me as I walked by to grab a stool of my own. I think that a withered hand grazed my butt but I paid it no mind. I took my stool and ordered a well whiskey from the run-of-the-mill northwestern bartender. I shot my well whiskey quick and moved on to one beer after another. I had no idea why getting drunk seemed like such a fine idea just then.

          The night progressed very slowly. I thought of Brittany, and for the ten thousandth time, I wondered how upset she would be to see me doing what I was doing. I thought introspectively about the amazing breakthrough with honesty I had experienced. It seemed to be such an accomplishment, yet something was still missing because here I sat on the barstool broken-hearted. It was just as I was beginning to contemplate stumbling back to my hotel room, when I heard an amazing sound. It was a sound no man could ever forget.

          The voice belonged to a demon from my past. I turned around and watched “Fast Eddie” mosey into the bar with a fat woman in tow. At first, he was lucky I was not impulsive. Normally I believed that violence should be avoided until there was no other alternative. I sat and observed the man but did not take any dramatic action. He was the same man who ruined my childhood. I trembled with righteous anger.

          He sat with his fat woman and I watched them exchange dirty looks. Eddie pointed toward the bar and the woman submitted to ordering them a pitcher of beer. I could tell that his anger issue had not changed as I observed the fear in the large woman’s eyes. Still, I sat and observed, doing nothing. The liquor was affecting my body and I could feel a tinge of action in my blood.

          I was staring at the man. He seemed not to notice and was just going about his evening. The fat woman walked back to the table. As she was setting the beer down she slipped. The entire pitcher of beer sloshed across the table all over Fast Eddie. I watched this occur in slow motion, knowing what would happen next.

          Fast Eddie stood up and slapped the woman who dropped to the floor in the fetal position. This was obviously not the first time she had been struck by him. Anger, pure and white-hot, burned through my veins. The cliché that one sees red when angry is a truth, my vision changed to the color of roses in spring. This man had beaten me when I was younger, he had beaten my mother, he had destroyed my self-esteem, and, was the catalyst for the soul-crushing journey I was returning from.

          My peripheral vision blurred and all I could see clearly was my target. He was still an imposing sight, and he had spotted me in his rage. He did not recognize me from the 12-year-old child I was at one point. I caught his eyes in contact and he held my gaze. He puffed his frame up as large and it would go. To be honest, this might have been an impressive sight. He was still a larger man than I and also more seasoned in the art of bar fighting. He recognized a challenger in my eyes and braced himself for impact.

          No amount of preparedness could equal the force I placed in my first punch. I do not know where this strength came from but it flowed through me. Years of rage unleashed itself in savage fury against the weak and collapsing body of this middle age man. The aggression was fever pitched and I had no control over the way I slowly demolished him before the gazes of the few bar patrons. The cloud of adrenaline slowly evaporated from my eyes and I was able to stop kicking.

          As I regained clarity, I saw him staring up at me. There was blood coming out of both corners of his mouth. His eyes were as open as they could get through the swollen tissue and they sang a song of fear. His body was wrapped improperly around the base of a table and one hand was in the air begging me to quit. His chubby girlfriend was