Seeing new parts of the city sounded appealing but if I was so interested in experiencing something new then why did I bother coming back here? Why not just move somewhere else? Why sacrifice the present for a past you can't escape and a future you can't embrace? Besides, as nice as the familiar feelings are they also come with
ghosts you'd rather not remember. You walk around and see the places that you used to go with Dixy…you see the bars where Adam and everybody else used to meet up at…you see the spot Mongo used to pick you up at when you were going to the casino. But it’s creepy because I haven’t talked to Dixy in years. Those friends don’t live in the city anymore while Adam didn't even want to meet up with me. And Mongo wrecked that a car awhile ago and stopped going to the casino. The whole experience turns into nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. And that’s no good for anybody. Maybe coming back here was a mistake. Maybe I was just trying to recreate something that was already gone. Maybe this had been a move backwards in every possible manner. Or maybe I just needed a drink. Luckily, Pony was ready to help me with that. I met back up with him and we started drinking like we never missed a beat. He was from the city so he was basically a professional drinker and never seemed to get drunk, no matter how much he drank. If he’s really pounding them back he might smile a little bit more than he normally does but that's as much as he ever shows it. Regardless, things were the same as ever with us. We bounced around to different bars and did random stuff along the way. I watched him work on some girl that was probably ten years younger than him which was also the same as ever. He’s always liked younger girls but now that he was getting older he was starting to get into creepy/weirdo territory. Well, that along with his habit of licking people. Hanging out with him was tough because he always wanted to do shots only it never seemed to affect him. So needless to say nights out with him were always long affairs filled with way too much liquor and could wind up anywhere for any reason. I wasn’t ever sure if he actually liked me or just liked having someone to hang out with since I always kept up with him drinking-wise. I considered him a friend,
but I'm not sure if he would ever describe me as such. He might have just thought of me as some dude he gets drunk with although that was probably preferable to anything else he would of thought of me as. We had a good time just like we always did. And just like we used to, we finished the night at the drive through. It was like I had never left which wasn’t comforting or reassuring. Is this all I was going to be doing with myself now? Is this the life I was going to be leading? Is this the life I wanted to be leading…again?