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The HBO Tavern: A Comedy
Posted By: Azrael<tondorf@bc.edu>
Date: 18 April 2005, 7:54 PM
Read/Post Comments
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THE HBO TAVERN
A Forum Comedy
Azrael walked with purpose down the near-deserted road, trying to beat the Sun to the pub. He moved happily, a small smile staying on his face as he dodged the occasional pedestrian, the past rain had just left the streets slick, reflecting the lights of traffic signals and headlights of passing cars. It was a Friday night, and Azrael knew it would be a big day at the HBO tavern. He jogged across the street, barely dodging a passing sedan as it sped by.
He pulled the lapels of his jacket tight against his neck as he moved farther up the street, his eyes rising to meet the wooden sign with big gold letters engraved across the side of the building: "HBO Tavern". As Azrael passed along the side of the building, he looked into the darkened pub through large windows that were frosted in the corners with ornate, flowery designs. The pub before it had had those decorations, and the management didn't see a reason to change perfectly good windows. Azrael looked in, and noticed a single light was on inside the bar. A large man, roughly six feet tall, stood behind the bar, bent over the bar's surface, reading a newspaper. Azrael rapped on the window and the man looked up, his weathered eyes acquiring the other man's shape. Azrael pointed to the door, and the tall man gave him a thumbs-up. The door was unlocked. There was no need to let him in.
Azrael grabbed the left railing of the stairs and vaulted over it, landing right before the bar's anteroom. He opened the door and took in the familiar and welcome, slightly musty smell of the anteroom. It was octagonal in shape and every wall was made of dark, polished wood, giving a warm feeling. The HBO Tavern's bartender stood on the anteroom's tile floor, but backtracked to wipe his shoes off on the large mat by the door. He looked around and took off his jacket before walking into the main pub room.
"You're here at last," Gallagher said, folding the paper and removing his glasses.
"I got caught up on the forums," Az replied sheepishly.
"HBO's?"
"Covie lover's."
"Ah." Gallagher said. "Check it out," the owner of the HBO Tavern beckoned, tossing the newspaper to the just-arrived bartender. "We've got six pages now. We just got 'popular'."
Azrael's eyebrows arched as the newspaper hit the bar, shrunk, then enlarged and shook left and right for a second. It was true. They were now popular. "Not bad," he said, throwing the newspaper back.
"We're gonna be getting a lot of traffic today," Gallagher said. "You sure you don't want me to call any more bartenders to help out?"
"If it gets bad," Azrael called out from the coat-check room, "I'll just haul you back behind it."
"Money to be made," Gallagher replied, hitting Azrael on the shoulder with the rolled-up newspaper. "I'll be upstairs. Holler if you need anything."
"Will do," Azrael replied, and Gallagher disappeared behind the door to the kitchen, on his way upstairs to do whatever it was that bar managers did. Azrael felt he really didn't want to know, since he once went on his boss' computer and stumbled upon some...interesting...Cortana appreciation sites.
Az jumped behind the bar and started wiping down the shiny oak surface. After he was done with the massive bar, he went from tap to tap, "bleeding" the old beer from the keg lines. It would only be about an hour until the regulars started showing up. Just as Azrael moved past the cash register, he heard a swoosh and a small, blue, fat man appeared in front of him.
"Well, lookee here!" The man said, comically lifting his thick black glasses up and down as if to get a better look at the bartender.
"Farley, I've told you this before," Azrael sighed, continuing to adjust the labels on the dozens of bottles against the wall, "this isn't the future, AI's don't exist, and to be honest, I have no real idea why you're even here."
There was an awkward silence as the bartender looked at the AI, hands on his hips while the blue man looked left and right.
"...So you want me to do the 'El nino' sketch?"
"Yeah, make it quick."
About thirty minutes after Farley disappeared into the cash register, Azrael heard the jingling of a bell and looked up from the bar inventory he was writing down. There, in the doorway, were two gigantic Grunts, the one on the left was at least five feet tall and was dual-wielding shotguns. "Hey, Pokey," Azrael said dismissively, looking back down at the sheet, "good to see ya."
"Happy to be here!" The Mega Grunt responded as is bounded over to the bar. The other Grunt was bigger, but it held no weapons. Instead, it held large stacks of paper in each hand. It cleared its throat in what could only be described as a shrill squeak.
"Hey, Butkus," Azrael said, "You can come in now. New print-outs from Nick Kang?"
"No," Butkus replied. "Old stuff. 'Battle for Norah.' Very large."
"Gotcha," Azrael replied. "Food nipples in back. People shouldn't be here for another thirty minutes. You're on the door at seven."
"We be out there!" With that, the two Grunts disappeared. Azrael went back to his inventory, but he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. He looked up with a puzzled look, then noticed a man standing across the street in a trench coat and fedora, wearing sunglasses in the dark, and smoking a cigarette under a street light. Azrael sighed, and turned, picking up the bar phone. He dialed a series of numbers and cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear as he stocked a fridge with fruit. Azrael stood as a voice answered on the other line. "Hello?"
Azrael looked out the window at the man under the street light. The man had a phone to his ear. "Russ," Azrael said, a bit irked, "it's ok. You can come in, bar's open."
"Were you followed?" Russ asked, looking up and down the street.
"No one here but the bouncers, me, and Gallagher."
"Did you check for bugs?"
"You mean cockroaches? We don't have those."
"Never mind. I'm inbound."
The bartender shook his head slowly. This is going to be one of those nights, he thought. Russ hung his fedora and trench coat on the hooks by the door, revealing a classic black and white tuxedo. He took a seat at one of the tables in the corner with good sight lines across the whole pub and produced a large newspaper, No OT International. "What are you having?" Azrael shouted from across the room.
"Vodka martini-"
"Shaken, not stirred," Azrael finished, "On the way."
"Will he be here?" Russ asked as Azrael mixed the drink in a shiny shaker.
The bartender's voice lowered, as if he were afraid of anyone overhearing. "If the informant is to be believed, he will be here tonight. He wouldn't pass this up. Will the rest of the agents be here?"
"Baldwin, Harrison, Connery, and Damon will be here at 2100 hours."
"Damon? Damon's a rookie!"
"True, he's new on the scene, but the kid could use some experience."
"Agreed...And by the way, what's with the tuxedo?"
There was a pause as Russ looked at his wardrobe. "I dunno...seemed like a good idea at the time..." Azrael brought the martini glass to Russ but stopped on his way back to the bar. A dull roar was approaching the pub.
It seemed as soon as Russ came in the door, it was a signal for every regular to show up at once. There was a rumbling from outside, like a stampede, and suddenly there were at least a dozen people pressed up against the glass of the doors like so many bugs against a truck windshield.
Azrael reluctantly leaned down and flicked a switch. Above the doors to the bar, a sign read, "This forum is locked." At the flick of the switch, the doors opened and the sea of humanity flooded in. The first one in was dressed in ceremonial silver armor with ornate engravings, long hair dropped to her shoulder as she removed her helmet.
"Arbitress," Azrael scolded, "I told you: there's a dress code."
"Well then," she said, looking slightly confused, "what would you have your Arbitress do?"
The bartender shook his head and sighed. "Never mind. It's fine, but this is the last night!" The Arbitress walked to a corner of the bar where she hoped she wouldn't be bothered, but both she and the bartender knew that the younger ones in the forum would be drawn to that armor (and the presence of a female) like moths to a flame, and often they got burnt. Well Azrael thought to himself as the next group came in, not really burnt, but thrown through plate-glass windows.
A very large man followed behind The Arbitress, wearing a red, white, and blue shirt that read, "Made in USA." He walked straight to the bar, and Azrael cut him off. "Budweiser, Coors, or Miller?"
"Bud." Sterfrye said, and nodded at The Arbitress. The man downed the bottle of beer as soon as it came to him, and turned to leave.
"Um, Sterfrye?" Azrael said, hand extended.
"What?"
"Can't let you walk around with that empty beer bottle. Remember what happened last time?"
"Oh yeah!" Sterfryle laughed, "is he out of the hospital yet?"
"Yes, Berconius is out of the hospital," Azrael said, throwing the bottle away. "And he wasn't Russian, French, or a Democrat like you said he was." Sterfrye shrugged and turned, waving at Russ, who pretended not to be seen. Azrael noticed another man with Russ, but he didn't recognize him. It didn't matter. He was told they were going to be in disguise.
The bar was crowded now, and there were a lot of people milling around that Azrael didn't recognize. However, the crowd parted to make way for two of the more important regulars in the bar, one was pushing in a keg and had a snowboard strapped to his back, the other looked perfectly normal with the exception of his shoes: he was wearing ridiculously large red clown shoes.
Azrael helped the two men lift the keg over the bar. On the side of the keg, large bold black words, "MCC" stood out. The bartender began hooking it up to one of the taps as he spoke over his shoulder. "You want a pint from MCC's keg, too, Chuckles?"
"Yeah, if you got time."
The bartender quickly filled MCC's glass, then moved on to Chuckles pint. The glass slipped a little in his hand, spilling a little of the lager on the bar. MCC frowned.
"You still need work on your flow." He said.
Azrael rolled his eyes and put the pint in front of Chuckles. The man licked his lips and took hold of the frosted glass. Suddenly, a stern voice sounded over the entire bar.
"PINT CONTROL."
"Ok, what the hell is that?" Azrael asked, looking around wildly.
"Don't recognize the voice?" Marl said as he slid in next to the pair of men. "It's the Halo-guy who does all the announcements. Check it out." Marl reached for the pint glass and took it from Chuckles.
"PINT CONTESTED." The voice said again.
"Pretty cool," Chuckles said, then punched Marl in the face, knocking the poor guy on his back.
"CHUCKLES...HAS THE PINT."
"Freakin' right I do," The man said.
The bartender was about to protest when a trumpet sounded from the door. Azrael looked to the door as an entourage burst through the door, shouting random sentences and hopping up and down like a pack of puppies. They moved across the bar with a woman clad in a black cocktail dress and wielding a long cigarette holder. She spoke with a strong British accent. "G'Evenin', Az."
"Jillybean." The bartender nodded, and prepared a drink. "I'm assuming they're all of age?"
"You can never tell in this place," she responded, moving toward her dark corner with the Arbitress. The pack of lackeys moved with her until they got to the silver-armored companion, then shied away in fear. One yapping groupie wandered too close, not noticing his friends had wisely backed away. Azrael heard a tremendous whack, and saw a body flying backwards over the tavern, perfectly parallel to the ground. The boy crashed through a window headfirst, landing in the street. The bartender jerked his head to the right, noticing the Arbitress posing in victory, having just backhanded the boy out of the bar. Azrael pointed at her, a stern look on his face. The girl looked away, ducking back toward Jillybean.
From behind the bar, the door to the kitchen swung out, and a man stumbled in, rolling up his sleeves and breathlessly trying to explain something. "SorrySorrySorry," he said, "there was, well, there was this, this...you know...a thing. I was, um, kidnapped! Yeah, kidnapped! There were these Libyans, see, and they wanted me to build a nuclear bomb, but I used the Plutonium on this car, right...and-"
"Severian," Azrael said, his eyebrows arched and hands in the air, "that's the beginning of 'Back to the Future'."
"I was playing Xbox Live." Severian said bashfully, staring at the floor.
"Honesty's the best policy," Azrael said, throwing him a bar towel. "Jilly's gonna want a Jack Daniels, a double."
"Any coke?" Severian asked, walking towards the corner of the bar.
"Are you kidding? She's probably going to want to inject the whisky intravenously. Shot. Straight up. And take this," he said, tossing a blue bottle to Severian. "Tell the Arbitress it's Romulan ale."
"What is it?" The other bartender asked.
"Listerine. Mouthwash."
"That..." Severian said, looking at his partner, "...is so cool!"
Azrael was about to make a joke when he got a call at the bar. He turned to the phone and picked it up, wondering what it could be. "HBO tavern," he said.
"Boss! It Butkus."
"You could just walk in the door if you want to talk, Butkus."
Silence reigned for a few seconds. "Can't fit through door."
"Hit the food nipple a little hard, big guy?" Az chuckled.
"It vicious cycle."
"What's the problem?"
"ID."
"On my way, buddy."
"I put up nav point!" Azrael could hear Pokey exclaim in the background. The bartender put the phone down, trying to yell over the din.
"Pokey, I know where the door is!" He shouted, but it was too late. An orange marker appeared in the doorway. The bartender hopped over his beloved serving area and crossed the floor, giving MCC a high-five and punching Marl in the face as he regained consciousness.
Azrael turned to his right and glanced at Russ' table. Four other men sat with him, but none of their faces could be seen, as each and every one had an edition of No OT International in front of them. Azrael could see that they were all wearing trench coats. The team was assembled. I'll be damned, he thought, the intel's legit. They brought the big boys.
The bartender stopped under the orange triangle. Below it, a small boy stood on a stool, holding the triangle up over his head, a look of sheer delight on his face.
"Ark," Azrael said, yanking the triangle out of the boy's hands, "This isn't a nav point. It's cardboard cut in a triangle and painted orange."
"Oranges are my favorite fruit." Ark Knight said, a huge grin on his face, seemingly oblivious to what Azrael was talking about.
"Fruit has nothing to do with this..." Azrael said in confusion, looking around.
"I used to have a dog. I wanted to name him 'Sir Fetchalot,' but then he turned out to be a cat!"
HoZ came out of nowhere and hit the blabbing boy over the head with a bar stool.
"Thank you," Azrael mouthed to him, and left the bar to investigate the ID problem. He felt a blast of cold air as he left the warmth of the HBO tavern. His eyes widened as he took in the sight. A line had formed around the block, a motley crew of hundreds.
"Lots of people tonight," Azrael remarked to a man walking in the door.
"Yeah," A halo fan...natic said as he passed the bartender, "But the most users ever inline was 293 on Fri Dec 24, 2004 11:59 am."
"You knew that off the top of your head?" Azrael asked.
"Did that awful pun about 'online' and 'in line' just come out of nowhere?"
"Touche" Azrael said, nodding his head as if he should have known. He approached the two Mega Grunts, towering over a kid who couldn't have been older than 18.
"You have any ID?" Azrael asked.
The boy passed the platic card over. The bartender looked at it and frowned, glancing between the card and the boy.
"Sorry, Mister...Rafsanjani, but you're not Pakistani."
"It's winter!" The boy protested. "I don't have my tan!"
"CoLd, I know who you are." Azrael said, pocketing the ID. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times...you can come in through the kitchen."
The boy smacked himself on the forehead. "Stupid!" He said to himself, and walked toward the back of the building.
"Good work, fellas," Azrael said, clapping both Grunts on the shoulder.
Back in the bar, Ark Night had made his way to the bar and was now chatting up anything that moved. Severian looked over from the dark corner of the bar and saw the kid bouncing up and down on a bar stool, chattering away as Thedarkfire tried his best to look away. Severian filled a pint glass with the bright blue mouthwash and passed it over to the Arbitress. She looked at the glass in confusion. "This is Romulan ale?" She asked.
"We're out," Severian explained. "That's Romulan Light."
"Marvelous!" She exclaimed, downing the Listerine in a single gulp. Her eyes bulged out and she heaved for a second, looking at Severian in shock and confusion. Severian took a moment to think back upon the life he had led, since she was surely going to kill him.
"This...concoction," she said, lifting the glass high, "...is surely the nectar of the Gods! I will tell tales of its glorious journey through my body!"
Severian took another moment to breathe a sigh of relief. He fairly ran away from the armor-clad female after Azrael got back behind the bar. Thedarkfire was looking more and more pissed off as Ark was literally clinging to his back, telling him something about eggs and how they could be "an effective law enforcement tool." Thedarkfire slowly moved away from the bar, Ark still piggy-backed on him, yelling for a gun.
Severian wiped down the bar and reached for earmuffs. Wiley had been drinking vodka again, and was proceeding to belt out every song from "Permission to Land." Severian leaned over the bar to look into the windowless karaoke room. Every window had been boarded up ever since they had added "Love on the rocks with no ice" to the karaoke list. Wiley's high notes were deadly, and they had lost the rest of the windows from every time Commander Dimitri Wolf got on the mike. For some reason, he would only sing, "Hungry like the wolf," and he would sing it over and over, never giving it up. Wolf was currently in jail for trying to strangle a poor newb with the microphone cord.
"Hey there, Sev." Urth looked up to see A Halo fan...atic leaning against the bar.
"Oh, hey, Halo fan," he said, wiping down the bar. "What can I get ya?"
"I'll have a glass of Maivin."
"Maivin?" Severian asked.
"Maivin."
"Comin' right up." Severian said as he reached for the Listerine.
Azrael was making change by the cash register when a trumpet sounded, this one different from Jillybean's before.
"He is here, at the gates!" An excited voice exclaimed.
"Who?" Another voice asked from a corner of the bar.
"The Spanish Spartan!"
"To arms! To arms!" Yet another high-pitched voice called out in the middle of the tavern. Out of nowhere, medival weapons appeared from behind backs, under shirts, and out of pockets. In another dark corner of the bar, Azrael could hear several guns being locked and loaded.
"To arms!" The first voice screamed. "To battle!"
Nearly half the tavern cleared out, yelling and screaming battle cries as they flooded out of the bar. Azrael stood with his mouth wide open as he watched. An odd silence fell on the bar as everyone tried to comprehend what had just happened.
"Question." Azrael said, not moving.
"Answer." Severian replied.
"Do they even know who this Spanish Spartan is?" Az asked.
"Probably not, but they do love a good flame war." Severian chuckled, and finished pouring his pint.
"You don't know!" A voice slurred in the corner. "I used to be the queen! I wrote Parcel o' Rogues! I have hundreds of views! I...am not sober!"
"It's happening again," Severian said.
"Yup," Azrael said. "She needs food. I'll get it."
The bartender turned on his heel and pushed through the door to the kitchen. There, by a flaming grill and surrounded by pots and pans, was the HBO Tavern's chief cook. He wore a headband with Japanese characters on the front and also sported a Union Jack apron.
"Ah, MasterSushi," Azrael said, "I need your help, you see-"
"Jilly's doing the whole, 'I used to be on top of the world' thing, right?"
"That's why you're the master," Azrael smiled, scooping up a plate of food. He arrived with the plate and slid it down the bar toward Severian.
"Thank goodness," Severian said. "She was just about to sing 'God save the queen'."
"God save us if she does," Azrael said.
"You know," Ark said, somehow popping up behind the bar between Azrael and Severian, "I once saw a movie with a queen? She was in this big-" Azrael picked the boy up and tossed him back over the bar. He landed unceremoniously on the floor, doubled over, his legs over his body. Ark Night slowly got up and walked back to the bar, where Thedarkfire was ready to repel the little boy. Before Ark could open his mouth, Thedarkfire brandished a giant red flag, yelling, "Now! Hoz!"
A pint glass few straight and true through the smoky air of the bar. Ark, to his credit, tried to catch it. The glass passed through the srawny boy's hands and struck him square on the forehead, provoking a slight squeal from the already open mouth. The dead-on hit wasn't too extraordinary, though, since Ark did have a big head. From across the room, five sets of eyes stayed fixed on the action at the bar.
"See that, well, kid?" Harrison asked softly, pointing inconspicuously from behind the No OT International. "He's the objective."
"Interesting choice by the Director," Connery added, fliping the page while staring beyond it as Ark stumbled to his feet, yelling some insult back at the bartender.
"Looks can be decieving," Russ said, his tone low. "This man could very well be the leader of the 'group'."
It had been seven months. Seven whole months! Russ had been tracking down the appearent leader of a group known as EOTP - Execessive Off-Topic Posters - which had been plaguing the city's forums with nothing short of muck. His search had led him through many cities, finally ending up here, in this secluded Pub.
"He does fit the profile," Connery said, breaking the short puase in the conversation. The five looked intently from behind the large newspapers in the corner of the pub as Ark wadded up a napkin and threw it at the man behind the counter, watching in embarassment as it unfolded and floated harmlessly to the ground.
"Err...yeah! Don't try that again!" Ark's threat was nothing short of amusing, and howl of laughter erupted from (CHARACTER), who sat on the bar stool nearby.
"The call has been made," Damon muttered under his breath. "He'll be here to take care of the leader any minute."
"And the method?" Russ asked out of the corner of his mouth.
"Just as you specified," Baldwin nodded, "public and brutal."
The five men all sipped their vodka martinis in unison, each one of them now staring at Ark Night.
Azrael turned to MCC to discuss dependent clauses when a large portion of the pub's west wall exploded inwards. Numerous patrons were thrown across the tavern with the force of the blow. Azrael and Severian both ducked behind the bar and came up with M90 shotguns, only to be stopped by HoZ, Thedarkfire, and Sterfrye.
HoZ passed Azrael his sidearm with a wink. The bartender just stared back. "How do you get all these guns in here?"
Thedarkfire gave a low whistle. "Hate to say it, fellas," he said, "but I don't think shotguns are going to solve our problem." He pointed at the giant hole in the wall as a gargantuan beast stepped through.
When the smoke cleared, the entire pub gasped in horror.
Wado had entered the building.
The man wore giant shining pieces of metal as armor and wielded an impossibly large hammer, twice as large as a man. His voice was booming, though he said few words.
"This," he said, pointing at Ark, but looking at Russ, "is the problem?"
Russ nodded gravely. Ark whimpered.
"There's a mistake!" He pleaded. "I'm not my fault! Society's to blame! My upbringing! My childhood! Science! Science is the guilty one!"
"I tire of it," Wado declared, raising his Ban Hammer. "This 'thread' will be moved...to death."
"Wait!" Azrael cried from behind the bar. Wado stood poised with his hammer, ready to strike, the poor child whimpering in a fetal position at his feet. "There has to be some other way! Punish him, yes, but don't kill him!"
"That's right," Severian said. "Sure, we may throw around a few quips here and there, we may flame a few newbs, and we may say things we later regret, but that doesn't mean we have to hurt each other. That's not what HBO is about."
Wado began to bring his hammer down.
"No!" The bartenders exclaimed. Wado stopped once more, putting his hammer to his side. Azrael noticed a small puddle forming under Ark, but chose not to point it out. Perhaps a pint fell on him when he wasn't looking. In the silence that ensued, a familiar voice rang out, loud and true.
"One minute to drink."
"Okay, now what in Wado's name was that!?"
"You didn't know?" Jillybean slurred from her dark corner.
Azrael shrugged his shoulders.
"Last Call!!" The tavern shouted at him.
"...God, how long have you been working here?" Russ asked from his table. "Even I knew that."
An idea suddenly flashed through Severian's mind. He disappeared behind the bar and produced a huge blue jug. The bartender held it high above his head. "Let him wash his mouth out...with this!"
"Wait, you want him to chug Romulan Light?" The Arbitress asked quizzically.
"Wait, you want him to chug Maivin?" A Halo Fan...atic asked quizzically.
"Wait, you want him to chug Listerine?" MCC asked as he dipped a shot glass in the jug and threw it back into his throat. The old veteran opened his eyes wide as the mouthwash burned down his throat. "Yeah, that's definitely Listerine."
Severian handed the jug to Azrael as Sev tried to avoid eye contact with The Arbitress or Halo Fan.
"A fitting price." Wado bellowed, and Ark crawled over to the bar. With shaking hands, the boy took the jug from Azrael and held it at arm's length.
"Thirty seconds to drink." The voice said again.
"Do it." Wado commanded, and Ark raised the jug to his lips. The bar gasped as the entire jug of moutwash disappeared into the mouth of the serial off-topicer. With a gurgle, Ark raised a hand and gave a shaky thumbs-up. He collapsed immediately after.
The bar burst into thunderous applause. Even Russ nodded, saying, "A fitting punishment to his horrible crimes."
Azrael sighed with relief and wiped his brow. Wado walked up to bar and grabbed a large bottle of Champagne. He held it high above his head.
"To HBO!" He bellowed.
"To HBO!" The bar shouted back. "Long live HBO!"
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