part truth, part lies

It's Friday night, and Mike and I are headed toward Luckey's, a bar on 7th and Patterson. It's the type of place where factory workers put on cowboy hats and go to drink beer and meet receptionists in tight red Wranglers. There are two other country bars in town, but Luckey's is the only one that has karaoke.

The reason we're going is because when Mike spun the wheel that hangs from the back of our front door, the red needle landed on "karaoke sabotage." Neither one of us like country music, but one of the rules of karaoke sabotage is that you can never go to the same place twice, and we've never been to Luckey's before.

We don't have a car, so we're riding there on the number 23 bus. The driver is fat, and his mustache is yellow from too many cigarettes. He greets every passenger that boards with a brief "Howyadoin," but never looks at the person when he says it. Aside from us, there's only about four other people on the bus.

In front of us, an old lady is telling her traveling companion about an episode of the Partridge Family that she saw where Greg and Marsha both entered a talent show. I want to tell her that she's wrong, but she starts going on and on about episode after episode. I feel sorry for her, because she has nothing better to do than watch Nick at Nite all the time, and she can't even get the names of the shows right.

The fat bus driver pulls his microphone to his face. "Next stop, 8th and Adams," he says in a badly amplified baritone. He pushes the microphone away and drinks through a straw from a blue insulated travel mug. For a second I wonder what he's drinking, but then I remember that the next stop is our stop. I nudge Mike, and he reaches up and pulls the rope. A dinging noise fills the bus as the illuminated "Next stop requested" sign lights up in front. The eyes of our fellow passengers turn towards us, as if we're sinners for wanting to get off the bus.

The driver pulls the bus over and the doors open. As we leave, he shouts "Havanicenite" in our direction. The doors close behind us and the bus pulls away, leaving exhaust behind.

We walk the block and a half to Luckey's in the cold night air. I'm wearing a jacket, but Mike is not. He says he never gets cold, but I can sometimes see the goose bumps on his legs. He always wears shorts, too. I don't think he even owns a pair of pants.

The city banned smoking in bars two years ago, but Luckey's still smells with the ghost aroma of cigarettes from long ago. A blonde woman in a halter top is singing a Garth Brooks song, and bodies mill here and there. It's a Friday night, and all of these people are working-class nine-to-fivers. They're here to have a good time, and get a little drunk. Mike and I have nothing against them, but we're here to mess with their minds a little. It's what we do on Friday nights.

We walk over to the karaoke table and write our names down on a sheet. We're the only males doing a duet, and we don't know the names of any of the songs. We pick one at random and go find a table to wait at. A waitress with no name tag comes up to us carrying a tray.

"Get you guys something?" she asks.

Neither one of us drink alcohol, so Mike just gets water, and I get a soda. The waitress seems disappointed in our orders, but she goes to get our drinks just the same. When she comes back, she spills some of my soda on the table when she puts it down, and walks off without wiping it up.

Looking around at all the other people in the bar, it's obvious that Mike and I don't belong here. Mike's wearing a T-shirt with an iron-on patch of Superman on it, and my T-shirt has a picture of Ronald Reagan wearing a Lone Ranger mask. Mike's shorts go almost to his ankles, and among other things, his pockets are full of syringes and insulin. My shorts only go to my knees, but the stripes on my socks are different colors. We get some strange looks, but nobody talks to us.

A man in a pink button-up shirt finishes his song, and the MC calls our names. We walk up to the small stage, and he hands us two microphones.

We stand there under the hot lights with the crowd staring at us. What we're about to do is something we've done in twenty-two other bars in town, and each time it's the same result. We always end up getting kicked out. Sometimes we actually get kicked. People generally don't like it when you mess with their karaoke.

A title appears on the blue screen in front of me, and a boozy country riff fills the room. Lyrics appear on the screen, but I pay no attention to them. I'm staring at a woman in the front row, and she's staring right back at me. This is contact. This is karaoke sabotage.

"I've got something to say," I scream into the microphone. The audience is puzzled, because the words coming out of my mouth don't match what's on the screen. "I killed my baby today, and it doesn't matter much to me, as long as she's dead."

Next to me, Mike is jumping up and down and screaming nonsense words into his microphone. After finishing the verse, I also start jumping up and down and slamming myself into the wall.

Mouths are dropping open all throughout the bar. Mike and I have a little impromptu sword fight with the microphones and then I slam mine into the floor, breaking it. Mike throws his into the crowd. The MC comes up to us, asking us what the heck we think we're doing. The patrons of the bar are yelling at us and at each other. The manager comes over to us and asks us to leave.

This is karaoke sabotage. It's one of the ways that we get our kicks. Messing with people's minds is a full time job.