Miguel's already pouring before my ass hits the stool, that familiar amber ritual catching basement light like liquid fucking prophecy. This one's been sitting in Kentucky limestone caves since before you transitioned, Mom, he says, voice carrying that sultry-childlike contradiction making everything he serves taste like sacrament. Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. Uncut, unfiltered, 136 proof of pure concentrated fuck-you to everything trying to grind us down today.
I accept the glass, watch the whiskey coat sides like slow honey, breathe in caramel and charred oak and something darker—vanillabean mixed with tobacco leaf, cinnamon bark meeting black pepper heat. First sip burns gloriously, throat to sternum, settling in my chest where grief and rage keep house together.
The Clash pounds through newly upgraded speakers—"London Calling"—and I taste ice age coming on my tongue alongside bourbon fire. Della emerges from kitchen carrying plates of blackened catfish tacos, her femme butch energy radiating protective fury. Eat something before that rocket fuel liquifies your intestines, she commands, sliding food across restored bar top.
It's one year today, Leila announces from her corner table, phone screen reflecting blue light across her strong features. Twenty-three years old and she's been tracking legislative nightmares since she could fucking read. One year since that fascist motherfucker got inaugurated again. Want to know the damage report?
Do we have a choice? Remy drawls from his window perch, cigarette dangling like punctuation mark. The world gonna burn whether we counting the fires or not, cher.
But Leila's already reading, voice pitched with urgency that makes Ezra look up from their beanbag throne, blue hair electric against crimson walls. His own party's fracturing. GOP senators breaking ranks because he can't handle the slightest disagreement without making it personal. He screamed at Susan Collins for twenty minutes over Venezuela, so loud staffers heard him through walls.
Fascists always eat their own eventually, Bubba rumbles, his massive frame filling the space near Leila with protective gravity. Watched it happen in Georgia back when being Black and gay meant both could kill you. Power built on fear can't sustain itself—it just keeps demanding more blood.
Phoenix sits cross-legged on the floor near River, purple and gold hair catching light as they sketch something intricate on napkin. But how much damage happens before the implosion? Their voice cracks with accumulated weight of being twenty-two during democracy's death throes. Climate scientists fired. Billions cut from clean energy. Arctic Wildlife Refuge opened for drilling like some apocalyptic fucking joke.
River's hand finds Phoenix's shoulder, nurse instincts and girlfriend devotion creating shield of touch. One year of methodical environmental murder, they say quietly, forest green scrubs still carrying hospital antiseptic smell. EPA refusing to calculate healthcare savings from pollution rules. Prioritizing industry costs over human lives. Sixty-six international climate bodies abandoned.
The weight settles over us like smoke—not cigarette smoke curling from Remy's fingers, but the conceptual smoke of a planet burning while those in power accelerate toward the cliff.
Y'all see what Nicki Minaj did? Brandon's voice cuts through, bitter gin and tonic sweating in his grip. His animated hands gesture wildly, writer's energy channeling rage into motion. Called Don Lemon a cock sucker after he reported on ICE at churches. Then when people called out the homophobia, she doubled down. Wrote it that exact disgusting way again, bragging about purposely using that slur.
Fuck her, Keira says simply from beside me, not looking up from her book. When my partner speaks, rooms listen. She's not our friend. Never was. Pride orgs calling for boycotts. Good. Let her perform at fascist rallies with her registered sex offender husband while her brother serves twenty-five for raping a child. We don't claim trash.
Miguel wipes bar top with precise movements, wedding ring catching light. The ones who should be allies but choose violence instead—those betray worse than outright enemies. His voice carries particular exhaustion of trans man watching other marginalized people weaponize bigotry for clicks.
Heart's "Barracuda" transitions through speakers, Ann Wilson's voice promising teeth and consequence. I feel my throat tighten—this song, this fucking song. Gizmo and I used to sing this in the car, I manage, bourbon making words possible. Saturday morning grocery runs. She'd belt it at the top of her lungs, hitting notes that made angels weep.
The familiar grief-stab punctures my chest. Eighteen now, studying psychology three states away, navigating university trans issues while I watch helplessly from distance measured in absence. Every song from our shared playlist becomes ghost-pain.
You raised a good human, Mom, Ezra says gently, blue hair catching ambient light. That doesn't disappear because trust got complicated. She's out there making the world better because you showed her how.
Miranda materializes from shadows near the stage, her poetic presence filling space with weighted grace. We are all carrying impossible things today, she says, voice threading through conversations like silk through rough weaving. The weight of a dying planet. The weight of watching our humanity debated by people who see us as political abstractions rather than breathing souls. The weight of loving people we can't protect from the machine grinding everything beautiful into dust.
So what the fuck do we do? Phoenix's question hangs raw and honest. How do we survive this without breaking completely?
Della emerges again, this time carrying fresh cornbread that smells like defiance baked at 425 degrees. We feed each other, she states, matter-of-fact as sunrise. We show up. We break bread together and remember we're not facing this shit alone.
We save seeds, River adds, surprising everyone. Literal and metaphorical. I've been collecting seeds from grocery store vegetables—peppers, tomatoes, squash. Drying them, storing them, preparing for when corporate monopolies collapse or we need to grow our own food because the supply chain fails. Food sovereignty starts with seeds.
Preservation as resistance, Brandon murmurs, notebook appearing in his hand like magic. I'm stealing that for an essay.
Remy's laugh rumbles through smoke. My mama taught me that in her Louisiana kitchen, cher. She kept every seed, every cutting, every possibility of future growth. Said powerful folks want you dependent so you can't feed yourself, can't heal yourself, can't survive without their permission. Growing your own food is revolution older than this country's sins.
Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" bleeds through speakers, and I'm drowning in memory—Gizmo at twelve, voice still high and clear, singing about cold steel rails and smiles from the veil while we drove through autumn evening toward home that doesn't exist anymore. I wipe my eyes roughly.
Meanwhile ICE is using facial recognition apps that don't fucking work, Leila continues, rage building in her voice. Scanned a detained woman, misidentified her twice—two completely wrong names. But they claim it provides 'definitive determination' of immigration status and should be trusted over birth certificates. They're shooting people who refuse to submit to their failed technology.
Surveillance state powered by racism and incompetence, Bubba says quietly. Watching it build in real-time. They don't need the technology to work—they need the fear it creates. Control through terror of being seen, of being scanned, of your face becoming evidence of guilt.
Miguel pours himself a small measure of the Elijah Craig, rare self-indulgence suggesting weight he's carrying too. My tía called yesterday. Crying. She's lived here legally for thirty-seven years, has citizenship papers, but she's terrified to leave her house because she looks 'too Mexican' and ICE doesn't care about documentation when brown skin becomes proof of criminality.
The silence following his words vibrates with shared fury and helplessness.
So we become each other's documentation, Miranda says softly. We witness each other's existence. We remember who we are when the world tries rewriting our humanity into something monstrous or illegal or disposable. We tell the stories they want erased.
We organize, Leila adds, practical fury channeling into action. Legal observers at protests. Know Your Rights trainings. Mutual aid networks. We can't stop the machine alone, but we can gum up the gears, create friction, make their violence visible instead of invisible.
We love harder, Phoenix says, Ruby ring from River catching light. We build chosen families that can't be disappeared by legislation or executive orders. We marry each other, claim each other legally and spiritually, create kinship networks they can't dissolve.
Rush's "Tom Sawyer" crashes through speakers—complex time signatures and philosophical lyrics about modern-day warriors surviving mean streets. I drain my bourbon, feel the heat spreading through my chest where titanium plates hold ribs together, where lung tissue scarred from John's violence reminds me I survived what should have killed me.
You know what gets me through? Brandon asks, looking around the basement sanctuary that used to be water-damaged nightmare, now transformed through collective love into breathing refuge. This. Us. Knowing that every fascist regime in history eventually fell, but the communities they tried to erase survived by holding tight to each other.
My mama used to say, Remy offers, exhaling smoke like punctuation, that the most revolutionary thing you can do is refuse to die. Just keep breathing, keep loving, keep existing loudly when they want you silent and ashamed. Make them watch you thrive despite everything designed to crush you.
We document everything, I say finally, voice rough with bourbon and emotion. I write it all down. Every person in this basement, every story, every wound and healing and moment of joy they try to legislate out of existence. Because someone needs to remember we were here. That we loved fiercely. That we resisted. That we survived.
Della brings more food—bacon mac and cheese, quesadillas, comfort made visceral through butter and cheese and aggressive care. We eat together, passing plates family-style, filling the basement with sounds of forks on ceramic and appreciative noises and the particular music of chosen family sharing nourishment.
The planet's burning, Phoenix says around a mouthful of mac and cheese. Democracy's collapsing. Fascism is rising. Our basic humanity gets debated by people who wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire.
And yet here we fucking are, Ezra finishes, grinning with blue-haired defiance. Still breathing. Still fighting. Still finding joy in basement bars where plastic cups hold more meaning than crystal goblets.