Dive

A Dive book

2010-11-11T22:01:00.000-08:00

Here's a digital version of the book of these stories...

Part #1

Part #2

Early Sketches

2010-11-07T02:29:00.000-08:00

The Bartender

2010-09-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

It was one of the worst years of my life. Aside from the five or six eight-hour shifts at the Blue Light, there wasn’t much going on in my life. It’s hard to recall now why I was so depressed, but as with most low points, it meant that I wasn’t drawing or painting and this only exacerbated the situation. Some people make work out of unhappiness or pain, I make work despite it. In the year covered in these stories, I was in no shape to rise above my problems.

Arriving at the Blue Light at 8pm and watching sad, lonely people nullify their lives until the 4am closing time, suited my frame of mind. When not serving drinks, I’d retreat to the furthest corner of the bar, chain-smoke American Spirits, and watch them. A Russian-Jewish immigrant painter might as well have been a creature with three heads to most of the regulars. They really did try to make friends in their own way, but I couldn’t reciprocate. Many times we’d stare at each other across the bar without a thing to say. It can be a bit disconcerting to spend hours in a room with another person and hardly acknowledge his or her presence; this was much of my Blue Light experience. Just watching the hands of the clock crawl forward, then reset the next day to do it again.

I’ve never been a gambler, but for a few months I’d pump most of my $5 hourly and meager tips into the video poker machine after closing the bar. A few times I’d still be there at 6:30am when Sharon’s father arrived to get the place ready to reopen. He played the machine religiously, so my behavior didn’t concern him in the least. I often owed thirty or forty dollars to the bar at the end of these sessions, having to wait until the next shift to replace it. The worst part was that I knew the whole thing was pointless and didn’t care. Just watching those cherries, grapes, and lemons spin in front of my eyes killed the empty hours and that was enough for awhile.

As with most of my day-jobs, the Blue Light provided a perch to watch people and, aside from putting roof over head, that’s all that I’ve ever needed. It took years for me to do anything worthwhile with the time spent there, but the place left its own peculiar mark on me. It taught me that I wasn’t cut out to tend bar. I couldn’t keep up the small-talk, couldn’t pretend to care for the hours that some of the patrons would prattle on, couldn’t create the welcoming climate that would encourage them to come back and want to talk to me some more. Learning one’s limitations is always key and for that I’ll always be grateful.

The Blue Light of these pages is long gone, replaced by an establishment of the same name but filled with flatscreen TVs and guarded by beefy men with thick gold chains and oil-slick hair. It’s just as well because now I can’t ever go back to the old dive even if I wanted to. Some places are best left in the past.

The Other Eric

2010-09-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

Eric was one of the afternoon regulars. He drank Icehouse, with shots of Rumple Minze every other round. His usual uniform was blue coveralls with Eric monogrammed over the breast. Sometimes, he’d park his van beneath the underpass before his workday was done and quickly slam down a few, then run back out and tear out of there. More often, it was after his shift and he’d have a buddy or two along and he’d linger for an hour or three.

His coworkers were always younger and often Hispanic. He’d pump five bucks into the jukebox, but they wouldn’t join in when he’d sing along with Kid Rock. They’d stay for a round or two, play a game of pool maybe, then leave.

With each drained beer, the buttons of the suit would come undone, more and more of his frayed undershirt showing, his wire-rimmed glasses growing progressively askew with each careless pass of the hand, his thinning blond hair beginning to stand on end in places here and there. He was liable to tip back his bar stool and drift off, sleeping open-mouthed for fifteen or twenty minutes at a stretch.

He was always easy-going and one of the rare few amongst the regulars who’s demeanor did not deteriorate over the duration of his visits. He would grin absently and accept it when I’d cut him off. Though we rarely exchanged more than casual banter, he was rarely less than polite, which made him stand out from the crowd at the Blue Light. He could also be counted on for a decent tip; this put him in very select company. It wasn’t unusual for guys to drink three or four rounds and make a big show of leaving a dollar on the bar before leaving.

What I remember best about Eric though is him dancing clumsily around the empty tavern and repeating over and over, “I wanna be a cow-w-w-w-boy-y-y...”

Pariah

2010-05-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

The Blue Light wasn't welcoming to most who weren't white. Nonetheless, an extended family of Native Americans showed up most weekends and was tolerated, almost accepted. Perhaps like in the saloons of old Westerns, the Cowboys recognized that some accommodations must be given to the Indians. Some white women were friendly to their counterparts, though whether these bonds extended past the bar doors, beyond a round of Bud Lites and shots of Jager, I never knew. The barflies would talk about "the Indians" sometimes when they weren't around. The jokes would be about one or another having too much firewater and a whoop or two might escape the teller's mouth for emphasis, but hardly a fraction of the vitriol spilled on other creeds was at play here. The fact that the Natives' successes in the big city were even more paltry than their own may have tempered the intolerance. This place wasn't where winners would tip back a glass to toast to their triumphs; drowning disappointment was what they all came here for.

Mikey was an odd duck. Gangly and effeminate, he wore his long black hair in a ponytail that would never last the night. His voice was high-pitched and had a cloying whine to it that would hardly be helped by successive beers. His gestures tended to grow increasingly theatrical toward closing time--long, thin arms swinging about as he'd tip his head back, freed hair flying all over the place. He'd tire and rest with his forehead on the bar top for a few minutes, only to rouse himself and wail for attention as if his life hung in the balance. I could only ignore him for so long, but when asking what he wanted he'd just repeat my name stupidly. By this point of course, he'd usually have been cut off for a good hour or two. His cousins and aunts would move away from him when he was this way, preferring to put off dealing with him until it was time to drag him out at closing time.

Why he came here I never learned. The rednecks didn't roll out the red carpet, while his own tolerated him only because they had to. Now and then he'd mention a girlfriend, though he never produced one and it wasn't clear for who's benefit she was even conjured. As with so many who's drinks I poured, Mikey's life outside of the tavern was a mystery; but in this circumscribed world he was nearly a pariah.

Ones like him served to unite all factions--he was the freakshow that made them forget their own failings for a round or two; while his unwanted advances made the rest of them seem slightly more tolerable to me by comparison...no matter how low on the totem pole, there's always bound to be someone who's face our foot crushes in the effort to strain upwards...

Impostor

2009-08-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Most who darkened the doorway here, belonged; he did not...Too young, too clean, too smooth, too quick to try to engage. Whatever his angle was, it stuck out and didn't fit. Amid the sad lushes, angry hicks, and disgruntled cops who haunted the joint, he was all wrong if that could even be said in such a situation...

He often appeared during the rare rushes, after 2AM, and would cozy up to this or that cluster of drinkers. Most seemed to know him and accept him, though there was always a distance or remove. He'd buy a round of shots and laugh louder than the rest at their tired quips. Most of'em had known one another for decades, their banter well-worn and instinctive as breath, while his attempts at conviviality rang false, grating...

Why did he come here? This wasn't the spot to make friends or find love, unless scraping the bottom of a barrel was one's idea of romance. It was mostly a closed society, unwelcoming and unbending in its customs and rites. His presence had to be in the service of commerce, selling some sort of oblivion unavailable from the dusty bottles behind the bar. No proof at all to support this idea except a rock-hard gut feeling. A bartender's sense that someone else was profiting from their unquenching need to forget...

While it wasn't in the job description to ascribe motives to the clientele, seeing the same types night after night encouraged and often necessitated all kinds of speculation. Most were easy to pin down: the everyday joe who needed two shots and a beer to get a kind word out, the over-the-hill party girl desperate for just one more night as Belle of the Ball, the old duffer who'd seen it all and told it all the same way over and over and over again, the ugly couple who took their bedroom quibbles out to the tavern to make them seem more interesting than they really were, the angry alkie looking to focus his anger at a fixed target, and many many others...Encountering one that didn't fit was rare and a little unsettling, so this particular intruder demanded more attention than the rest...

To say that our interactions were unpleasant would overstate it, though an undercurrent of mistrust certainly hovered in the immediate vicinity. His forced mirth and chumminess was hardly valued or reciprocated. For the most part though, all the misgivings and suspicions could be tolerated, until the night he had to be cut off...

That evening it was round after round and he got louder and louder until it became necessary to make the good times go away. Apprised of the situation, a new side of him appeared. Seething, threatening, dark eyes flashing fury, he refused to believe his fun could be halted so abruptly. He hung around another half hour casting his death stare my way, then left promising to be back...At closing time, he was lurking in the shadows across from the door, in the underpass. Forty five minutes later though, with the dishes clean, garbage tossed, chairs up, and bar gleaming wet, the coast was clear. The grudge would wait, the anger apparently not great enough to cohere into action. He'd be back and so would I and we'd play this thing out another night...

Riffraff

2009-06-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

There were a few recurring characters at the Blue Light, who wouldn't merit top billing, yet probably deserve some mention, so here goes...

The Captain

This one'd burst through the door like a house on fire. Well-lubricated elsewhere, he'd show up mostly to hurl abuse toward anyone in his path. This turned out to be the bartender more often than not. As scotch was overtaken more and more by soda in each successive pour, he couldn't tell the difference and would continue to rage against all who had wronged him. His name's lost but the maritime cap, peacoat, and scarf makes the monicker a no-brainer...When taking a break from cursing, he'd boast of great riches, of mansions and high-performance automobiles, of gorgeous lasses begging for his kindness...When it would inevitably come time to invite him to leave, he'd act hurt and would linger far longer than anyone with any dignity ever would...

The Boxer

A close personal friend of The Captain, who'd introduce him as the World Champion of Poland, he never had too much to say. He seemed to be there much more for companionship than inebriation. The solid pugilist's build was still evident, though gravity and age were certainly taking their toll; he often wore wife-beaters to show off the muscles and in the dim light of that tavern there perhaps were those that were duly impressed. He apparently had some small role in local politics, behind the scenes if one were to hazard a guess...

Rocky & Bullwinkle

These two always sat together. The little one's name really was Rocky and the big one's wasn't Bullwinkle, but his vacant gaze was more than worthy of a moose's...The subject was usually women. Rocky spun tales of his past conquests and his friend would take it all in with that blank stare of his. The way the fairer sex was represented in these tales certainly left a lot to be desired and explained why no actual living female had ever spent any significant time conversing with either of them. Common as it was to hear hateful things said in that bar, it would still give pause to listen to two men who obviously loathed women, go on and on and on about them. It often set the mind to wondering why it was that these guys even bothered when they obviously preferred one another's company, but that's probably one of those mysteries beyond understanding, or at least beyond this barkeep's pay-grade to explain...

Mom & Dad

2009-04-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

They were Sharon's parents. Separated for years yet wearily aware of one another's presence, they rarely crossed paths here but made clipped, often snide references that made clear that the claw marks had yet to heal...

Her appearances were rarely announced. The door would open and she'd drag in cases of soda or a bag of limes. Dispatched to do errands, her anxious bird-like countenance cut through dreary afternoons like a jagged rusty blade. Eyes darting about, questioning this and that, her nervous flitting about made me feel like something hadn't been done and she was gonna find out...

Her main job was to watch Sharon's kid. The bar sometimes served as their play area; the little girl running up and down the line of barstools, followed by Grandma's watchful eyes...She'd ask about her former husband, an undercurrent deep and dark in every innocuous remark, yet still unable to let go, to become unconcerned with his comings and goings...

He'd often show up when I was closing, hours early for his shift. He opened up the place at 7AM five mornings a week...His left side, paralyzed by stroke, dragged behind the right at a snail's pace. This hardly hindered him as the few hardened souses he served were in no hurry and hardly moved about themselves, preferring to conserve their energy for the task before them...

Ashtrays up and down the bar held his abandoned butts, Marlboro 100s gamely flickering with more fight than their standard-sized brethren, yet succumbing eventually to his neglect. His limp left hand would hold a lit one while he worked the buttons of the poker machine with the right, ash collecting on the linoleum below before being scattered by the readjustment of the barstool's legs or the wheezing efforts of the over-worked fan...

He'd bitch about her from time to time, "That woman's crazy, always sticking her nose where it don't belong, glad to be rid of her," he'd say. Then it'd be back to the spinning cherries, grapes, and dollar signs sucking his meager earnings out of his pockets. Hoping beyond hope for the big score that the machine was rigged never to pay out...

Sue

2009-03-04T04:09:00.000-08:00

We worked together on Friday nights when there was a crowd. Hair dyed blond and permed to curl, brows plucked and painted, she'd come in after parking the Chevy in the underpass. Cheerful and inquisitive, a wiz at small-talk, she was a natural, the kind a dive bar needed to keep the gloom at bay...

Sue's day job was pouring beer to the Wrigley faithful. Oftentimes, she'd blow in in full Cub regalia to unwind at the poker machine for a bit after an afternoon game. It was a testament to her good nature that we never quarreled over baseball allegiances; being in enemy territory occasionally led to testy moments even in that woebegone hole-in-the-wall... Although, in truth, working at the park probably didn't make her bleed Cubby Blue. Her tales of over-served oafs and general loutishness were told with the good humor and matter-of-factness borne of a worker's forbearance. This was her place to cut loose, so even behind the bar it was more time off than punching the clock...

She'd been in the neighborhood for years, had raised her kids here, and knew most anyone that chose to abuse their liver in the place...She liked to sing along to that song that asked, "Where have all the cowboys gone?", which, like many of the musical selections at the Blue Light, was played with such soul-sucking regularity that eight years on it still haunts the darker recesses of my skull...

She had a thing for one of the cops, the one with the greying mustache, and some nights they could be found in the corner, kissing and groping sloppily in that way that only hours of boozing can inspire. More times than not though, he'd act like there was nothing but a passing acquaintance between them, and she'd hide the hurt in a way that showed that she was an old hand at that particular dance...

No matter how blitzed the night before, she'd burst in the following day, not much worse for the wear; her jaunty gait a testament to a life lived rolling with the punches...

Bill

2009-01-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

He was a mountain of a man. Getting off his Harley with the side storage containers and ornamental chrome mud guards, a hulking machine dwarfed by his bulk, he settled it across from the tavern door in the underpass and came in...Pulling the red-backed barstool away to accommodate his epic gut, putting the Marlboro Light 100s next to a clean ashtray, he was ready for his first...

The first Miller Lite half emptied in one greedy gulp, ash sullying the black plastic of the tray and scattering on the varnish of the wooden bar, he'd scan the empty room before returning his attention to the waiting bottle...The beads of condensation wouldn't have time to settle when the dead soldier was pushed forward to be replaced by another from the cooler; an operation repeated at regular, short intervals over the next two hours or so...

He'd ask about other regulars, but otherwise respected the silence, content with his own ruminations...Some mention would be made of his job, maintaining heating and cooling systems in large downtown office buildings, his idiot underlings and supervisors; he was here to wipe their memory from his mind...The gleam in his eyes became more watery and abstracted as the beer slowly worked its magic...

Every fourth or fifth was on the house and he'd get bang for his buck, hitting the free round at least four times in an afternoon...A case of light beer seemed an inefficient way to obliterate the worries of the day, but I wasn't being paid for such insight or any other for that matter...The job demanded a lack of judgement, an ability to look the other way to indulge the vices of others...Words weren't necessary for this tacit acknowledgment and appreciation could be shown in a similarly unspoken way; a silent communion not easily described or understood...

A man of average stature might not be expected to walk, let alone well, after such a heroic session at the trough, but Bill would saunter out, not much worse for wear, back onto the Harley...A slight wobble or misstep from time to time, but the bike inevitably roared away down Western, trailing smoke from the exhaust in its wake, hanging in the air before dissipating into nothing; a promise that the whole thing would be repeated, no later than a week from that moment...

Matt & Laura

2008-12-16T14:48:00.000-08:00

They'd come in every week or two...Always pitchers of Old Style and games of pool...They were both in their mid-twenties, significantly younger than most of the regulars, and for that reason, more conspicuous and worthy of attention...Laura was one of the few remotely attractive women to grace that little corner of Heaven, Matt was unremarkable and of interest only by association...

They insisted, he insisted repeatedly, that they weren't a couple. Yet, as the evenings progressed, they'd steadily become more affectionate. Not in any vulgar way, but when brushing past around the pool table there'd be a touch or two, and between games they'd sometimes lean on each other in a corner, deciding whether to go another round...

Maybe they came here because their friends or significant others didn't know the place; a secret trysting spot or a respite from dull relationships...Whatever it was, she looked at him in that way that women look at the men they want...He was the one that seemed more ambivalent, yet when you spend time with a woman every week, meeting at the same place, there's gotta be something there...

With every successive pitcher, Laura's smile would grow wider and would leave her face less often...This tavern served as her place to dream of the guy that wasn't hers away from the pool table and the Old Style...

Tommy

2008-11-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Tommy would walk his old bike in through the door, leading it like a worn-out nag...He had a winter coat over five or six layers on, year-round...After stabling his steed, he'd fit himself onto a barstool and wait for the stein of Old Style to arrive...

The twenty years of city life didn't rub out that Kentucky lilt from his voice; a sound so many country singers worked at or over-emphasized, flowed freely from his wind-seared lips...There were fragments of stories about country poverty, ex-wives, and the migration North in search of greener pastures...

Stray strands of Top tobacco would collect around him as the afternoon turned to night; sometimes lit butts flickered out, forgotten, in the ashtray after the sixth or seventh beer...He'd rest his elbows on the bar and stretch his back and drowse, waking occasionally to confirm that everything was as he'd left it...

It wasn't ever clear where he lived, but odds are it was some underpass away from the wind that so often whips this city's streets...Offers of food were usually rejected with a low-key politeness; despite being in a bad way, there were still lows he wouldn't sink to, some shred of pride to maintain...

He'd leave as the late-night crowd filled the place for what passed for a rush, returning after closing time...After the empties were thrown in the dumpster, the beer restocked, and the bar wiped down, he'd go get the mop and bucket from the ladies' bathroom...Passing it's gray threadbare head over the chipped and worn black and red linoleum tile earned him tomorrow's bottomless beer stein...Night after day after night...

Waitress

2008-10-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

She worked at the Golden Nugget, a 24 Hour diner down Western from the bar...Her work shirt, with the iron-on patch bearing her name, food-stained after a shift...She'd order Long Islands, chain-smoke, and follow me with her gaze up and down the length of the bar...

Tending bar was often a game of put-on intimacy; pouring drinks made a certain communion...Some wanted to extend it to a real connection, the liquor making them believe that something that wasn't there, really was...For the price of a couple beers they'd feel like they weren't alone , and after a few they'd start to truly believe it...Regulars would greet me as long-lost friends, returning from far off lands to spend these few hours together once more...

She'd talk about her kid and about her ex, who was abusive and the restraining order she'd had to get to keep him from breaking into her house...That bedroom cast to her glance was pretty difficult to overlook...It wasn't her obesity that was so off-putting, so much as her desperation and hunger...Being undressed with her eyes would've been alright but this was more like being prepped and seasoned to become the main course, to be devoured without knife or fork...

Around 5AM after closing up, I'd go to her restaurant and order the chicken-fried steak and cups and cups of coffee...She'd linger at the table but my nose would be buried in the Sports Section, going over last night's box scores...

Cops

2008-09-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

They were in three or four times a week; the station's location across the street being the obvious reason...The jukebox would be fed with $10 dollars worth of pop-country cheese...It was shortly after 9/11 and Nashville's response was reams of America-Will-Put-A-Boot-In-Yer-Ass songs...The cops never grew tired of'em, they were the background score to jokes about sand niggers and camel jockeys...They'd buy rounds represented by upside down plastic shot glasses...Sometimes these would be used during future visits like gift certificates...

There was an invisible wall separating the cops from the rest of the barflies, the front needed on-duty not quite coming down during off-hours...Some small talk occurred, but for the most part they had their own banter...It was fairly difficult to decipher the gist of it; snatches about disciplinary infractions and the like would break through, but for the most part there was much unspoken...Their shared experience filled the gaps, lengthening the divide from the rest...

The one with the mustache and the balding one were the constants, with a bunch of others in an out sporadically...My co-worker, Sue, had a thing for Mustache and 4AM would sometimes find them lapping at each other's faces in the corner...The generosity extended to the jukebox and their partners never quite made it to the barkeep; a three or four hour stay would usually yield $5, $10 if you were really lucky...This would cover ten to fifteen rounds too, the plastic markers covering the bar in front of them, some stacked, some built up into wobbling pyramids...

The mix of menace and dull-headedness that these men projected hung as an almost physical presence, lifting sometime after their leaving...Oftentimes one of their country anthems would be blaring for the third time, long after they'd gone...

Eric

2008-08-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

He weighed an easy four hundred pounds...More weekday afternoons than not, he'd pull a chair up to one of the video slot machines, order a Diet Coke, and while away hours seeking that big score...

There was a lock box under the bar with a couple hundred dollars and a scrap of paper to record payouts...We were instructed to only pay the people we knew, all others would be told that the machines were for "amusement" only...Periodically there would be word that a bar down the street had been raided and shut down, so there was always a tension involved in these transactions...Slot machines in bars seemed like a remnant of another, more free-wheeling, and lawless time; the fact that it was illegal to gamble on them now was both ludicrous and somehow sad...

As hours crawled by, Eric would rise only to relieve himself or to cash out his winnings, which would immediately be fed back into the machine...I'd bring him another Diet every once in a while...He never said much except for a short greeting and farewell, there was a hovering air of resignation and shame to him...He'd slump forward slowly, closer and closer to the flickering spinning screen in front of him, the only movement that of his fingers urging the cherries, plums, and dollar bills to align in his favor...

Word was that he was a dispatcher with American United Taxi, which had it's offices a block and a half south on Western...The rare times that others came in during his sessions, they would always greet him warmly...There was a lot to his life that I wasn't privy to, just this vice that he attended to as a zealot would to his god...

As with most gambling set-ups, the house would always win...The few big scores invariably offset by the multiple losses, calculated to assume that the player could never walk away, never quit while ahead...The few conversations I ever overheard involved recaps of close calls and lost chances...

He died shortly before I left that job, of heart failure if I'm not mistaken...Rarely was there anything more false than that "For Amusement Only" sign, proudly displayed on a machine that sold nothing but misery and dashed dreams...

Candy & Junior

2008-07-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

They'd come in on Saturday afternoons, often the only customers in...For hours...

Candy and Junior...She ran a daycare out of her house and I never did catch what it was that he worked at...Hers was a CC & Diet, his a 7 & 7...For first few rounds we were all the best of friends, but after a time she would start in...My name is? My name is? and on and on until I said it, Candy...This would please her, but only for a moment...Next she'd ask what my purpose was, words slurring more and more with each repetition...He'd want to know who he reminded me of; the correct answer was that country singer, Randy Travis...

Eventually it was time for her to rip into him...He didn't love her as he should, he didn't listen, he was a deadbeat...He'd take it all, chainsmoking the whole time...The most important thing in life is...The most important thing in life is...PAY ATTENTION...This last bit directed at me as well...

A couple hours in it would be time to cut'em off, which is when the weeping would commence...She could never accept it, took it as a personal affront, while he tried to reason with me...They'd sit there for a good hour without being served, occasionally begging for another drop; it's hard to ignore the only other two people in a bar...I'd move as far away from them as I could, would try to read a book or eat another bag of chips...The moans would die down and they'd say their goodbyes...

I'd wonder about the children entrusted to her care, about whether their mothers knew about Candy's true self...Perhaps this Saturday soap opera was performed only for me...There was no escape nor any way to make it stop; as soon as they'd come in, the steps could be choreographed down to each spilled drink, each insult...Sometimes after they'd gone, I'd wonder whether they'd even been real, but by the following Saturday there wouldn't be any doubt...

Don

2008-06-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

He was quiet and shy, words rarely and then only grudgingly escaped his lips...He was well-groomed, his hair styled in a '50s clean-cut sort of way...He lived upstairs from the bar with a couple of cats and some infrequent mentions of a deceased wife...Old Style from the tap for a dollar, the only beer we had on tap...Four or five in the late afternoon after coming home from work...

Don was laid off when I'd been at the bar about half a year...His decline began with a gradual letting go of his appearance...The tucked-in plaid shirts began to flap free, that Brylcreamed hair became unkempt...He got some kind of infection in his leg, causing him to limp, then drag it slowly behind him...He'd drift off with a hand on the beer stein, drool dropping from his lip...Urine stains darkened his slacks...It was hard not to look away...

We didn't see Don for five days before Kenny went up and broke into his place...Pizza boxes and other trash was stacked halfway to the ceiling...The cats had been gnawing at his corpse from hunger...The job he'd lost must've been the last thing keeping him together, a harmless solitary man...One of the few regulars at the Blue Light that didn't make me dread coming in...Before his descent, that is...

Wes

2008-05-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

He'd come in pretty much every day...Miller Lite was his poison, often with Christian Brothers brandy chasers...There were favorite jokes, mostly nigger jokes that won't be repeated, but his favorite was about Viagra and how since taking it he had lead in his pencil but no one to write to...

After six or seven Lites, he'd ask if I'd known Gayle, his wife who'd died not long before I took this job...Over my year there, Gayle was mentioned often, though aside from his longing for her, her visage was never more than murky and vague...He'd often complain about his coworkers at the apartment building where he was a doorman; all lazy worthless niggers according to Wes...

Aside from the racial attitudes, Wes was actually one of the more agreeable regulars at the Blue Light...He tried in his own way to make friends, though it was obvious that apart from a polite tolerance, there wouldn't be much warm feelings in return...It was much more his bar than mine; it wasn't my place to question his beliefs, only to make sure the bottle in front of him wasn't empty...

As with many of the lifers at the bar, Wes would remain a cipher...Being present for what constituted the highlight of the man's day, over and over again, didn't reveal many insights into what made him tick...We'd often sit across from one another, the bar separating us could have been an endless chasm...Still we'd show up there day after day...

The Tavern Keepers

2008-05-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

Kenny was the owner of the Blue Light, though he'd make every effort to tell you otherwise...He belonged to a motorcycle club, wore a Rollie Fingers-style mustache and a rat-tail at the end of what was left of his hair...He was fond of drinking Tequila Rose, a liqueur the color of Pepto-Bismol but milkier...He claimed to hold a land-speed record, achieved out West somewhere, on his cycle...He had property in Kentucky from which he'd return with cartons of Marlboros that he sold to the bar patrons...From time to time he'd take an interest in the inner workings of the tavern, mostly making sure that the bartender had put out bowls of popcorn...One never knew when he'd appear, some thought he had the placed wired and equipped with hidden cameras...He'd sidle up to anything in the ballpark of female that crossed the doorstep, though he had a kid with Sharon, the woman who really ran the place...

Sharon had eyes that popped out of her head...She was was so high-strung that you'd worry that something would snap inside any minute...She'd fly in in a panic over the most trifling thing, most of what came from her mouth came with exclamation points...It was hard to tell if it was Meth or her natural wiring that explained her ways, in any case that thing about making coffee nervous was written with her in mind...A lot of her time was spent in the back room pouring rot-gut booze into higher-end bottles...Tending to the cashbox for payouts from the video poker machines also required her attention...I never knew where she went when she left, but the door shutting behind her rail-thin frame was always a relief...

An Introduction

2008-03-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

After years of driving cabs, waiting tables, delivering Thai food, working at bakeries and art supply stores, I decided in my infinite wisdom to try my hand at tending bar...

The Blue Light was the kind of tavern that they'd make redneck jokes about, or maybe the kind in which Tom Waits might set a song if he was really slumming or hard up...The clientele came mostly in two flavors: hillbillies and cops; and yes, it wasn't easy to differentiate a lot of the time...The one thing that set the place apart and put it in select company was the 4 AM license, which meant that we'd deal with the dregs spilling from the 2 O'Clocks, the folks that hadn't had their fill...

I spent a year there, probably one of the worst of my life...This didn't have anything to do with the bar per se, it was more like a symptom or physical manifestation of my inner condition...Oddly, I never drank less in my adult life than in my time behind the bar...Drinking there would've felt like hitting bottom, or so it seemed at the time...

So...This'll be an attempt to describe the people at the Blue Light...I'll try to draw some pictures to illustrate these anecdotes and hopefully it'll add up to something more than another catalog of self-pity and complaint...The aim is to show a little corner of the world where time stopped working correctly, there are many of course but this was the one I found myself in, once upon a time...