All the politics and craziness has left me speechless of late. It’s weird, when people start talking about Trump or Armageddon.. or any of those things that I used to not mind talking about at all.. now my mind goes blank at the mere mention of those kind of things. If the shit is going to hit the fan so be it.
This is shut down. This is wafting into the severe I don’t give a fuck place.
And in these moments, while hanging out with friends… When the shouting and repeated headlines emerge… I’m rude, I change the subject, and I’m telling stories of the past. Stories that are amusing, at least to me and I hope those who are listening and not pondering on how rude I am.
Stories of life, love, passion and things that do not really exist in that upper realm of assholes who try to run the world…
This is one of those stories, I thought I would share here…
So, I used to be a bartender. I guess one never stops being a bartender if you’ve ever done it a long time and I did.. so yeah, I can make a killer Manhattan. For the rest of my life. I’m retired.
Anyways… I was tending bar in this really wild country town here in Florida. Like an old west kind of town. Cool place. But the bar… I stumbled across this bar via friends who told me stories of knowing the owner and spending drunken nights passed out on the pool tables. They of course knew the owner.
Years later there is a help wanted sign in the window. I go in. I get hired. Seemed cool. They have a new owner now. Cool old biker chick, cool head bartender biker chick, cool old dude who’s been holding down the same bar stool since the place was built… it had it all.
I worked there one night. Actually, I would say it was 3/4 of the night. That joint was nuts man. Nuts.
It was all going well. I was working the bar, it was just beer anyways so nothing to do really.. the head bartender and the owner were hanging out with the regular at the end of the bar and all was going easy. Then the ladies decide they’re going to run down the street and get tattooed. Spur of the moment thing. So they toss me the keys to the bar and jet. For real. I’m left standing there with ol’ what’s his face and what I thought was an otherwise empty bar.
First night ever in this place.
Okay. No prob.
This old Mexican guy comes in. Traditional, cowboy hat, boots. He does not speak any English at all. He says he wants a Cerveza. Of course he does. What kind I ask. He says Cerveza. Now I’ve been a bartender a long time and I am being called upon to rely on what knowledge I have from tending bar in a Mexican populated farming area. Usually. Usually, they order Budweiser. So I pull one out and offer it to him.
No. That’s not it. I offer Bud Light. Nope. I’m planning on running the whole cooler by him, hell I have nothing better to do at the moment anyways… but before I get past Corona, this Viking – Amazon of a biker woman busts in.
Now this is a small bar. Probably approximately 50 feet long by 15 feet wide with bar and stools. There was a sort of partition that separated another small room where the pool tables were. The 2 pool tables.
This 6 foot 2, three hundred and fifty pound woman with hulking frame and long, scraggly, blond hair stood in the doorway and dwarfed everything. She wore an old, saggy white tank top with her equally aged cargo shorts, no bra over her huge wild breasts and thick flip flops.
She was extremely angry. We knew this because a second after she burst through the door she hollered out this question: “Where the fuck is he at?!?
There were three of us in there if you count Mr. Regular at the end. My gentleman with the beer problem (my problem, not his) was staring solidly at the wall behind the bar and didn’t even bat an eye. I was looking at her trying not to look her dead in the eye when I bravely (stupidly) asked who?
It didn’t matter. She saw the who, who turned out to be an individual inside the pool room that I didn’t even know was in there. We heard the sounds of her beating him.. It was fierce. Terrible. Damn…
She emerged like a triumphant and glorious cave woman, dragging her extremely skinny and gangly man by an arm with one hand, whilst wielding a pool stick with her other hand. We had been forgotten and we watched stupidly as she continued on with her prize out the front door.
Back to the business.
What beer does this dude want? What!? All he says is Cerveza. I feel like I’m in a Quentin Tarantino movie. The man holding down the bar stool forever takes a break and ooches around the corner of the bar to grab himself another beer out of the cooler. He returns to his post apparently ready to have a conversation and share some wise words of something. I’m not being sarcastic. I would have loved to know what the fuck he said. But it’s lost forever now, sunk into the solid wood of the bar which he mumbled it to.
As I returned my attention to the beer search a small group of sweaty, red faced Caucasian men entered the bar. Three of them. The leader had that stringy blond, gray, greasy thing going on with his hair. Bout chin length. Their eyes were glistening, no, sparkling, with booze. I could frickin see it, glinting off the almost non existent lighting of the room. They were sweaty.
Mmm. No good man. No good.
First thing out of the fuckers mouth is “hey there… show us your tits?!”
Look, I worked in a bar for approximately 11 years and about 5 in a liquor store. Everyone has been hollered at to show off their tits. Even very fat men. This is not offensive.
But hearing it from these scary ass dudes, on this particular night in this particular place. Naahh… Not into it.
I handed those keys to the bar stool guy as I walked around the bar, through those freaky dudes and out the grimy door into the fresh night air. I took a deep breath of it and walked on to my car, got in, and left.
Never looked back. Didn’t ever get paid.
True story.
Crazy world, but amusing.
Saddest thing was I never did figure out what kind of beer the Mexican dude wanted.
Smile and be good out there.