The end of the world with symposium to follow
I stopped into the bar last night for a few dozen quick ones. That is the nature of agency. After I had been served a couple drinks in a natural way, the bartender said, “I’m going out for a smoke. Come out for a smoke.” I had quit smoking once you could no longer do it in bars, but only outside. I spend more time in bars than outside, so it seemed prudent. But I went with him and had a smoke, because when the bartender says something, you ask how high.
No sooner had he lit our Cuthbert’s Expert Cuts than he brought up what was on his mind. “I talked to Stan tonight,” he said.
“The owner?”
“Yeah. He just called me.”
We smoked our indie cigs. This didn’t sound good.
“They lost the lease. We got to be out the end of the month. Bar’s closing after New Year’s Eve.”
I looked around the street, which was empty except for broken dreams. With the cruel caprice of a landlord, fifty million years of evolution had come to nothing. The perfect bar was doomed.
“What will you do?” I asked him.
“A friend of mine has a bar in Jersey. He’s always wanted me to partner up with him. I may go out there and see what’s going on.”
“What’s Stan going to do?”
“You know the bar wasn’t making so much money these last years. He may just retire. He’s been at it long enough.”
It all sounded reasonable, except the main part. I wanted to get on my steed and warn the citizenry: “The bar is closing! The bar is closing!” I saw my entire career of bar patronage flash before my eyes, which usually only happened with a lot more drinks in me. “This is a blow indeed,” I told my bartender.
“What about you, Jack?” he asked me gently.
“What about me?”
“What will you do? I’m most worried about you. I mean, you have that famous blog about your exploits, and from what I understand, you mostly confine it to tales set at this very establishment. Will you go on with the chronicle? Will you find a new hangout, or move on to other sorts of adventures? Or have you stored up enough anecdotes to keep running on empty for a while?”
“Those are all good questions,” I told my bartender. “I’ll have to think about it.”
He nodded and we smoked our Expert Cuts. That is one foul cigarette.
After a moment he said, “There’s one more thing I was wondering. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, if the bar is closing forever, how will you get laid?”
I smiled and patted his shoulder. “Thanks for your concern, old friend. I always worried this day would have to come eventually, so I’ve always had a Plan B.” I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a tastefully-done flyer and handed it over.
“New York University Alumni Monthly Cocktail Party,” he read.
“Desperately lonely people wishing to relive the good old days they hated at the time,” I translated. “With endowment-subsidized drinks.”
He handed back the flyer. He seemed at a loss for what to say. “I—I never realized you had gone to NYU.”
“Well, like I say, I had to. I knew that its alumni parties, choked as they are with well-meaning women who have been unsuccessful at life, were my best bet in case dive bars started going under, which, in the downtown real estate climate created by NYU itself, was increasingly a possibility. It was a decades-long skunkworks project, and I hoped to never have to put it into action, but after what you’ve told me tonight, I’m afraid my hand has been forced.”
He looked like he was near tears. “It just isn’t right. That isn’t how the world should be.” Such a sympathetic bartender. Maybe it was better for him to get out of the game altogether.
I tried to comfort him. I said, “I know.” I said, “I’ll be all right. I’ve always landed on my feet. I’m a survivor.”
We smoked our cigarettes for a while, and then I flew screaming into the streets. The bar is closing! More as it happens.
by Jack, December 17, 2004 5:09 PM | More from Drinking
Within the Chronology
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You are pretty good. Check out my blog. I think you are very funny
Thanks, man.
something my attention span can handle. but seriously, i wish i was too blessed with the ability to string words together and form such beautiful sentences
Thanks for the sentiment, Lauren. What are you wearing?
are these clowns serious? you're a farce. you suck. supremely.
I knew the love could not last. Not in life, not in blog.
your title is a rip off of a play by Arthur Kopit
Actually, it's exactly the same title, because it's a reference. I did that because I expected people to get the reference; I guess you expected nobody would and so you feel smarter than average. That may be the case, but bragging about it seems to have lost you the same number of points. Thanks for your contribution.