A couple blocks up from the waterfront I found a side street second floor pizza place / sports bar and stood outside enjoying the summer late night breeze, finishing my cigarette before pushing through the chiming glass door and up the worn red carpet landing to the bar area.
There was a long slick lacquered wood slab for a bar top, tall backed heavy oak high stools were all pushed in except for one old guy way down at the end near the bathroom door staring down into his highball. 3 TVs lined the wall behind the bar, each offering up closed captioned commentary on a different local sports favorite, Celtics, Red Sox, Bruins, while a mix of jock jams and early 2000s hip hop played from the TouchTunes jukebox. The family section on the other side of the partial divider wall was closed this late and through the tacky Mediterranean terrace inspired lattice I could see waitresses cleaning up from the night, running a rag over a sticky soda and crust crumb covered table, pushing the manual floor sweeper across the thin stained carpet that showed through to the original 1800s wood slats in places, resetting little round Parmesan and chili flake shakers on checkerboard table cloths.
I shrugged my backpack off onto a stool with a thud and sat next to it, fishing out my expired ID and crossing my fingers under the bar. The bartender was a tall tanned guy in his mid 20s with gel spiked blond hair and frat energy who looked like working in a sports bar was one of his dream jobs.
“You just gettin’ off work bro?” He asked me on his way over from drying a rack of glasses. My burn marked arms, bagged eyes and bent cook shuffle must have given me away as an “Industry” worker.
“Yeah, sure am, just finished up my first shift down at Vignola.” I nodded my head vaguely in the general direction I’d come from down the hill near the wharves.
The bartender took my license with a big friendly smile and didn’t even look at it before setting it on the bar and sliding it back to me, “Never heard of it, what food they got?”
“Italian, good pasta menu and I’m on pizza station, though you’re probably sick of pizza working here.” I joked and ordered a Guinness, relieved he didn’t give a shit about my license.
Most bars around Portland cut you some slack if they knew you were a restaurant worker. It was a foody and drinker kindof town and everyone in the industry stuck together. If there was a bartender you liked you always sent them a few bites of free food when they came to your restaurant, and in turn they’d “fuck up” a drink every now and then and give it to you free when you were drinking at their bar.
I watched the muted non-sequitur action comedy of the sports commentary blankly and sipped my perfectly pulled cold beer while I texted my long distance girlfriend from Virginia. We’d been texting for a few months when I lived in Charlotte NC, more seriously when I moved to the Outer Banks and started dating just before I moved up to Portland Maine. The plan was for her to join me as soon as we found an apartment for her, but right now I hadn’t even found one for myself. My old friend from New Hampshire had picked me up in Kill Devil Hills, NC a few days before on 4th of July weekend and in a whirlwind nonstop drive of adderall popping, chain smoking and finessing one functioning brake caliper all the way up the east coast, I was right back up here working the same job I’d quit 3 years before. I’d had a couple of nights crashing with him when I first got in to the area, but he lived a couple hours from Portland so once I started working this job I’d lined up that wasn’t really an option. He dropped me off in Portland, I’d talked to the sous chef in person to secure my job and stayed with a CouchSurf host for one night. Now I was out on my own to figure it out, again. I didn’t know anyone around town anymore to stay with, everyone I knew from before I’d set off on my ill fated trip cross country had moved outside of the city or left the state altogether and thought I was crazy for going back.
But sleeping on the streets for a bit while I worked this job and hunted for an apartment was far better than staying in North Carolina around the scene I’d found myself hanging with. Our group house of wayward idiots had already been raided once and a few of us had almost landed in prison. I had no intention of pushing my luck a second time and the freedom of the open night felt far better than sleeping in a soft bed with one eye open.
When I finished my beer I paid up, left a 100% tip and walked back down the stairs to the brick sidewalk and frost heaved cobblestone street. It was July but the wind blowing in from the Atlantic gave it a creeping chill that set in the longer you were outside.
All the bars were starting to throw out their last drinkers and turn the locks, it was time for the whole city to stumble home through the orange humming light haunted by the tolling buoy bells in the bay. Now I had to find my home for the night.
Pt. 3 HERE
