Closing Time
I stock the coolers as a gentle hum from a neon advertisement snuffs an otherwise deafening silence at my bar. There’s people here, but there are invisible barriers between all of us and nobody really says anything.
“Maybe I’m projecting.” I think to myself, noticing the legions of lonely eyes that stare into their increasingly empty beer cans, seeing myself in places and people where they don’t belong. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, after all, but I also couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that’s why I was tending bar to begin with.
“Maybe I’m just being arrogant.” I think.
This place is sacred to the elderly and disenfranchised that inhabit it. To some it’s a photo album, and to others a church, but everybody that comes here seems to hold the building in a particular high regard. One guy in particular shows up every shift, like clockwork, every night at seven o’clock to clean the pool tables and make sure the chairs aren’t too wobbly. He gets on his hands and knees, inspects the floorboards for rot and peaks through the small holes in the wainscoting for bugs. He doesn’t charge for this service, either, says that his dad used to own the place and tells me that he feels obligated to make sure things are still operative.
“Two shots of Rumple Minze.” He says, and always refuses to have them on the house. He doesn’t like the Free Drink For A Quarter game, either, but has recently given up on his goal of having it removed from the bar entirely.
“People really aren’t very good at the game.” I used to tell him.
“Bullshit!” He’d exclaim, then drop a quarter in to prove me wrong. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that I ever saw him make one.
Self-assurance can be a motherfucker, I guess.
The clock reads 8:44 PM and the cook turns off the fryers. The whole place smells of fried catfish and spilled whiskey when somebody finally approaches the jukebox. She plays an old country song that I’ve never heard before, then returns to her seat and bobs her head up and down to the gentle cadence of a violin and acoustic guitar.
“Is your kitchen still open?” She asks me.
“Just shut her down, sorry.” I reply.
“Damn, I could really use some fried mushrooms. Oh well, could I get a shot of Patrone?”
“We don’t have Patrone either.”
“Well, what the hell do you have?” I point to the bottle of Jose Cuervo and shrug my shoulders.
“I just pour the drinks, ma’am, I don’t order the bottles.” I say.
“That works. Fine. Give me two.” She hands me a crinkled ten dollar bill and tells me to keep the change. It’s a very generous tip.
I carefully pour two shots of Jose Cuervo and spill the contents of one down the front of my sweatshirt. Then I pour another and set them in front of the lady at the bar. Her eyes look lonely, but I suppose that most things look that way when one feels like an island. Eyes are lonely. Cars are lonely. Stray cats and garbage bins and storm-clouds that drop mountains of snow in a mad dash away from you. It’s all lonely. “I’m probably just projecting.” I think as I slide the shots down, making absolutely certain that I don’t spill another. The lady at the bar takes a deep breath in and looks up at me.
“Well, you’re having one of these, aren’t you?” She asks and gestures a wrinkled finger toward one of the shot glasses.
“Tequila makes me emotional.” I tell her.
“That’s the point, right?” She replies, then continues.
“Would you just take the damn shot? I don’t want to drink alone.” I smile meekly and take the glass from the table, put it to lips, and swallow.
“Maybe I’m not always projecting.” I think.
11:29 PM. The bar has mostly cleared out. My tip jar has reached the double digits for the first time this week and I see people parade up and down the street through tinted windows. I remain inside, beside them and separate at the same time. For a moment, I realize that this fact would probably be true whether my bar was full or it was empty, and whether I was on this side of it or that one. It’s a very lonely moment and I wait for it to pass, but it does not. It lingers like the drunk at closing time, refusing to leave or accept the fact that bar time runs fifteen minutes ahead of regular time due to people like him.
“It’s only 1:45! Look!” He yells, pointing at a glowing cell phone screen.
“It’s 2:00 here, motherfucker. Now get out.” But he digs his feet in the tile, just like this feeling. They’re the same thing.
I use up all the free tokens on the jukebox and wait for people that aren’t going to come. And I feel as if I spend a lot of my time doing that, at least as of late, and wonder if that’s just the way things are going to be for me now. Who can really say? The love of my life could walk through those doors at any time, right? My best friends could all stroll in at once and try to get me to close the bar early to go party with them.
Neither of them do, of course, but it’s feasible. You have to cling to that hope or life is too heavy.
And so I do.
I am.
The night closes in on itself and I make my rounds. Shut the popcorn machine dpwn, make sure the back door is locked, turn all seven sets of lights off, empty the garbage cans, then walk out the front door and lock it behind me. There is a little village of cats dwelling in the empty lot next door and I toss the scraps of food left behind for them. They all scatter toward it like they’re starving to death and fight one another for the biggest chunks. I can hear them hiss and scuffle for the next couple blocks.
The city is quiet. It’s as still as it is small, as cold as it is stubborn, and I make my way toward another bar down the street. Maybe I’ll have a good conversation with some stranger I’ll never see again. Maybe I’ll run into an ex-lover or a could-be lover and maybe I’ll get blackout drunk with a grin on my face. Maybe it’s not so bad here. Maybe I’m lying.
Maybe I’m projecting.
Maybe I’m not.
Maybe.
