I’m with the band
The Walk On Bye
A visit to a working-class bar without the class
As soon as I pushed through the front door I was met with the smell from the three pillars of a bar: cigarettes, alcohol, and human waste.
Moments before I had been driving in the pouring rain toward Atlantic City. Now, with broken and limp wipers on the windshield, it was the rain driving me. I had little choice but to make my way into the first place I could see, a repulsive-looking tavern squatting beneath a beaten sign. ‘The Walk on Bye’.
The bar inside, with its’ chipped wood and sagging rail, had a couple of stools with crippled legs beside it. Dark and dingy, you got the feeling the sparse lighting was less for mood and more to avoid seeing the need for repairs. The only thing inviting about the place was the ‘EXIT’ sign. But, on a somewhat welcome yet worrisome note, it appeared that I was the lone customer. A working-class bar without the class.
As I sat down at the end the bartender ambled over, his name ‘Jim” stitched on a white shirt that was stained with all the house brands. His stomach hung over his belt like a dripping candle and as he walked over he leaned way too much. Now, angled before me as if caught in a perpetual cross wind, I ordered his ‘best domestic’.
