A Bar Called Ipanema

So the first time I ever ever stepped into a bar, before I’d ever began to romanticize them, before they became, to me, as necessary as having a grocery store or a laundromat, before Bukowski and Miller and Johnson and Hot Rod and Miss Jones, but still during Hemingway, the very first time, I was actually underage. But I wasn’t there to drink. The place was called Ipanema.

I was meeting my English professor, second one of my college career. We were going to discuss a paper I’d turned in. She’d told all her students to meet her at this place. It was her spot. The meet was just supposed to be a brief conversation. She had good things to tell me. Honestly, this professor changed my life. In several ways. The way she probably may have figured was that she was giving me direction. I was floundering, still hadn’t found my focus. All I knew was that I was capable of SOMETHING. She encouraged my paper, my future, and told me not to give up on writing. To trust myself.

But the other thing she didn’t realize she was doing was having me walk into a dark bar in the middle of the day where there was no one inside except her, a bartender, and some dusty tunes. I can’t tell you enough how much it hit me. This was some déjà vu shit, except from a whole other life. I knew this place. I’d been here a million times. I was a hundred years old.

But really, I was only twenty. I didn’t know anything except what other people told me, what I’d read, watched on a screen, and some instincts that were just set deep in my gut. Thanks, mom.

I was still moving ways and making faces I was completely unaware of. I was surrounded by people who didn’t always want to tell you what the truth was, even if it was for your own good. People who wouldn’t tell you if you had a booger hanging out of your nose. And also… who am I kidding, was I in any place to be able to listen to that anyway? I don’t know. I like to listen to people tell me nice things. I’ll always remember that man in the Delaware airport. I’ll take that one to the grave.

But when I really put some thought into it, I wondered if it was less me and more people not wanting to extend that extra step. People not wanting to get involved. It takes a lot to get involved. So in that way, assumptions are a lot easier to make, in my opinion. So maybe just cause I was such a strong-willed, stubborn, temperamental son of a bitch, maybe people underestimated that about me. The listening part. I did listen. I liked to listen. I liked to listen to birds. Music. Engines. Good laughs. Bad laughs too.

I came back to that bar some time later. It wasn’t late but it wasn’t as early as it had been that day I met my professor. I can’t remember exactly if I wanted to test the fence or if I just didn’t give a fuck. Most likely, I was probably just oblivious. What I do remember was that I wasn’t having a great day. I wanted a drink. And I didn’t want to be around my roommate.

So I walked down that small flight of stairs into that basement bar where you could still smoke and that smoke hung on the walls like moss and it was dark in there like it would always be dark, there and every other place I went in search for, and I took a seat at the bar on a black leather stool. I leaned forward like I had a weight on my shoulders. Not the weight of the world but enough weight for a kid who was learning it was him versus the world, I guess.

The sound of a beer can popping open made me look up. A beer sat in front of me, shimmering like a sword held up from the lake. And behind it, a woman with some of the kindest eyes I’ve ever looked into.

“This one’s on me,” she said.

“Wow. Really?”

That was all I could say. Give me a break. I was a kid having a drink bought for me from someone who wasn’t my dad or my uncle or even my older brother. Even crazier, it was a woman. I thought stuff like this only happened in the movies.

“You look like you could use it,” she said, and smiled. Then she walked away.

I came back to that bar for the next five years religiously. In love with that bartender and a lot of the ones that came after her. That includes Matt Teel. Haha. Even not living in that wonderful river city, should I ever visit, I’ll still come back, if only to feel how old I’ve become. Maybe fall asleep on the bar and have a young, pretty, really mean, and unforgiving bartender tell me to wake up and get lost.

Thank you, Kendra. Forgive me for coming in underage, but in your defense, my fake ID was pretty damn good. I’ll owe you forever.

Golly. Ipanema. It ain’t the way it was, but then again, neither are any of us. Neither for fuck sure is the world. But we sure had us a time in that little dark fun fucking place, didn’t we? Sometimes, I swear, that’s all we can ask for. What a life.