Right away, when I sat down at the bar and looked at all the beer signs and mirrors on the wall, I remembered that this bar was depressing. It’s impossible to emerge, from some bars, as the same man you were when you went in.
I sat there for half an hour or so, listening to this tandem of guys on the other side talking about “fu**ing the bartender” being the only reason to go into a bar, and yelling at her to go make them something to eat, and then I got out and escaped, and somehow the air seemed fresher and livelier than ever. It was time for baseball tonight, I turned that on. The crew of anchors wasn’t even at this big deluxe desk, they had them set up in a little side room, standing up.
I had a feeling that all the amusing alcoholics in the world had got girlfriends, had gone on Labor Day trips, and had shut up, tranquil from the company of the female sex. Me, watching Sportscenter’s Top Plays lowers my blood pressure like 10 points, so whatever.
They’d just erected this new bar, and there were no TV’s in there… the walls looked the bureau of motor vehicles. I just tried to keep joking with the nervous, giggly hipster tender in there, I had to talk to him the whole time he was close to me, until some other people came in, who said nothing in the ensuing moments. But this bar was at least well lit, with no conversations about or signs regarding disgusting sex acts around.
I looked across the river, out the window. Someone had spraypainted a little figure in some sort of raincoat, almost like a Dick Tracy the detective, except female. Life is all about keeping a lot of things in your mind at one time, so I tried to keep this little Dick Tracy figure, so I’d know just how deeply to look into everyone’s eyes I met with. When you have things, the flies swarm around you like thunder raining cans of house paint. And so, life is never finally having something, you are the tool of the universe. I still remember this was conversation I was having, in a darker bar, over on the other side of town. It was just about fu**ing people up. It wasn’t that great. And you could go to jail for that. More bureau of motor vehicles. Lots of times in my town, people travel by foot downtown alone, they will be homeless or wearing frayed jeans looking like little Tazmanian Devils, staring at you vitriolically no matter how little you have, materials or hope. Your only hope is spending the one thing you have, your only hope is dying, to live again. And over in the poets’ section of the library, there’s Dick Tracy. He discovered it all.