thebottle Blog

I find myself displaced once again; I find myself in a redneck bar all alone. The music is good, Chuck Berry, Tom Petty, Supertramp, oldies and classic rock are the majority in this bar. I may be able to enjoy the night with this music. The bar is packed, 6 cougars sit across the bar from me facing my direction, all of them with white hair. An older couple sits on the end enjoying a large meal of fish and fries, and later a man and 2 women come in from the patio and sit next to me, but for now I sit alone.

The place is packed and everyone knows each other or at least their name. I can tell the way they all laugh together, the way they smile at each other; they force me to lend them smiles at the appropriate times. The bartender is drunker than the patrons, so I produce an authentic smile for him. He is pouring three shots into our drinks instead of one, he listens to good music, he dances with his wife in the middle of the bar and he grabs her ass, and everyone in the whole bar smiles at them. This could be heaven, but I’m not enjoying it, I stare into my drink and watch myself stir the ice.

I realized it wasn’t heaven when the macarena song burst through the stereo; God wouldn’t allow such a song in heaven. The cougars start in on the dance, and I can’t help but to smile, and then it’s down looking into my sad lonely glass once again.

“Come on do the macarena!”

“No, not me.”

Two cougars begin to prowl, they approach me and grab my hands forcing the gestures of the song, I smile and try it myself and after one time I was done and they knew it.

“What’s a handsome man like you doing in a bar like this?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“You breakup with your girlfriend?”

“No.”

“You get in a fight with your parents?”

“No.”

“Did your dog die?”

I made eye contact and gave her a blank look to let her know that I got the joke, and she smiled and laughed, and then she walked away.

I don’t know what time it was, but it was late. An eleven and a half year old boy sat across the room with a look of tormented boredom. He had just finished playing a game of pool alone. I ordered another beer and walked over to him.

“Want to play?”

He was enthusiastic.

“Sure! I play all the time at my grandma’s.”

I figured that he ought to be good if he played so much, but he wasn’t. He accidentally put the 8 ball in out of turn.

“Good game,” he said as he approached me and shook my hand like a man. “Yeah, real good game.”

I walked over to the bar to order my last beer and get $1 in change. I played the kid again. Usually I would have let him win this game, but I just couldn’t bear another loss. Not tonight. I hit all my shots and the game was over.

“Good game kid, you’re real good.”

I walked up to the bar with my last 25 cents and asked, “What can I get for this?” as I plopped it down on the counter with a smile. She looked surprised until she looked up and saw me smiling and then I walked out of there without a penny to my name leaving everyone in that whole bar grinning, everyone but me.