I went to the bar the following day. It was Suzy’s day off and there was some other chick behind the bar. It was still a little slow: only a few of the usual cast, two members of the brain trust, and one or two stragglers who had nowhere else to be. I’d never seen the new bartender before, so she didn’t know what I drank. She approached, smiled, asked what I wanted. I ordered a draft beer and a whiskey shot. She brought my order and paused for a second. Then she leaned forward a little, smiled, did a lift a squeeze so I’d notice the cleavage popping out of her tank top with the bar’s name splashed across her left boob.
“You wanna see a menu?”
Is it under that tank top? “No,” I answered.
Her smile shrank along with her cleavage. Then she wandered off to go smoke a cigarette on the patio – without making sure that everybody else had a full glass.
I looked up and saw Rico and Bob, the two members of the brain trust who were there, watching me. Rico was a retired steel worker and Bob, as far as I could tell, didn’t do anything. They, along with the two other members of the brain trust Sal and Mac the Elder, hung around, played the horses, and drank the usual mixed drinks. Rico preferred gin and tonic. Bob liked whiskey sours.
“Nice girl, huh?” Rico asked me.
I shrugged. “She new?”
Bob nodded. “Yup. She started yesterday.”
Rico concurred. “Yesterday.”
“She’s ok,” I said.
“Pretty,” Rico said.
“Very pretty,” Bob echoed.
“I guess so,” I said.
Rico squinted at me. “What’s wrong with you? You queer or something?”
“Yeah,” Bob chimed in. “You queer or something?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s good,” Bob said.
“Yeah,” Rico echoed. “That’s good.”
They were going to keep talking about how glad they were I’m straight, but they were interrupted by the start of the third race at Evangeline. Finally, I thought. I didn’t mind the new bartender particularly. She was a decent piece of eye candy – the kind that Adelle usually hired – but I was in no mood. Suzy not being there disturbed my sense of normalcy; and after Ruby’s visit, I was desperate for consistency. Or what passed for it. Of course, if I had bothered to pay attention, I would have known that it was Suzy’s day off; but I wasn’t willing to admit that my sister might have been right about needing to look at a calander.
Ruby’s visit was as nice as I could expect. It was short. Much longer and we would’ve had nothing to say to one another, and then all the old arguments would have started again.
When I’ve heard people talk about how close they are to their family and how they couldn’t imagine not being around them, I feel a mixture of disbelief and envy. Don’t get me wrong; I do love my family, in as much as I’m able to love any group of people I’m bound to by the accident of birth. I guess I never felt like I had much in common with them, besides the familial liver – and that only goes so far. Most drinkers don’t particularly enjoy the company of other drinkers; they’re just part of the package unless you decide to stay home and drink alone. But then your life starts to look like a Prohibition Era public service announcement. I remember watching those goofy made for TV holiday movies – where, despite the drama, the disagreement, and the personality clashes, everyone was laughing and smiling under the light of a too too pretty Christmas tree by the time the credits rolled. The dads always wore comfy sweaters and the mothers always baked cookies in uncomfortable looking high heels. All the problems were cute. All the kids were basically good at heart – even that odd rebel who walked around with long hair/pierced ears/tattoos/bad taste in music. There was always the wise grandparent who understood that the kid was just going through a phase and would eventually ditch the extreme clothes and teenage slang for an acceptable and gender appropriate alternative.
By the time the bartender came back from her smoke break, I was empty.
“You want another?” she asked.
“Just whiskey,” I said. “On the rocks.”
She brought me my drink. No lift and squeeze this time. Instead, she focused her attention on Mac the Younger, who had just shown up. He took his place on the peripheral of the brain trust and began his usual binge and purge approach to drinking and gambling.
I was still trying to wrap my head around my sister’s visit. Unless I was missing something, she almost seemed concerned about me. Maybe it was all that twelve step AA bullshit; but I wasn’t sure which odder: that my sister was being (as best she could) concerned, or that she was a recovering alkie. I guess it made sense. I never saw her drink more than few sips of wine at Thanksgiving; but then again, I never really saw her. Ex-drinkers are a lot like ex-smokers in that they start to see themselves as a crusader. They got themselves saved, so they become zealots, needing to go save other people. Whether they wanted salvation or not. Clearly her (and by proxy, the family’s) general consensus was that I was a lousy drunk who needed saving. That didn’t surprise me, particularly. I heard that song before I left home.
But I knew their motives. Their concern had less to do with me and more with the shame I was theoretically bringing down on the family. Appearances were important to them. To Ruby in particular. Her entire life was an exercise in carefully managing the appropriate public image. Not to smart, not too dumb. Marry appropriately. Live in the right neighborhood. Have the right number of kids. Dress correctly. Act correctly. Like the appropriate things. Just watching her was exhausting, and that was in spite of the fact that I hardly ever saw her. If there were things to be said, any deep dark secrets, they were never discussed. Ruby liked her little bubble undisturbed, just like mom liked hers. It was hard to tell what the reaction to Ruby’s AA lifestyle was. And I didn’t particularly want to find out, either. Go home? For what? To what? So I could get back on at the soap warehouse? So they could count how many beers I drank a day? What was the point? What did they know about my life?
A few minutes later, Adelle came out of the back office. Chivas Joe wasn’t with her. She sat at her usual corner spot and the new bartender had her drink ready before she sat down. “Thanks, sweetie,” Adelle squeaked and immediately sucked down half the glass.
The afternoon crowd was starting to trickle in. The other two members of the brain trust, Sammy and Ted, showed up. Sammy was a retired postal worker and Ted used to be in sales. They took their seats and started talking to Rico and Bob about the races. The bartender made their drinks, went around making sure everyone had a full glass, then went and talked to Adelle.
Rico and Bob hobbled off to make their bets, and Mac the Younger sat and looking over a borrowed racing program and chatting it up with Sammy and Ted. All gamblers have a system. Rico liked horses with long tails. Bob preferred grays and speckled mares. Mac’s system was more mathematical; he figured if he threw enough money in, he’d make it back eventually. If he hadn’t been born with the bug, Mac the Younger could’ve been a financial wizard. He knew the names of all the high winning jockeys at all the tracks he bet on. He knew the horses, the owners, the trainers. He read through the racing program like it was the Wall Street Journal.
I’d never seen him win, though. And Mac the Elder usually ended up bailing him out when he got in too deep. It’s easier to lose when you know there’s always a back up.
