Chuck’s thinking: Dad’s Bar’s been history for a half-dozen years. Now I’m drinking on the other side of the counter. Good news is that my hands no longer stink from a smelly bar rag. I’ve noticed some things about bars and the people who come in for a drink. I ain’t a rocket scientist; it’s easy to see that a guy coming in for the first time who stops and looks around before waltzing over to a spot where there’s lots of light is a couple of shades different from the one picking out the darkest corner.
I’m a middle-of-the-road guy, not too bright, nor too dark – we’re talking about light here, not IQ. That’s where I like to find a space for my elbows.
Willi’s is a great neighborhood, with plenty of watering holes. I’ve a couple of favorites I patronize, spreading the joy and dollars around. It’s much the same in all of them. Never going to be like Charlie’s Bar & Grill – that was my dad’s. Tapas and chichi now. Doubt even the most upscale have a bright corner where you could sit and read a book. You wouldn’t be sitting there if you had a book you needed to read anyway.
Anyhow, I’m sitting in the bar down the block when the guy next to me bumps my arm, says he has to pee. A couple of drops of my beer spilled onto the counter. Must have been the way I raised my eyebrow, but the guy said he’d buy me another when he got back from the head. I lowered my eyebrow and stored the information in my file under “secret weapons.”
He comes back, waves at Joe who’s tending bar, and points to my glass. “One for my friend.”
I didn’t hear any general giving me a promotion to “friend” when he was in the pissoir and was tempted to raise both eyebrows but was afraid it could have been considered an act of war. So, I cross my legs and hold my pee. I was two beers away from my bourbon chaser and sayonara, adieu, auf wiedersehen – whatever. It doesn’t matter. The guy wasn’t a regular – probably wouldn’t come back here for a month of Tuesdays.
So, he buys me a beer and then another, starts going on as if someone opened the tap to his mouth and closed the one to his brain. On and on about how great a state Wisconsin is: statebird, the robin; state flower, blue violet; state tree, sugar maple. He was a walking encyclopedia, and trust me, he didn’t get that way from drinking beer.
Finally, he gets to this old Airflow camper he’s going to hook up to his SUV. “Really,” I was going to tell him, “I didn’t think you’d hitch it to your dingus!” But you never can tell. When he told me it was from the early fifties, I said that itsounded old. He steamed through his clenched teeth, “Vintage. We say it’s vintage!”
And then he pulls a picture out of his wallet. “Here.”
I give a nod of approval even though it looks like what you’d get if you squashed a tin-foil football in a shoebox.
Then he gets to his Airflow. How it’s this and that. You’d think he was talking about Madonna. Pity Madonna, then, and it was getting late. I look down the bar and catch Joe’s attention – bourbon time.
But Mikey – at some point he slips in his name – goes on without missing a beat.
When Joe puts the glass with the brown liquor in front of me, the guy finally stops talking, pops his eyes wide open, and asks me how I did it, as if my drink had floated down from the ceiling like a dust ball.
“No big deal,” I answer, “beer and bourbon is Wisconsin’s state drink.”
I pour it straight back, take out a couple of bills, and put them under the glass. I wave at Joe who waves back.
Decide I’ll give the bar a pass for the next couple of weeks, no sense taking any chances. Figure by that time Mikey’ll be off somewhere in his Airflow.
About the author
Kenneth M. Kapp lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late at night in his man-cave. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries.
Please visit www.kmkbooks.com.
He has been nominated for the Pushcart Price. His stories have appeared in more than ninety publications worldwide including the Saturday Evening Post, October Hill Magazine, EgoPHobia in Romania, Lothlorien Poetry Journal in Ireland, and The Wise Owl in India.
About the Author
