| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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The Tavern is only open on weekends, when the owner sends out one the bartenders from the more popular bar to either suffer the boredom and lack of tips or enjoy the quiet, depending on their nature. When my friends and I were there last night, there was only one other customer there, a guy who sat slumped over the bar all night drinking beer after beer. I was there with Tom, Max, John, and Bart; they were all drinking beer and i was drinking wine because they don't sell hard liquor at the tavern. Despite the limited drink choices, i like a quiet bar. Somewhere along the line Max suggested that we go someplace more exciting. John and Tom seemed ready to go where the action is, and I could go either way. Bart was militant about staying at The Tavern. Bart is moody, and even when he's depressed he's excitable. something seemed to be on his mind. Anyway, popular opinion forced him go with the rest of us and we all went out to our cars. Bart rode with me. The place we were going to was across town, and Bart started rambling on about various things. Then he said, "did i tell you about Big Man?" "Who?" "He's a guy who had worked for my father for years. black guy, really big - 6'3" and 300 pounds - and everybody called him Big Man. His real name was Dwayne Johnson. He was about 10 years older than me, but we got to be friends during that time I worked for my dad. A couple of weeks ago I got a call telling me that he had died. He'd been pulled over by the cops for something - you know traffic violation - and he'd struggled with them and had a heart attack. He had a congenital heart condition. Me and my dad and some other guys from work went to his funeral last Saturday. In fact, it was in one of those churches right over by where you live, the first one you hit when you pass under the train trellis. I'd never seen anything like it. You know, it was a Black church - all his family and friends were there and a church choir and the preacher or whatever saying "Brother Dwayne was a fine man" and everything. I mean it was the most spiritual thing I'd ever seen. And the people didn't just sit there and keep quiet - if Brother Dwayne was a fine man then they'd say "mmm hmm" or "praise the lord" and all that. It was just incredible." In a way, I was a little worried about his romanticizing a funeral. Then again, this is Bart - he tends to get passionate about things. He stopped talking for half a minute and stared out the window. "If I died tomorrow," he said, "nobody'd care." "Well gee, I'd care." "Well, yeah. And I'm sure my dad would, I don't know about my mom. It's just..." "You wouldn't get the kind of mourning Dwayne got?" "Shit. It's like my grandmother - she went to that big protestant church over there by the park - you know? - went there every fucking day of her life and gave money to it regularly. When she was dying the pastor there wouldn't even come to see her.She was in her hospital bed and she asked for the pastor or whatever they're called to come to see her and he fucking wouldn't! Like he was too fucking important for her." Trying to be supportive, I said, "what a shithead." "Alright," he said, "fuck this and fuck those guys" -meaning tom, john, and max whom we were still following- "turn here." I pulled into the 7-11 he had just indicated, and Bart went in and bought a 12-pack of beer, a bottle of cheap wine, and a pack of cigarettes. "Let's go to the lake," he said when he got back in the car. I drove out to the lake and we found a picnic spot with no one else around. Bart grabbed a beer and wandered off down the beach a short distance. I couldn't follow him in my wheelchair, luckily, so i just leaned up against the car and opened up the cheap wine. When he wandered back over to me the first thing he said was, "Life sucks." And I said I agreed. "Nothing turned out like I planned," he said. "I was supposed to married to Dana and be an Electrician and live happily ever after. She was my first love and first sex. When I met her in high school I said right there: this is the woman I'm going to marry. Love at first sight. I believe in love at first sight. You ever heard that Beatles song where they say 'do you believe in love at first sight' and then they say all sarcastic 'yes I'm certain that it happens all the time'? Well fuck them, there is love at first sight." I'm pretty sure the Beatles believed in love at first sight, but I kept my mouth shut. "What did she want from me [Dana]? I helped her pay for her car, I helped her pay for hairdresser school, I even got us a house, and she just leaves me." The truth is that Dana figured out the Bart wasn't going to make enough money to support her in the manner she wanted. She had gotten all she needed from him. After this Barts starts ramble on about how he doesn't know what he wants to with his life. At one point he tears up. Then walks off toward the lake and I watch him follow the shoreline for quite a while until he diappears into some woods. I still had some wine left, so I could wait. I had finished the wine and was cracking into the beer when he finally appeared along the shoreline, walking back toward me. He had a walking stick. When he got back to me he was grinning. He opened his arms wide and said, "Nothing fucking matters, does it?" "Nah," I said, and handed him a beer. "Look at you," he said. "You just don't fucking care. You're in a wheelchair and you just don't fucking care. It's just not worth the fucking aggravation." "Damn straight," I said, just glad the crisis had played itself out. We got back into the car. he started looking through a little free magazine he had picked up as we left the tavern. "You know this magazine?" he said. "What is it?" "Buddy Magazine. It's a local music magazine, lots stuff about the blues and other stuff. It's named for Buddy Holly, who's from Lubbock Texas. Buddy fucking Holly." "Named for who - Jerry Lee Lewis?" "Fuck no! Buddy Holly!" "Oh, Gene Vincent." "Buh-dee Hol-lee!" "What was that, Carl Perkins?" And so on till I got him home. |
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great story, thanks. |
i'm really neither a good friend or a good person, I just don't have anything better to do. |
Your stories make me smile. |