One of my regulars died today. It wasn’t the first phone call I ever received that said as much, but I received a follow-up text that alluded to the fact that he might have taken his own life (that text came an hour later).

Like any weekday I was at my big boy job, a place far beyond my situation over a decade ago when I began slinging the booze. But this news —horrible fucking news under any context— seemed different.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning. Or some shit like that. Whatever. Not a day goes by when a bartender misconstrues the neon glow of a Molson Canadian sign for a red sky or a full moon or a Friday the 13th - the shit can hit the fan at any hour of any day. Used to a slow Saturday day shift? Wedding party bus unloads on your doorstep. Last call with your balls to the wall on a Friday night? The day bartender forgot to order credit card tape? You make do with what you have and you finish out the night.

And here we are.

Drinking is weird in the US. I’ve spent some time in other countries, long amounts of time, in fact. Two years in the South Pacific watching locals make coconut moonshine out of tree sap and yeast was enough to question taste, let alone allow enough free time for my mind to wander to try a sip or seven. Basically, I’ve drank well beyond the confines of ridiculous laws, laws that state you are able to operate 2000 pounds before you comfortably learn how to ingest 48 ounces. But I’ve also had enough heartbreak, answered enough calls, and been to far too many funerals to know when enough is enough.

I’ve had almost 11 years behind the bar. I appreciate the bar life and I understand the relationships that are made. I love those relationships. LOVE. I love each and every person that I come in contact with on a nightly basis (Fuck the day shift. I don’t have the patience for that, even though I respect day drinkers to the tilt. Nothing good ever happens after midnight). And hell, I’m an equal opportunity server, I even love the problem people. When guys swell up at one another? There is nothing greater than knowing that you have the ability to bring them down to hugging level by the end of the night. Bartenders, good bartenders, are the only people that can turn two wrongs into a right. At the same time, I’ve been a lackadaisical parent; sometimes it’s easier to preemptively kick someone out of the bar than to learn their life story. It’s a business first. It will always be a business first. It’s sad but true.

But at the same time, where is the line? What is the difference between a bar yelling NORM! and a bar mumbling, Oh God, it’s Norm again. I love every Norm. At the same time, I’ve also mumbled the latter. I’ve even made an obnoxious situation of the latter. And I never felt good for having done so.

What I’m saying is this: Drinking is about discovery. It’s about tastes and fog and apologies and love. And yes, dealing. You do it, you drink your day away, but there are expectations. You don’t bitch about the size of your tab at the end of the night and you don’t use it as an excuse to deal with the real situations at hand. If you’re broke? Be a man and buy milk and Ovaltine and bread and keep your ass at home. Drowning your sorrows? Understand that your sorrows will be as saturated as ever when you wake up the next  morning. But for now? Yes, we’ll be happy to provide an emotional break from the chaos in the meantime. Meantime. Fuck, life is mean time. Learn how to swim. Learn how to take a punch. Learn how to be good to one another.

Spring or summer? We haven’t decided, but I’m due for retirement. If I was in a fancier establishment, I might figure out a way to save up enough money to have my own place, but I’m already working three jobs as it is. I’m tired of burying people that have tapped out, and I hope to your God or my God or his God that the spirit of drinking and discovery will carry on.

Taste it, feel the bite. Understand that you can’t cover up the flavor or the hands that put your distilled goodness into a carefully-made barrel, and appreciate the hands that spent the extra minute peeling away the meat from your twist. Then look at the person that made you a perfect cocktail and know that they made it with the expectations of making your night better. Not your life, but your night.

And if they don’t look like that, find another bar. And if it doesn’t feel like that, find help.  

Posted at 7:59am and tagged with: Hopeline,.