Bartending is essentially watching different manifestations of sadness. Perhaps that’s just a projection of some sort, but it’s all I see. There’s the obvious examples – the old, surly drunk locals that come in at open on a Sunday or the occasional sullen jilted lover. And then there’s the ones you have to study – the drunken strangers hooking up at night’s end, the dolled-up girls trying too hard, the meticulously gelled hair, the drunken explosions of emotion, the desire to escape or to meet someone new to start a spark or fuck or reveal a sliver of yourself to, the need to be drunk and seen and desired and accepted – all of it reeks of lonely desperation.
None of them are saying anything. They talk about how drunk they are or were or are going to be. They argue whether or not it was a blocking foul. They talk about the reasons behind their disgust of tequila. Religion and politics are not to be discussed, nor is doubt or fear. When asked what’s on their mind they often say ‘nothing’. When they are asked how they are doing, they all say ‘good’. I don’t think the world around me shares my disposition, but there is no way that even half of this room is doing good.
Having approached the lull at the end of the night that occurs just before last call, I wipe down the thick syrup of Jagermeister that pools at the bottom of the machine and listen to the conversation behind me. The girl is a bottle blonde who had drank three Long Island Iced Teas and two draft beers on her father’s credit card. She came in around ten-thirty with a group of six, and spent most of the early evening flirting with a boy in their group who had eventually left with another girl from said group. Her current companion has been buying her shots for the last hour or so. He came in with a friend around eight to watch the basketball game, and has drank a half dozen drafts to go with a half dozen shots. This is his fourth attempt to chat a girl up. Neither tip well.
“I think you’re a really cool chick,” he slurs as I yank the pourers off of the empty bottles. I roll my eyes, but the truth is ‘I think you’re a really cool chick’ and all of its variations actually works. Because it doesn’t really matter what they say. Even the more sophisticated advances – the mutual appreciation of a Wilco record or the same views on a professor – are still mere formalities. They are no more hollow than this frat guy’s slurring, stock attempt to put his dick in something warm before he passes out or this sorority girl’s desire to right the absence of her father’s attention.
Seth comes downstairs to confirm that we have pot at home, which we don’t, so I pick out a shaggy-haired dimwit at the other end of the bar and give him a round of shots in exchange for a promise to get us high at shift’s end. On nights we work together, Seth and I often find ourselves in the residences of stumbling, barely coherent possessors of soft-core narcotics in the wee hours, shooting knowing glances and smiles at each other as they ramble aimlessly about our bartending skills and the Dutch guys they partied with while studying abroad.
The couple from earlier is making out near the jukebox when I turn up the lights, which always draws all of the patrons towards the bar like insects. I sell to-go beer to people who clearly don’t need it and close out the tabs of those too drunk to remember them and begin spraying down the bar when, like clockwork, Devin appears from the swarm of the patio and sits at the end of the bar. She’s had a habit lately of accompanying me in these last few minutes of the shift, and it always seems to make the bitter taste left by the inanity of the evening disappear. She usually doesn’t say much, being far too intoxicated, but rather just sits quietly while I wipe down the bar. I often lose my train of thought, wiping the rag repeatedly a circular motion over the same spot as we stare into each other’s eyes and talk dotingly about our days.
“We’re having a late night if you’d like to come over,” she offers, resting her elbow on the bar and leaning her head against her forearm. There’s something lovely about her upper arms. I can’t put my finger on it but they’re slightly bigger than the rest of her frame and freckly – imperfect in a perfect way that makes me smile.
”I think Seth and I are going over to some friends,” I reply, flicking off twenties into piles of five. I would much rather spend time with Devin – even an innocously inebriated Devin – than with some yuppie stoner I’m using to get high. She has a vibrant soul, the kind one must hide away or have beaten out of them; the sort of teeming, manic max of excitement and confusion that has sadly been disparaged into a diagnosis. It’s often muffled by layers and layers of premeditated demeanors and words and actions, sometimes lost in the shuffle of acting how she feels she must or should, but it’s there, and if one spends enough time with her, it’s easy for the trained eye to see her earnest passion.
The sophistication of our conversations doesn’t lie in their intellectual subject matter, but rather in their depth and immediacy and passion. There is something achingly endearing about watching her grow and find herself, and not necessarily being so smooth at it. I’m not certain if these things are charming because of their reminder of my own past and present, or their resemblance to the human condition itself. Devin is an individual in an increasingly individual-less world, but it seems lately she’s begun to lose her footing.
Uniqueness has begun to fade into the uniform. Only when we’re alone do I get to see the girl I’ve grown to love; in public her opinions have changed, as have her words, tone, inflection, mannerisms. She drinks much more now, tries harder to fit in with the circus, and seems to have grown a thin skin for indications of who she is. I’ve been in this town long enough to know that eventually that person I’m with when I’m alone is going to get swallowed whole. If she ever manages to break out of her cage and fly free, I probably will be long gone. Timing is responsible for a great deal of the heartache in the world.
All of this certainly draws me nearer to her. There is a sense of urgency, a laughable notion that I’m not privy to the same traps or that I can somehow convince her otherwise. The percieved futility of the situation has certainly stoked the fire of my passions, but it also makes me take a knowing step backward. Like her, I can’t allow my soul to bleed into matters of society. My affection feels boundless, but the offer she has just made is not to earnestly enjoy each other’s company, but rather an invitation to strut and peacock amongst the other suitors she has lined up to vie for her attention.
Her desire to be seen as a sexual being has escalated from calculated innuendo to frank declarations of promiscuity to anyone who has a few beers with her. Even the Captain’s staff, who gleefully giggle like seventh graders at the mere mention of sex, have begun to roll their eyes, which is both slightly embarrassing and hypocritical. They are guilty of the same sexually repressed act; Devin’s just more green and dramatic about it. Their state is no different than mine during the early explorations of sex and popularity. I can clearly recall the rehearsed lines meant to let friends casually know that I’d gotten laid the night before, the boisterous, amplified make out sessions and the pronounced exits, knowing all eyes were on the situation. I wince when I think of it all now, the kind of memory that makes you shudder and snap into the nearest thought your mind can find.
I want to grab her by the shoulders, and shout that none of this means anything, and the further you play along with them, the harder it is to break the molds that set in. Soon you’re trapped in the system, well aware of it’s illogical perils but still a slave to it’s mechanisms. The further you stay in, the harder it becomes to justify throwing in the towel, and you will find yourself forced to stand inside the ring and take blow after soul-crushing blow until you’re left a stupified and punch-drunk shell of your former self.
I want to shake her like I want to shake my former self, like I want to shake the whole world, and scream ’snap out of it!’ Everything around you is a distraction from the fact that we’re all hiding from each other, communicating uniformly through the system that was built for us. Drinking to the point of sickness and memory loss, fucking soullessly, shrugging off deeper contemplation, feeding not off love but attention, futile attempts to act perpetually cool and calculated and in control - this is what you all want? You’re all happy to be a part of this? And why do you have to take this beautiful soul with you?
But I remember that her and I are no different. I am as caught up in their web as she is, so I merely accept her invented disposition as well as her invitation for coffee in the morning and head off to smoke grass with a pack of uninteresting, shitfaced cogs, where I will sit in the discomfort of a lime green beanbag chair, saying nothing as I stare at a Pink Floyd poster and wonder if she finds the conversations she is having to be as meaningless and performative as the ones I’m sitting through.
