Spider Hole

Serving drinks on Christmas Eve is far from ideal. The bar isn’t exactly the final frontier for the holiday season and yet, everyone is itching to drown in booze whether sprinting away from problems or getting the liquid courage to stare them down. No one wants to cover a holiday shift and I’ve got no family living to spend the time with hence why I’m here providing respite to anyone who needs it unless it’s emotional. I’m tapped out or at least closed up with that. 

I skip the tradition of making the place seem more festive than it is. You can’t exactly dress a bar in tinsel garland and incandescent lights and call it Christmas. The stink of cheap cigarettes alone put the holiday spirit in a chokehold. Shooting pool and slamming back vodkas with no chaser doesn’t sound like a scene St. Nick would be caught dead in unless his sex life was barren or his stress levels were through the roof. Everyone gets eggnog and brandy and that’s the extent of the Christmas feeling they’ll have. 

Speaking of barren, the place has been deserted as of 6 pm which is when I started. All that stuff I was going on about with people stumbling in seeking refuge in a glass of whiskey or tequila happens the day before Christmas Eve. The day of, no one bothers traipsing through my door begging for a drink. In a town filled with more bars than churches, banks or restaurants, I come up short at times like these. Most of the places people frequent are shut down by now and everyone’s opening presents or celebrating and preparing to open them the next day. 

“Well, Martin”, I fix myself a Moscow mule and raise it to the ceiling. “Here’s to another lonely Christmas.” Strokes, heart attacks, cancer, and various other things have claimed family member after family member year after year until I turned 21 and there were none left. Once I hit the legal drinking age, the tragedy stopped and I could finally cope the way I wanted to since I was 15. I barreled through anything I was able to wrap my eager hands around: vodka, whiskey, champagne, wine, rum, gin. The presents like wagons, plastic army men, shovels, video games, socks, books were presents I could no longer have from childhood that shrunk in scale and quantity as time clicked forward with the passing of my father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins. 

My reality is one that survived liver damage, depression, and a little head trauma by the time a former friend suggested I take up bartending when I inadvertently mixed a solid cocktail at a house party one time. It was pure luck but I pursued it and seven years and hundreds of drinks served later, here I am, mulling over this gaping hole in my life that I never spackled or drywalled or whatever. I call it a spider hole because I imagine spiders would occupy that negative space if anything else didn’t. All the cobwebs are probably there holding prey and babies and whatever else spiders have in their homes. 

Interestingly enough, I have company and though it may not exactly be wanted, it’s a group of hammered couples rambling about last-minute shopping, horrible shifts, and other conversations people could pick up on from two blocks down. “Yo bartender, what are you doing here? Spend some time with your family man”, one of the girls giggle and I quickly silence her with an offhand comment about not having a family to spend time with. 

She brakes in a hilariously over-the-top yet genuine gasp, trades shocked faces with her friends and then turns her attention back to me. “Everyone has a family to spend Christmas Eve with.” I shrug and repeat my words slower in case she’s having trouble absorbing the sentiment. She orders a vodka proper, slams her hand on the bar, and demands that I join them. “We’re doing what the British call a pub crawl. We’ve hit up every bar except this one and all the other bartenders took off right after except for you. You should totally come with us… what’s your name?” 

“It’s Martin and thanks for the offer but this bar can’t run itself.” The six of them scan the empty bar and fill the space with their chuckles. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that I’m watching a barren bar until 11 o’clock. I fix the vodka proper, concerned that a drunk girl is nursing another drink but I have to field or avoid the suggestions and/or questions about me working Christmas Eve. The girl’s boyfriend approaches the bar with the others who ask for a slew of different drinks: Bloody Mary, Shirley Temple, spiced rum and Coke, dry rum no chaser, and a Moscow mule. 

For each drink, one of them spins a record in the jukebox and asks me to dance. I feel as though I was born with two left feet and I don’t hesitate to bring this to everyone’s attention but they make it their mission to ignore my warning and drag me from behind the bar anyway. A disco track spins on the first record and the Bloody Mary boy attempts to teach me how to dance to disco like the pros in films sans the splits and other fancy moves. 

“You wanna put your hips into the movement of the swing, Martin”, he grins as he gyrates in a circle. “Swing like a chandelier or something.” I mimic him and feel like a living ragdoll on fire, flailing around the open area between the tables and the bar. 

Everyone snickers when the Shirley Temple boy plays a salsa record and extends his hand. “This one takes two.” His steps are quicker than mine as his feet masterfully jut out and pull back except since he’s outpacing me, I step on his toes. “I’m so sorry” as everyone laughs and waves it off. “It’s okay, Martin. So you’re not a salsa person or a disco person. We’ll find your thing.” 

The spiced rum and Coke girl flipped on some “Viennese Waltz” record and extended her hand the way the Shirley Temple boy did. “You have to be close for the waltz to do it right, honey.” She guides me in step with the music as much as possible but the step-back-step-together routine finds me tripping over myself and nearly dragging her down with me. The hearty laughter continues as we help each other to our feet. 

“Maybe you’re not a waltz boy either, Marty.” We all cackle into the streets as lonely as the bar. 

“The town is dressed to the nine in Christmas decorations and your place-” The dry rum no chaser girl trails off as she quietly steps around the bar as if she’s a panther prowling, searching with peeled eyes for the next available target. She spins a grunge record where chugging guitars coupled with drums at breakneck speed and a throaty voice yells melodically about sleepwalking and chicken brains and other indecipherable things. 

“Your place is outrageous and it makes me wanna thrash! Thrash with me, Martin!” I bang my head and pretend to rage when my neck cracks and the record scratches. “I think I dislocated my neck or something.” Everyone chuckles as they tend to my neck and with one painful crack, it’s realigned with the rest of my body. “Thrashing is definitely not your thing even though grunge is more than that.” 

My neck and I couldn’t agree more. 

The Moscow mule boy spins a saccharine pop ballad that makes me feel lethargic listening to it. “All you do is a slow dance to stuff like this, Marty. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can slow dance.” We clasp hands and he lays my hands on his shoulders while his hands slouch around my waist as we sway back and forth in a circle. Everyone cheers as the record stops and the Moscow mule boy steps back to applaud me. 

“That is your thing for sure but what about something fun?” The vodka proper girl spins a record that combines all the previous genres for all of us to dance to and she singles me out for a basic two-step. “Side to side, Martin. Side to side. It’s that simple.” Everyone stares at the bar and turns back to me. 

“I have to close up and then I’ll join you.” The spider hole doesn’t feel full but some of the cobwebs seem to have cleared out a bit.