Poetry and Prose

If I give you another one, I get grief from Barry tomorrow.

Don’t ask me how Barry knows when we go one glass over. I don’t know if he has cameras in here, but I choose to believe that when you’re that miserable and that greedy, you have a sixth sense for anything that could cost you money or get you cited. I don’t feel like walking in tomorrow and getting called into that rank back office just so he can tell me that he knows I poured an extra song for somebody who was already over their limit.

The problem is, you started with Tom Waits. I could have told you that was a bad idea. Starting a night with “Martha?” You came in here with a death wish, buddy. I almost told you we were out of “Martha,” because anytime somebody comes in here asking for it, the evening ends with me needing to call a taxi for somebody while they cry on my bar. You know how many tears are soaked into this bar? I could probably run my fingers along the edge and get salt under my nails. If you wanted songs all night, you should have paced yourself. I get that you’re sad and you’re allowed to be sad, but even sadness needs modulation.

Start with James Taylor.

Start with Eric Clapton.

Start with anybody who wasn’t in the Beatles.

One guy came in here last week and asked for three songs in a row by Paul McCartney. Now you can do three McCartney’s in a row if you pick the goofy stuff. If you pick a few songs like “Uncle Albert,” then you’re all right. Not this guy. He wanted “Let It Be” twice and then a shot of “Blackbird.” I’m surprised he could stand up when he was done. Tried to get in his car and drive away. I yanked those keys out of his hand and told him to have a seat while I called for the yellow cab. Guy almost got into a fist fight with me--telling me three songs are nothing. Says he does ten songs at home and doesn’t feel a thing.

You don’t ever want to tell a customer that they’re full of bull, but I came pretty close with this one. He starts telling me about his divorce. There are kids involved. Custody disputes. Begs me to either let him go or pour him “Let It Be” one more time. In the state he was in, that would have just about killed him, and I’m not even sure he would have cared. I’m not in the business of helping people dismantle themselves, and I told him so. Down at the other end of the bar, some woman was sipping on “Both Sides Now.” That one’s so strong if you light a match near it, you’ll damn near blow your eyebrows off. She was sipping it though, that’s the thing. Women know how to sip a song so it doesn’t knock them out. They still get the same amount of ennui, but it’s tempered. By the end of the night, they can manage a short drive. They shouldn’t, but they do. I should grab their keys, but I don’t. There’s a lot of that around here. A lot of this should be this, but it’s that. That’s everywhere now I suppose.

You’ve been very polite all evening. I took that under consideration when you asked me for Sinead. For one thing, we don’t serve enough Sinead in here, and that’s a sin. Everybody wants me to serve them Adele. I got nothing against Adele, but you can only serve so many glasses of “Someone Like You” before you start to find yourself disappointed with the predictability of it all. Gone are the nights when I’d watch people dull their pain with “Purple Rain” or “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” or “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?”

So when you ordered “Nothing Compares 2 U,” I almost said, “Okay.” Hell, I almost took a shot of it myself. That’d really have Barry on me tomorrow morning. I just miss the times in here when everybody was sharing the same song from the same bottle. All of us nursing our own wounds, but nursing them alongside each other. Taking comfort from a shared space. Now, everybody looks down at their glass, then down at their phones. They think about calling people they’re never going to call. They write messages they’re never going to send. They only look up at me to ask me for another pour. I might as well put walls up and down the ball since nobody’s talking to each other anyway. I’m not saying doing it the way we used to made anybody’s life better, but I have to believe it made it more bearable.

It’s a good thing I didn’t pour myself any Sinead. It’s been a year since I had a song. Last one was “Lady in Red.” I know, real Lite Rock. Real call-in show to request something for the girl I miss so much. Pathetic. Doesn’t matter. That’s what it was. I was sitting here one night in the middle of a blizzard. Bar was empty. Even the ones who would normally die for a song couldn’t make it here. I knew I was going to end up sleeping in the back on the stained couch in Barry’s office. I started pouring. We had just gotten a shipment of “Lady in Red.” So that’s what I poured. Went down so smooth. There’s a reason these songs last so long. You can leave ‘em up on the shelf for years, and they still taste perfect the minute they hit your lips.

I don’t even know how many shots I took. Enough to make me blackout. When I woke up, the sun was up, and there was a sidewalk full of snow in front of the bar. I walked out onto the street, and across the street, I saw some guy sitting in his car. The engine was going, and even though the windows were up, I could tell he was listening to something that was going to break his heart. It’s never as potent when it’s coming from a radio and not a glass, but it’ll break you all the same. I wanted to go over and knock on his window. I wanted to tell him to come inside the bar and sober up. He could have been out there all night running that engine. The gas was probably going to run out any second, and then what was he going to do?

Didn’t matter. I didn’t do any of that.

You should do this, and you do that instead.

I went into the bar, and I poured out the rest of “Lady in Red.” Right down the drain. Told Barry the order got lost. He called up the company and reamed ‘em out, but he didn’t order anymore. I haven’t taken a song since.

Sorry, but if you’re smart, you’ll let that last song you had be the end of your night. I know I can’t tell you to quit for good, but I can tell you to quit for now. If you really need something to hold you over, try singing to yourself. It won’t get you buzzed, but it’ll hold you over until I call a taxi for you.

Do a little “Martha” for yourself. Start with the part about roses. Roses and poetry.

That’s a good place to start.