a sketch. 5/1/2017

I liked the physicality of the job, and that's what it was, the whole thing, from getting there, on bike and foot, through woods, to the putting all the wines that needed chilling in the places they needed to be, stocked in cooler, in bucket, in the sink plugged with a champagne cork, the reds, plenty of back-up, mineral water, beer, soda, I was a true engineer of beverages.  And thus I was ready to deliver them, along with silverware, menus, bread warmed when in an oven with butter, and all the while, really the main point, besides the relaxation the wine allowed people, conversation, for those who wanted it, and judicious around those who were not of such need.  So I wore many hats, many roles, one to this person at the bar, some to others.

That's what it was, that was what happened all night long, til the early hour I asked for a busboy man's help, until I was left alone and had, my energy fading as quickly as the last footsteps went away down the stairs, to do all the last physical lifting and carrying, up and down myself.


No need to add tension to a barroom.  It should be like a pub, a salon, literary talk, an ease, a place free of consumerism, trends, and hollow things.  Yet, oddly this is what many establishments are built on.  The old and venerable long standing places having that karma of deserving that tenure we all crave so badly in this world of flux.



One thing the bar does not like, like the feline who buries her scat, is that sense of being watched, monitored, observed.  The same tension a writer has, to be candid and truthful of observation.  And thus to publish anything is necessary, but also the great risk, what if I show what I have upon my sleeve, and this is Hamlet, the need to tranquilize with words, to stab that busybody watcher behind the curtain with all his life's wisdom, when there is none that really applies but that of their own world and not your own necessarily.