The Bartender

Oscar was not nearly as mean a man as the name might suggest. He was very passive, a trait that usually gave a bully an incentive to pick on him. He didn’t even have a beard to boot. Bluntness. Kind of like the drinks he served, some would taunt. Of course it wasn’t true, Oscar knew; whatever alcohol did they opt not to drink?

He wasn’t even sure why he had named his place The Lager. All he remembered was he was gulping down a bottle of sparkling cider and that the name systematically yet spontaneously popped into his head. But he liked it. Inwardly.

Inwardly, increasingly, like the desire one grows for beer and whiskey.

For sex, too, and drugs.

Drugs, the talk in The Lager was like. Yes, he sold them drinks, and they paid him back in drugs.

It would permeate the air like the fluorescent reds, blues and yellows he used to light up the table section, and be thick. Mix, and like scotch and champagne it would turn ugly, not worth digesting. Or at least that used to be the case. But some things still snuck under the skin.

Some time ago a man had barged in, went straight up to the bar and told him, loudly, to put up a stripper. He had lids that seemed half-closed, multi-colored clothes and curly hair that he never kept tidy, and had no compunctions against laying his waving hands on the dispensers. Flabbergasted, Oscar threatened to poison the man’s drinks if he gave him any more trouble.

The sendoff almost backfired, however, when the same man waltzed around town yelling ‘Oscar poisons the drinks he serves!’, and some people actually bought it. Customers dropped instantly, and a few days later a pink nuclear sign was found on the back wall. However, it turned out that there were people who still bought drinks at The Lager and not one of them became sick, save for when one took it in excess, and even then the symptoms were of common consumption. The rumor died within a month.

Most of the time, three decades previous, the place was visited by a group of rusty-faced men. At least twice every week, they would occupy the back corner table, order four beers and a bottle of scotch. They would sit inwardly, rambling on about n―rs and whatnot, making incredulous hand gestures and stinking of their drinks. Sometimes the talking got so intense that a fuse might as well have been brushed by a light. Now and again, somebody else would shout ‘Don’t you ever shut up?!’, and they wouldn’t ask the men to stop because they were denouncing what would years later be called the Civil Rights Movement; they spoke because they were just too noisy. Though Oscar seldom spoke to anybody in such moments, he couldn’t help but relax when the chatter dialed down.

One day there, however, was a riot, at the Capitol Building, not far from The Lager. Oscar wasn’t sure what it was about. But the students were involved, actively. Expectedly, police arrived en scene, with helmets, batons and glass shields, which served only to bolster the fury of the rioters and the two parties clashed and ten people lay unmoving when the dust cleared. Two of the men were among them. Three more of the guys got busted later, on charges of arson. Oscar didn’t know what to think of it then.

Close to the end of the 60’s another group of students, as young and convictive as the previous ones, started visiting often. Sometimes they sat at the old corner table, but most of the time they picked a different one. After they sat at a particular table they sat down at another, and so on until all the tables had been used, and started all over again, as if they hoped for a new one every time they returned. The Nam was their subject, and for some reason, though Oscar continued to refrain from eavesdropping, he never felt stingy about their comments, as he had with their predecessors. It was as if their outrage was more peaceable, bereft of the need to speak infectious words. But they were commotional nevertheless, and once the war was over they left and didn’t come back. The ensuing silence smelled like a draft for days afterwards.

Then a third party appeared, much older than the young students and wearing suits and ties. This third group’s sentiments seemed to tilt in yet again an opposite direction, this time towards the efficiency of moneymaking. When Reagan took seat in the White House they grew especially happy. It wasn’t like them to spin out of control, but it did happen.

One night they held a party at the bar, apparently celebrating a successful business deal. Very odd. But never mind that they orders were expensive; as the little festivity progressed the men became increasingly chaotic. Finally one of them fell over, capsizing a table a young couple was sitting at and shattering the bottle he was drinking from. He had a bit of trouble getting back on his feet, and didn’t bother to apologize to the people he had unwittingly waylaid. In frustration, Oscar charged them extra for the damage, to their ire, but he wouldn’t have it. They stormed out of the bar. One of the men sneering at Oscar as they went out the door, but he didn’t care. He simply sat behind the counter, gruffly, swishing a foamy cloth around their glasses.

Then they vanished.

Nowadays the bar was still there, and so was Oscar. Customers kept rolling in, asking for drinks, and he kept answering their requests. The television was used night to night, so he had reason to pay the bills. It was the second one he had; the windows, by contrast, had been replaced nearly eight times since the bar was built. Cleaning the bathroom from spot to spot was second nature. He wondered how he managed this long with only a dog at home for company.

It was a partly cloudy, partly sunny day outside today, shifting from bright to dark, and it was relatively quiet, even for midday. The bar lights were toned down, as it was daytime, and the few visitors were scattered and silent, perusing newspapers and occasionally bringing a glass or a cigarette to their lips. It all might as well have been transparent to Oscar.

Oscar was finishing cleaning used cups when the bell on the door rang as a man in slacks and a polo shirt walked in, with a boy, probably seven years old, at his side. It didn’t bother him that much that children were brought into drinking and smoking areas; he had seen it countless times before. They approached the bar and the father lifted the boy up onto a stool next to him.

“What’ll it be?” Oscar rasped.

“I’ll have an apple vodka,” the man said, “can my son here just have a glass of water?”

“Sure,” was the passive reply. “Ice?”

“Please.”

Two dispenses and plops, two full glasses. More than second nature.

“Say ‘thank you’,” the man whispered huskily.

“Thank you!” the boy chirped in a lusty voice.

Oscar twitched. The voice of a child was always lofty, full of innocence and eagerness. It got to him every time.

The man took an immediate swig of his drink and gave a light exhale.

“That’s a nice deer’s head you’ve got there,” he observed, pointing.

“From my Pa,” Oscar said blandly, “killed it while hunting and sk―stuffed it.”

Though the man had not winced, he relaxed as if he had. “Sentimental value?”

“You could say that.”

“Hmm.”

To the man’s left, the boy’s gaze went back and forth from his half-empty glass of water to the features of the bar. When they passed over Oscar, they might as well have been laser beams tunneling through his flesh. It was harmless, naturally, but he felt it still. He put the last washed mug into the sink and sat down in front of the two.

The boy looked up at him with curious eyes and a friendly smile that betrayed jittery underlines.
Oscar felt his mouth stretch into a rueful smirk. All his life he had been listening in on the rows of men, and yet never once had he sensed the joyful innocence of a child? Or was it innocent joy?

It was unfortunate, however. One day this boy would grow up, and he would not be immune to the ugly mouths of the world, even if he took the most central route. Such shit liked to pass through the more popular spots on the globe. Including bars. Including schools these days.

The father slid his empty glass over and gathered their coats.

“Will you be back anytime soon?” Oscar asked hopefully.

The father shrugged.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”