Tales from Molly's Public House, as told by the Publican Yesterday slopping beers at the public house, I had several one sided conversations which typically went like this:
A fellow walks into the bar and seats himself, politely waiting for me to come over and see what he needs. "How you doin'", I ask. The guy nods and smiles. "You wanna Boh?". The guy nods no, so I go through a few brands untill I get it right. The regulars nod and smile as I put their preferred flavor in front of them, so I continue; "Having a good day? It's a beautiful afternoon!". I get an affirmative, thoughtful nod and smile at that so I press further; "D'ja lose your voice screaming at the football game on the T.V. yesterday?". This query is greeted with wide beaming and the lifting of the glass in appreciation of the Raven's narrow victory. "Well!" I say, "That was an exciting game!" As I was counting dollar bills from the register, one of them distinguished itself by being marked with a vile obscenity. Not only was it racist, mysogynistic and violent, it also described an anatomicaly impossible act. Rather than being shocked, I was saddened by the thought of someone writing this hatefull message and covertly slipping it to some hapless vendor as she sold him cigarettes. So I took it to the bank with the rest of the bar's business and requested that it be put out of circulation. I woulda burnt it, but that's the government's job. The lady at the bank didn't want to take it. She acted as if her hand would sting to touch it, but she was advised by her supervisor of the procedures for desecrated money. "Do I gotta have a shirt on to come in here?" I looked up from the pint glasses I had rinsed and racked to regard the sun-reddened rolls of adipose tissue spilling over the front of the speaker's pants and observed rivulets of sweat from the 95 degree heat coursing through the hairs on his man-breasts. I told him that I preferred my customers wearing shirts on their chests, not wrapped around their heads, as he wore his. He held up another shirt, this one fashioned into a sack containing some mysterious, limpid bundle. "You wanna buy some meat?", he queried."No. We're not buying anything. Never. Get out." This was snarled from between my clenched teeth."What kind of idiot is trying to sell stolen meat out of a dirty shirt on a day like this?", my customer asked me."Junkie." I said, watching the hairy back flab make its way out the door and leaving it open for the air conditioning to escape. Aleks is a middle aged man from the Ukraine who, as far as I can make out, is employed as a decorative painter. He wants to talk to me about universal beliefs and great literature, but between his heavy accent and the amount of beer under his belt, it gets hard to communicate. One afternoon he came in to the Public House looking like ten miles of bad road. He had a black eye, contusions about the cheek and forehead and his face was puffy. He asked me if he was still welcome in my bar, as he does every time he comes in. I assured him he could take a seat and told him he looked really rough. I asked him what happened. "Eh.", he shrugged. "I got in fight with Green Beret." He spread his hands to show that it was no big deal. Setting a cold pint at his place, I told him he got the raw end of the stick and asked what on earth provoked such a brutal trouncing. He waved an arm over the bar and replied; "Eh! She tried to sell me cookies." When I got to the bar this morning, it looked as if all Hell had broken loose. Cigarette butts and dirty dishes were everywhere, the furniture was in disarray, a photograph and an outlet cover had been knocked off the wall-six feet up and twenty feet apart. Among other things. After I had taken care of the overflowing trash cans and swept the floor, a regular patron came in for his beer and observed as I was wrestling the mop bucket to the front. With a bit of argument, I let him mop the floor as I wiped down the rest of the surfaces with dilute bleach. He cleaned the glass door of the upright and I cleared the handsink of discarded fruits and straws. Another regular came in with a chili dog for me from the barbeque around the corner. Thanks, guys. Again, I cleaned up after the men in orange coveralls who at the last week's open mike event played trash cans and empty kegs. This week they drummed a dish drainer and a shoe rack into oblivion, and I was still finding small bits of broken dowels in the corners this morning. I also found evidence of someone throughly bleaching out the ladies' room and the mirror has written on it: "HOLLANDAISE MAYONNAISE AND MIDGETS". I was going to attend the Zombie Walk, if not to lurch, than at least to look, but....as I was wrapping up a design for a water sculpture involving enameled colandars in the studio over my bar one evening I heard a wailing and moaning outside. I poked my head out the window and saw a scantily clad young woman heave, stagger and land on the front steps of my dark and shuttered bar with a volley of curses. Recognizing her from when all the men in the bar were at the front window watching her and a similarly dressed colleague being frisked by the police over the hood of a squad car, I set my paintbrush down and went down stairs. By this time the young woman was screaming and sobbing at an older woman who turned out to be her mother. Two patrol cars as well as a prisoner van had arrived. Not wanting to literally step into the middle of the action, I sat on the floor and listened to the whole tawdry tale of sex and drugs and violence through the mailslot, pretending that nobody was home. I was trapped. Mercy, do these dramas get tedious. By the time everyone had concluded their business it was too late for me to chase down the pretend zombies, I had had enough with the real ones.
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