Back in the saddle

“It’s like riding a bike really,” I thought as I gingerly eased my bottom onto the stool, feet balanced precariously on the footrest, elbows planted squarely on the edge of the bar for support. It’s been years since I sat at a bar's bar, my prodigal return caused by my home boy’s confused and confusing visa-renewal-turned-emigration to New York, the land of brotherly shove. I’d forgotten how pleasant it is to sit facing nothing but a near-empty wall, a refrigerator full of beer, and the bartender, or in this case, our friend and bar owner, G. It’s the sitting side by side, I think, that does the trick. It frees you from the burden of making conversation but stops short of cutting you off from your seatmates’ banter.

Sitting at the bar is cool. It’s all those iconic moments and characters in film. You end up role-playing in spite of yourself. For a while I tried to pretend I was the laconic hero in a cowboy film, quietly brooding over my beer, occasionally throwing pithy lines at the bartender or squinting at some no-good punk while an Ennio Morricone theme plays softly in the background.

Ah but there was only G and the boys. And the only no-good punk in the bar was the guy who stupidly parked his car too close to mine.

I ended up closing the bar with J, barfly of the South. And phony cowboy that I was, I drunk-drove, not into a fiery sunset, but to a dark sky slowly turning ashen with the dawn. Oh well, it still feels good to be back in the saddle again. Hi-ho Silver!