Drunkard's Wet Dream

Local bars, rather, their crowds, terrify me. Because the crowd is locals, and usually regulars, if you visit the place even infrequently, you are labeled a regular yourself. You can call the next song on the house playlist, get your jeans caught on the same splintering stool with the purpose of starting another conversation about how they should replace them, and your deodorant is welcome as part of the stench of spilled beer and undercooked meat-lover's pizza. Thusly, on your second visit, you are more accountable and less a ghost. The worn-out bartender remembers your drink, the jail bait hostess knows where you want to sit, and the rosy-cheeked patrons know it's okay to bother you with small talk and crackpot theories and war stories and pictures of their kids at college.

My roommate and I played music one night at such a bar/restaurant. We were filling in for Spoonful of Blues or some other band of old dudes with real jobs but little musical skill who go to the bar to drink a few beers and flirt with the young waitresses every other day after brushing what's left of their ponytails and spit-shining their Mazda Miatas they bought during their midlife crises. The youngest people in the bar by at least 10 years, Clayton and I thought it was at least worth our while for the $100 and free beer. Seeing the crowd (by crowd, I mean less than 15) of 50-something moms, we thought nothing could go over better than two young men playing heart-felt versions of old country classics and original folk soon-to-be classics. Women would weep. Men would avoid eye contact. Tips given, rounds bought, daughters thrown at us.

45 minutes in, the original crowd had stuck through enough songs they didn't know, so they started yelling requests. Trouble is, I don't know any Vince Gill or Wailers songs, and I'm not about to bust out my Blackberry to learn. I pick up the pace with the drinking, hoping I'll get to that place in which I can lose myself in whatever song I'm playing and forget about who is watching and/or listening. The plane was diving, and the only way to get back in control was to get drunk as hell.

The other reason I agreed to play music at this restaurant was that there was a very cute waitress who usually worked Thursday nights (the night we played) and who had a beautiful voice. She seemed intelligent but unassuming, quiet but not naive. A man with my dedication could perhaps persuade her to open up to watching John Cusack movies for 8 hours straight, playing cowboys and Indians in the woods at Bays Mountain, or singing a song she's never heard before. I'd seen her sing jazz songs at an open mic and forgot I was there with another woman until she came back from the bathroom and shook me out of my leering daze with a kiss on the cheek and “Let's go smoke.”

Halfway through our 3 hour set, the cute waitress finally got some tables close to us, and having the courage that possesses and then defeats a drunkard, I'd try to make eye contact and smile during the love songs. I don't think she once looked at me, because I'm sure that any beer drinkin' fool in a band has used such claims to try and get her beautiful pants on his floor. I tried to sing my sincerity, but a 10 beer deep ocean filters the senses such that everything is either a tragedy or a hysterical joke, which I believe is melodrama and comes off completely insincere.

Clayton and I finished the set to a room of fifty empty glasses and a couple of pairs of eyes half shut. We got our $100 cash, and sat around for a few minutes finishing our free beers and thinking about smoothing out the set. The stools were up, a regular here and there was making small talk with the bartenders and waitresses who were simultaneously sweeping and feigning interest. I decided after enough beer to make my piss turn a Clydesdale into glue, I'd better use the bathroom before trying to drive home.

There is a moment in consumption where you aren't completely taken by it but still willing to see where it leads. As I was following my bladder to the bathroom, I realized I was in fact being dragged there by such a burning desire I was barely able to contain myself. It wasn't the cute waitress who spurned my subtle and self-deprecating advances that started the fire in my loins. It was the fact that I couldn't see a way through that set without 14 beers and closing my eyes and praying to a god I know will never hear me to make this night be over.

Through the walk that lasted forever, I realized songwriting isn't about hooks or catch or ambition necessarily. It's about writing something meaningful and heart-felt and playing it and singing it as such and people listening. This restaurant/bar maintains as its way of life everything that detracts from the atmosphere and emotional intensity of good songwriting, so that even were I to possess some sort of beauty and the ability to express it, I would never be heard there. I would never be heard. I would always be left agitated and on fire and drunk as hell. Fuck it, I've reached the bathroom. The zipper will be tricky, and I'm about to burst, and opening the door with one hand and trying to free myself from this hell I've trapped myself in, and in more of a rush than I realized, I come face to face, and crotch to bulging crotch with one of the regulars, a fella whom I saw earlier actually chatting pleasantly with the love of my life. Startled after bumping in to one another, he looks down to see what I'm holding, and realizing what it is for a moment longer than he'd like to be aware, jerks his eyes forward and past my head to the door and the bar and the therapist. Too rapt with the impending situation, I keep moving at pace until I can finally let myself go.

After a few minutes of deep breaths and hand washing, I figured I'd killed enough time to be able to safely return without contact from this guy again. I walk quickly (as quickly as presently possible) to the table, grab my hoodie, and head for the door. Within reach of the handle, I heard “You guys may want put a bouncer by the bathrooms.” My decision to stay away from that place has been made for me.