Bar Bums

It had been a long day. I worked, played nine, fought through a thunderstorm and was thoroughly blazed. I started making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and was content with sitting on the couch watching Kill Bill all night on TNT. The weed kicked in and the peanut butter and jelly wasn’t cutting it. I needed some nutrition.

Since I knew Dave would be at the Pot Belly, I thought I’d go there and chat while he drank, and get some good grub. I walk in and Dave is already talking to a lady. He’s been here 20 minutes, maybe. She’s an older woman. She’s got the wrinkles that say she’s over the hill, but her skin and body is still healthy. I want to let them talk so I sit on the other side of the woman until they might finish. As I’m ordering the woman swivels around and starts talking to me. She’s immediately interesting. That might not be saying much since everyone up here has their own quirks, but as I was ready for a quiet night, she pulls me out of my daze with her first sentence and she’s off. She talks and talks, and even though at some points I struggled to get a few words in, it was a great mutual conversation that I haven’t gotten up here before. She talks about how she works at Shambhala and the music she likes and the books that she reads. It’s all basic stuff, but when a 20 year old can make these connections instantly with a 50+ year old, that’s something. So we talk. She tells me about how her dad died, but they weren’t done with him yet, so they “borrowed” him from the mortuary. They throw him (in the casket) in the back of their truck and take him back to their house and open the casket. They light candles and talk to him and have a wake. OK, so that was kind of creepy, but it was also cool. Then she asks me about if I’ve been in love, my relationship with my family, what I think about kids, people, society… and everything that I say isn’t judged but she stares at me with awe as I tell her about these simple things in my life, but she makes me look at them again and lets me know that it’s right and that I’m fine.

When everyone else has cleared the bar except us two and the bartender, he starts putting on music DVDs of all sorts. He shows off his $18,000 sounds system and it blows us away. He tells us about how the speakers are made and how they’re used in studios and everything he’s saying is suddenly becoming very relevant to my future, and it doesn’t seem so bad at all. Any doubts that I had about my future at all slowly faded as he cranks up the crystal clear sound. It suddenly seemed like the exact perfect thing that I should be doing.

It amazes me how at the most unlikely times, someone who most of the time you’d hardly give a second thought to, can validate your life. Your past, your present and your future. A single-serving savior.