bar light

“Damn, you look good under these bar lights,” was all I could muster.

We spent an awful lot of time on barstools during our time together, maybe I’m just remembering those times? Or maybe those awful lights, that can make a blonde look like a redhead and visa versa do something for her? Better not say that out loud, she’ll think I mean she needs those lights, but not at all. She never needs anything. Certainly not makeup. She’s just got it. Whatever it is.

And somehow, she got away from me.

“Yes, I do,” she says smiling.

God, I love her smile. It fits perfectly with her big, brown eyes.

“So, what did you want? It’s been a long time.”

How am I supposed to answer that question? I’ve been thinking of a way to ask what I need to ask for two days now. And 14 beers yesterday and 8 tonight, so far, haven’t given me the answer.

“That can wait,” I mumble while ordering up a couple of drinks -- Abita Amber for me, “the usual” for her.

“You don’t remember my favorite drink, do you?” she said with a wry stare.

“The hell I don’t,” I say, hoping that the bar tender is picking up on this and delivers the beer just in time.

He doesn’t.

“You like Miller Lite,” stumbles out of my mouth.

She smiles.

Five seconds later, the barkeep brings over a cold-ass Abita Amber and…a Miller Lite.

“Good guess,” she says, tilting the bottle back slowly, then absorbing half of the beer in one long draw.

“Sometimes, I even amaze myself. But not too often.”

The tension broken, we start talking about this and that and nothing at all. Things always are like this when we get together. We talk. And we talk. And I don’t think either of us wants it to end, but we both know it has to. Every single time.

After a few beers, the conversation slows down. But not in a bad way. The anxiousness is gone for the most part. Until…

“So……um, why did you need to talk tonight,” she asks. It’s 1:04 a.m. on October 23rd, 2009.

I’m drunk by now. So my filter is gone. Before I know it, the words come out.

“You want to go see a movie tomorrow?”

Her eyes tell the tale. Disappointment. She knows that’s not why I’m sitting in this place, waiting for her to be there. We’re not 23 years old anymore. Hell, I’m almost 40.

“Fuck you, Randy,” she says, grabbing her purse and heading out the door.

I’m too ashamed to chase after her.

She looks back in the window of the bar after she gets outside. I’m still sitting in the exact same place. I grab my Abita and take a long draw.

She shakes her head and gives me the bird.

“You fucking deserved that one, bro,” the bartender says as he takes a dirty rag to the old, wooden bar.

“Yeah, I know,” I’m such a freaking bozo.

“You? A clown? Hell no. My brother, he’s a clown. You’re just a disaster in Sambas.”

“Fuck, man. Do you have to be so damn mean to me. I just got back into town tonight.”

“Yeah, I do. She’ll never do it.”

I ask for another beer. Johnny, the barkeep, he gives it to me. But not without slamming it down on the bar. Just enough to put a new, small dent in the wood -- and cause the bottle to spring into a geyser of foam.

“Bastard!” I yell while swilling down all of the bottle. “Can you play some Aquarium for me?”

He glances at me, then reaches under the bar for an old cardboard box marked “Randy”. He reaches in and grabs an unmarked CD. It’s still in the case I made the last time I was here in the bar that I wanted to buy, but never came up with the cash to do so. Johnny ended up buying it instead. He thinks I’m mad about it, I think. But I’m not. He just had his fucking life together at the right time. Me? I’m still hoping that this time I’m in that place.

He bends down and puts the disc in the bar’s CD player.

For just a second the sounds of some famous New Orleans musician disappears. And all one can hear is the conversations in the bar, which, of course, stop in the silence. J.T. would be proud.

Then the opening riffs of one of my favorite songs not by Mr. Thunders, Mr. Strummer or Mr. Nichols begins…

“She was tall and pale and the queen of her scene….”