Bar Disagreement
art by Mars Tomasetti
Friday, slow-tractor downshifting after aging another two weeks in mean fields. A roll of cash pay in my dirty jeans pocket. First place I see—it’ll do. I’m sure I smell—chaff, grease, half of Noah’s various animal odors.
I slump into barwood, ready for a shot—no ice, no mix. Any easy order to serve.
Nail it. Wordlessly point for another that I intend to quietly sip, and git. The bartender, sporting a handlebar mustache with waxed curl-ends, smiles and silently bottle-pours.
Guy sitting in the stool next-door leans over his own dark glass, slants sideways toward me. Muses. “Hints of banana, leather dipped in cornbread, citrus, ethanol, peanut husks, and an unfortunate insinuation of diesel smoke.”
Never heard such profanity. Not something men always praying for godsend and rain tend to tolerate much.
He wiggles his long fingers at his tulip-shaped glass. “This single barrel… top shelf? No, no, I say. Quite inferior.” His eyes slit toward my choice of drink, nodding. “Though I pity your taste buds. Swill reminiscent of liver-mush…”
I drain it. My thick-bottom shot lowers harder this time, talks to polished wood, startles him into quiet.
I turn enough to catch his eye. “Corn. Rye. Spring water. Oak.”
I slam his forehead into the bar top, reach over, help myself to his abandoned drink.
Tasty. Traces of damnation. Time. Don’t like this high-and-mighty bar much—strange airs on a Friday, all that bray bouncing off vintage paneling, gold detail, and all that spill on the deco quartz floor.
