by
Laurie Taylor
Hail O Muse as I stand at the saloon door of the Monty, a bar from another time in under-renovation-but-still-sketchy downtown LA. It looks a bit like a woodsman’s fantasy of a 1920s dancehall. As my eyes adjust to the cool darkness inside, refuge from the late afternoon sun slanting over W. 7th Street, I notice the friendly jukebox waiting like a good dog right by the door. No one else is inside this big room but the bartender. He doesn’t see me, or doesn’t care, as he moves languidly behind the bar, in front of a massive, elaborately carved high-board. Rows of bottles, nestled on glass shelving, reflect shards of light from the monstrous chandelier twinkling overhead.
I turn my back on him and hunch over the jukebox, scanning the menu. I feel like I know the guy who selected the songs for this collection: classic country; a nod to CBGB in New York in the Seventies; a smattering of soul like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke; with a pinch of dead rock icons, Elvis, Hendrix, Morrison and Janis. I find Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” B3, and punch it five times with five quarters.
When I hit the bar, climbing up on the tufty-leather stool, I notice how cute the bartender is, kind of like a tall Brad Pitt with long straight hair the color of peanut butter, tied back at the base of his neck. He’s wearing a clean, plaid flannel button-down over a white T-shirt. He smiles and I think his teeth are too perfect for a guy who pours shots for day drinkers. I can barely smile back, even for such a good-looking guy. I had forgotten how ridiculously friendly people are in California, especially after having just gotten off a plane from Berlin, where people in service are famous for their lack of civility.
“What kin I get ya, darlin’?” He drawls like someone brought up in the South.
“Tequila,” I answer. “Your best tequila extra anejo, fixed any way you like. Surprise me!” I miss a few beats and then remember to add: “Please.” I lean over the bar, grab a stack of cardboard coasters, pull my drawing pen out of my bag, and start doodling to relax. Hail O Muse, and let me survive this crash landing, I pray again.
I haven’t been home since before the Iraq War. I have a rental car that I can afford for a month only and two credit cards, no job or savings, and that is about all. Except for a few old friends scattered up and down the coast, and an elderly father, an old long board surfer who’s going blind in San Diego.
The bartender stands on his toes to reach for a bottle and goes to work.
I try not to think about my future but only of the task at hand: getting to sleep in the cheap motel room down the street and around the corner. I left Berlin at 7:00 or rather 10:00 a.m. California time, and the whole night before I departed I was caught in an endless conversation that looped around the simple fact that I was leaving a life and a relationship that had tortured us both for over a decade. I’m so tired and over-stimulated that I feel slightly hallucinatory. Patsy’s voice is like a lullaby:
You want me to forget (to forget)
Pretend that we never met (never met)
“Who are you?” asks the bartender, smiling, revealing those teeth like a lighthouse. I almost answer him in German, “Wie bitte?” Then quickly assemble, “Excuse me?”
“You’re not from here, are you?” He remains confident and relaxed.
Do I look so different? I can’t even blend into this city, a jambalaya of immigrants and entertainment hopefuls?
“Who are you?” He asks a second time. I feel like it’s kind of odd for a bartender, but then again, I haven’t been home in my own culture for so long that I think, who am I to know what is normal and what is not anymore. And I’m tired, really tired from the long haul flight, from the time change, from the war, from my memories, from a relationship that chewed me up and spit me out.
“I’m from here originally,” I say. “San Diego, but I’ve been out of the country a long time. Just came in on a flight from Germany.” I watch him.
He nods and puts the drink down in front of me on the counter. It’s in a Hurricane glass and there’s a chunk of watermelon on a toothpick balanced on the rim. There’s crushed ice in the glass and an iridescent light green liquid: the tequila and some other ingredient, I presume. I did give the guy free reign.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s called Melancholia,” he replies.
I knock back a swallow and it’s deeply delicious. I feel my lights coming back on.
He puts the tequila bottle on the counter, spinning it around so the label is facing him. He points to the floor of the bottle. “You see in there?”
I realize how dark it is in the bar. I shake my head in the negative. “The worm? I can’t see the worm.”
I know already all about the worm, the myth of the worm. One night on watch in Basra, I heard the guys arguing about the worm. Well actually it’s a caterpillar, the larval form of a white moth that is a pest on the blur agave plant from which tequila is made. Some of the guys said it was originally included to prove the alcohol content was 80 proof because with less alcohol content the body of the worm would decompose. But other guys said that it was only a marketing trick that developed in the 1940s, and it really was a result of infestation on the agave and made for a lower quality product. I remembered how heated the argument became because everyone was strung-out and jittery from the constant sound of the shelling in the distance.
The bartender reaches into his pocket and takes out a lighter.
I took another long swallow from the Hurricane glass and then twirled the watermelon around in the ice.
“Here look,” he says, flicking the lighter on to help illuminate the interior of the bottle. “It’s a scorpion.”
I look harder into the murky depths of the bottle and see the dark outline of the creature. It’s small, the size of a two Euro coin, but its tail makes it look bigger.
I look back up at the bartender. I’m feeling suddenly very high, too high and too quickly. I look in my glass to check how much I have drunk. I pick up the watermelon stick and suck on the fruit. I’m feeling a little paranoid. But this guy is really nice, I tell myself, look at that smile. I just see nothing but those perfect teeth. He’s like the Cheshire cat, I think, nothing but teeth.
I feel like it’s my turn to say something. He’s waiting for me to compliment him on how great the drink is, how wondrous the special tequila is. Words don’t come. Finally, I say the only thing on my mind, “I’m late.”
He laughs warmly, “Hey darlin’, you and everyone else in this town.”
Patsy has stopped singing. There is a deep silence that fills the cavernous room, like a whale pulling up right close to our frail little boat. I wish I could get down from my stool. I wish someone else would come into the bar.
I manage finally to open my bag and pull out a twenty from the American dollars I got at the airport. I push it across the bar towards him. “Thank you very much, but I think I have to go sleep now.”
The smile shines from the other end of the bar, and then disappears back into the gloom. I know it’s a very big tip, but I just want to leave as quickly as possible. I throw myself down off the stool and walk carefully to the door. I hear the voice somewhere behind me calling out, “Bon Voyage, darlin’.”
I found the way back to my motel, the Hollywood Star Inn, without incident, despite the scent of desperation that hung over the narrow sidewalks and the people sitting, and lying, on them.
I turn my back on him and hunch over the jukebox, scanning the menu. I feel like I know the guy who selected the songs for this collection: classic country; a nod to CBGB in New York in the Seventies; a smattering of soul like Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke; with a pinch of dead rock icons, Elvis, Hendrix, Morrison and Janis. I find Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” B3, and punch it five times with five quarters.
When I hit the bar, climbing up on the tufty-leather stool, I notice how cute the bartender is, kind of like a tall Brad Pitt with long straight hair the color of peanut butter, tied back at the base of his neck. He’s wearing a clean, plaid flannel button-down over a white T-shirt. He smiles and I think his teeth are too perfect for a guy who pours shots for day drinkers. I can barely smile back, even for such a good-looking guy. I had forgotten how ridiculously friendly people are in California, especially after having just gotten off a plane from Berlin, where people in service are famous for their lack of civility.
“What kin I get ya, darlin’?” He drawls like someone brought up in the South.
“Tequila,” I answer. “Your best tequila extra anejo, fixed any way you like. Surprise me!” I miss a few beats and then remember to add: “Please.” I lean over the bar, grab a stack of cardboard coasters, pull my drawing pen out of my bag, and start doodling to relax. Hail O Muse, and let me survive this crash landing, I pray again.
I haven’t been home since before the Iraq War. I have a rental car that I can afford for a month only and two credit cards, no job or savings, and that is about all. Except for a few old friends scattered up and down the coast, and an elderly father, an old long board surfer who’s going blind in San Diego.
The bartender stands on his toes to reach for a bottle and goes to work.
I try not to think about my future but only of the task at hand: getting to sleep in the cheap motel room down the street and around the corner. I left Berlin at 7:00 or rather 10:00 a.m. California time, and the whole night before I departed I was caught in an endless conversation that looped around the simple fact that I was leaving a life and a relationship that had tortured us both for over a decade. I’m so tired and over-stimulated that I feel slightly hallucinatory. Patsy’s voice is like a lullaby:
You want me to forget (to forget)
Pretend that we never met (never met)
“Who are you?” asks the bartender, smiling, revealing those teeth like a lighthouse. I almost answer him in German, “Wie bitte?” Then quickly assemble, “Excuse me?”
“You’re not from here, are you?” He remains confident and relaxed.
Do I look so different? I can’t even blend into this city, a jambalaya of immigrants and entertainment hopefuls?
“Who are you?” He asks a second time. I feel like it’s kind of odd for a bartender, but then again, I haven’t been home in my own culture for so long that I think, who am I to know what is normal and what is not anymore. And I’m tired, really tired from the long haul flight, from the time change, from the war, from my memories, from a relationship that chewed me up and spit me out.
“I’m from here originally,” I say. “San Diego, but I’ve been out of the country a long time. Just came in on a flight from Germany.” I watch him.
He nods and puts the drink down in front of me on the counter. It’s in a Hurricane glass and there’s a chunk of watermelon on a toothpick balanced on the rim. There’s crushed ice in the glass and an iridescent light green liquid: the tequila and some other ingredient, I presume. I did give the guy free reign.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s called Melancholia,” he replies.
I knock back a swallow and it’s deeply delicious. I feel my lights coming back on.
He puts the tequila bottle on the counter, spinning it around so the label is facing him. He points to the floor of the bottle. “You see in there?”
I realize how dark it is in the bar. I shake my head in the negative. “The worm? I can’t see the worm.”
I know already all about the worm, the myth of the worm. One night on watch in Basra, I heard the guys arguing about the worm. Well actually it’s a caterpillar, the larval form of a white moth that is a pest on the blur agave plant from which tequila is made. Some of the guys said it was originally included to prove the alcohol content was 80 proof because with less alcohol content the body of the worm would decompose. But other guys said that it was only a marketing trick that developed in the 1940s, and it really was a result of infestation on the agave and made for a lower quality product. I remembered how heated the argument became because everyone was strung-out and jittery from the constant sound of the shelling in the distance.
The bartender reaches into his pocket and takes out a lighter.
I took another long swallow from the Hurricane glass and then twirled the watermelon around in the ice.
“Here look,” he says, flicking the lighter on to help illuminate the interior of the bottle. “It’s a scorpion.”
I look harder into the murky depths of the bottle and see the dark outline of the creature. It’s small, the size of a two Euro coin, but its tail makes it look bigger.
I look back up at the bartender. I’m feeling suddenly very high, too high and too quickly. I look in my glass to check how much I have drunk. I pick up the watermelon stick and suck on the fruit. I’m feeling a little paranoid. But this guy is really nice, I tell myself, look at that smile. I just see nothing but those perfect teeth. He’s like the Cheshire cat, I think, nothing but teeth.
I feel like it’s my turn to say something. He’s waiting for me to compliment him on how great the drink is, how wondrous the special tequila is. Words don’t come. Finally, I say the only thing on my mind, “I’m late.”
He laughs warmly, “Hey darlin’, you and everyone else in this town.”
Patsy has stopped singing. There is a deep silence that fills the cavernous room, like a whale pulling up right close to our frail little boat. I wish I could get down from my stool. I wish someone else would come into the bar.
I manage finally to open my bag and pull out a twenty from the American dollars I got at the airport. I push it across the bar towards him. “Thank you very much, but I think I have to go sleep now.”
The smile shines from the other end of the bar, and then disappears back into the gloom. I know it’s a very big tip, but I just want to leave as quickly as possible. I throw myself down off the stool and walk carefully to the door. I hear the voice somewhere behind me calling out, “Bon Voyage, darlin’.”
I found the way back to my motel, the Hollywood Star Inn, without incident, despite the scent of desperation that hung over the narrow sidewalks and the people sitting, and lying, on them.
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