It’s starting to rain but I walk anyway. Will probably be raining harder on the walk home. I dont care, it’s not far. As I get close I can hear the twang of George Strait through the faded red door and I go in and see only one other man sitting at the L shaped bar and so I take a seat a few stools down and ask for a menu and a cocktail.
A few minutes later another man arrives, probably from the bathroom and sits between the other fella and I, right next to me. I guess it was where he had been sitting before I arrived and now I wish I’d taken the corner because he smells like an ashtray but I’ve already gotten my drink so at this point moving would be rude and I hate to be rude.
He introduces himself as John and tells me he was born here. He left for a while but now hes back and mostly just waiting to die. His words. I’m thinking he doesn’t have long by the looks of him and I want to take his picture but I also dont feel much like talking right now and asking would require more talking and besides I left my camera at the hotel. But John has the kind of face you earn. Deep lines and sunken eyes. A full beard and a long grey ponytail. Boney slender, ashy grey fingers from the cuffs of his faded flanel shirt. For my entire stay at the bar he will begin randomly singing along to the jukebox in an off key warbely drunk voice. And singing loudly. I dont mind.
At some point the man on the other side of John begins to lean in and tell John how his dad passed only a few weeks earlier. It hurts. I miss him. Etc… I think he’s crying but I dont look over. I know a thing or two about the subject but like I said, I dont feel much like conversation. John doesn’t so much as console the guy as recount his own experience of losing his parents. After a while things quiet down. The guy finally leaves and John asks me where I’m from and I tell him I live in Southern California but thats not where I’m from and he says, Alaska? I say thats a pretty damn good guess John, I’m impressed. I finish my meal and pay my tab and head back out into the cool night.
It’s still raining but not any harder than when I came and for some reason I’m disappointed.
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