wb :

Written in 04, for a school assignment.
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Hey there Mr. Bartender, couldn't help but notice your pretty fingers grasping that cocktail mix. I like the way you move, man, that old velvet vest sparking dust and cobweb-like filigree string in the neon red lights arcing through brightly glowing cigarette smoke like a London fog. Watch your stoic, silent face smile at the ladies at the greased bar, reflected off the tainted varnish worn thin from years of mug-sliding, swipe-wiping and coin-scratching. Whip and toss the decanter behind your back and twirl like a ballerina, then serve with a dash of loneliness and uncertain tastebuds. Garnish with a re-used pink paper umbrella from the broken trashbins outside the lights sounds smells and dance-floor sex. You're so used to this, and so unsure of everything and anything else. Were you like them once, rubbing up to strangers on strobe-lit dance floors to get your fill of physical contact in the midst of cheese-techno trance mixes from the half-drugged DJs on the turntables. The same Van Dyk, Tiesto, Kosheen tracks mixed to hell and back.


Did you go to hell and back and decide that here was worse. In the humid stale heat of 3.00 AMs repeated here daily take off that vest and run fingers through hair that'll smell permanently of cigarette smoke, rum and kahlua, and Absolut Loss.* Rub the sweat from your eyes and smile at the lonely lady across the bar with her overly made-up face, and tell her everything will be ok.


I know you hear stories from them, and you know everyone's stories, whether you like it or not, because you're a bartender, and that's your job. Give them their poison when taking away the bottom of the glass bottle will lose them in disreality, and let's see how far you've come. Sneak that shot of vodka before you leave and walk in rain-lit alleys that smell of dead trash and the renmants of technicolour noise. And feel comforted by it, when you fall into beds of disused linen sheets and pray for this to be over. But I know I'll always see you there at the bar with a smile ready for the next dude that's just broken up with his girlfriend, or the next chick that's just broken up with her boyfriend, but never with a smile for yourself. A matter of mere expediency.


You've come a long way, baby. You've come a long way.






Cheers!

Bern.

Labels: prose