True story: C. and I find a bar, are unimpressed. Re-find bar, are impressed, say, Hey, we should make this our bar!
Bartender says: This bar probably won’t last. . . Barclay’s Center. . . gentrification. . . .
C. and I nod, drink, nod, agree to come back as many times as we can before it goes away.
Friday. C: Let’s meet at O’Connor’s! Me: Yeah, let’s meet at O’Connor’s!
Off the train, down the street, hang a right. . . wait, hm. To the left? Really? To the left, down a few blocks. No, no, back up.
Then I notice: plywood with a white door where the dark door had been, white railings with plexiglass where the eave had been, sandy stone where the wood painted name had been.
I text C.: I think our bar is gone.
C. arrives. We look at the plywood and the roof patio and agree, yes, our bar is gone. We gesture toward the hulking arena, mutter curses, look for new bar.
Me: Let’s try this one (Gestures to kitty-cornerish to the old one).
C: And there’s a divey-looking bar around the corner.
Me: If this one’s no good [trans: if it’s too upscale], we’ll try that one.
We check the menu, the sandwich board; there’s a sign about a special for a can of beer and a shot.
Me: They sell cans here; that’s a good sign.
We peer in. Narrow, dart board in back, basic Irish pub regalia, sparsely hung about.
Friendly bartender. Hard cider on tap for C., beer for me. Yankees low on one t.v., Mets low on another.
C., the bartender and I banter-bitch about Barclays, tourists, gentrification.
Bartender: This neighborhood has already been gentrified.
C. sips, nods. Nothing stays the same in New York.
More sips, nods. Discourse on the movement from the Village to Brooklyn, to Williamsburg. Bartender mentions photos of Williamsburg from not so long ago, from when it was scary, not hip. Discourse on neighborhoods which are block-by-block: okay here, not okay there.
Me: It’s never a good sign when you’re all alone on a city street.
Later, after more drinks and discourse and nods, C. whispers that the glasses aren’t as big as we’re used to. We shrug and nod and drink some more.
Later still, out on the sidewalk, C. and the bartender smoking, a construction worker with a beautiful face and beautiful arms and beautiful shoulders flirts with C. and me., calling us beautiful. I’m not beautiful (C. is), but I don’t argue, because it’s nice to be called beautiful.
C. and I watch the construction worker saunter back to work on the arena; we comment on the view.
As we leave, C. shares one last smoke with the bartender. A former Chicago schoolteacher with arm tattoos that intrigue C. joins us in our discourse about drinking and work and whatever else one says during the final scene of the evening.
We laugh and say goodnight and promise we’ll be back.
Our bar is lost; long live our bar.
AbsurdBeats 