The Tender Bar

by J.R. Moehringer

I understood that my drinks were free, while drinks I bought for others were not. I was glad. I wanted to pay for Cager’s drink. I realized that the same rule must apply when a man offered to buy me a drink. Uncle Charlie would charge the man a dollar as a token. Money wasn’t the issue. It was the gesture, the timeless gesture. Buying another man a drink. The whole barroom was an intricate system of such gestures and rituals. And habits. Cager explained it all. He told me, for instance, that Uncle Charlie always worked the west end of the bar, under the stained-glass penis, because Uncle Charlie didn’t like to deal with waitresses putting in drink orders from the dining room at the east end. Joey D liked the waitresses, however, and therefore Joey D always worked the east end, under the stained-glass vagina. Somehow, Cager said, the conversation at each end of the bar reflected the stained-glass backdrop: bawdier and more aggressive at Uncle Charlie’s end, mellower and less linear at Joey D’s. I also noticed that everyone in the place had his or her own unique way of asking for a drink. Joey D, can you build on this concept? Goose, would you freshen up my martini once more before I go home to my miserable excuse for a husband? One man would ask for a refill by merely flicking his eyes at his empty glass, as if checking the speedometer while driving down a highway. Another would extend his hand and touch pointer fingers with Uncle Charlie, reenacting Michelangelo’s Creation...