Amateur Night

I am a professional alcoholic, as are most of my close friends. We drink every day of our lives, and we're good at it. We're almost never out of control. We don't get smashed and start crying or pick fights or break up a joint. We drink, we have a good time, and then we go home and go to bed.
Most people aren't like that. They have maybe an occasional beer or glass of wine, but that's about it. Except that, once in a while, they go out bar-hopping and get ass-wasted, and those are the people that start trouble in bars, for the most part. These people are amateurs. They don't understand alcohol, don't respect its power. Where we use it, they abuse it, or more accurately, allow it to abuse them. Alcohol is a friend to a professional drinker, but it's a vicious slave-driver to amateurs who've had a bit too much of it.
There's a chance, any time you walk into a bar, that you'll encounter an amateur acting up and ruining everybody else's good time. It's a risk of the lifestyle. But on certain holidays (St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, etc.) the odds go up substantially. New Year's Eve, of course, is worst; it's the night when the amateurs outnumber the pros. So, I've always called New Year's Eve "Amateur Night," and I never go out that night unless I'm working. The amateurs ruin these holidays for the rest of us.

The Union

The Union is a bar, at 1205 Fourth Avenue (just east of 12th street), where I worked as the sole cook for almost two years. It's owned by Herbie, who is a seriously unique individual. His voice is so odd that almost everyone who works there can do a Herb impersonation, with varying degrees of success.
I still go to the Union occasionally, on Mondays to see Katy and Nikki, on Saturday afternoons to see Mary Beth, and on Wednesdays to play trivia. Trivia Night at the Union is a local institution, you see. It's a buck to get in, and then $5.00 all-you-can-drink on draft beer and well drinks (I drink whiskey and water on these occasions) until 1:00, after which refills are a dollar. And if you win the trivia, you get a twelve-pack of Miller Lite and two free dinners. If you can't get excited about good times, cheap liquor, and the possibility of free food and beer, you must be from another planet.
Herbie has good drink specials. On Monday it's two-dollar pitchers from 9:00 on. On Friday afternoons, 4:00-6:30, he has Quarters, another local institution, with four small draft beers for a dollar. On Thursday, they have $1.50 domestic bottles. And, if you're B&R, you get domestic bottles for a dollar all the time. Which makes the Thursday special irrelevant to B&R folks, of course.

Herbie is an unreconstructed frat boy, and the bar to some extent carries his personality. It is popular with the local fraternities. On busy nights you'll have them wall-to-wall, which tends to chase off the womenfolk (at least those with any self-respect). But when it's slow, it's kind of nice in there. It's a beautiful place, anyway, with nice furnishings and all that. And recently Herb's been trying to bring in an older crowd, with some success. So, you just have to know when to go. Saturday afternoons are good, unless there's a Marshall football game. Monday nights after football season, Thursday nights, and early on Friday evenings (after Quarters but before the late rush) are also okay.

The only thing about the bar itself (as distinct from certain aggravating customers) is that Herbie tends to regard the jukebox as his own personal plaything. Herbie, you see, doesn't like metal or industrial music, so he removes all of the Rob Zombie and Disturbed and Filter and so forth from the jukebox, so that if you want to hear some of that stuff you have to download it, which is twice as expensive. And if you download it while Herbie's there, he might just skip it. I keep telling him that he isn't the only person who listens to the jukebox, and that many customers like that music, and that if we have to listen to goddamned Toby Keith then we should be able to balance it with a little "Living Dead Girl." Herbie, though, doesn't see it that way. Like I say, a frat boy who never grew up, and no one else's opinion matters.

Still, I like him, though he is an odd duck. You'd have to meet him to understand, really. The best time to do that is Tuesday night, when he works alone. Sit and strike up a conversation; he'll talk to just about anybody, about nearly anything.

One odd thing...he seems to have decided that he will never again hire anyone whose name doesn't begin with K. Katy and Kim have been there for a while, of course, and the other Kim just came back. But we've also got Kristen, two other Katies, a Kelly, and Kristy just quit. Nikki makes up for not having a K at the beginning of her name by having two in the middle. Mary Beth and Erin must get awful lonely.

Katy

Katy is a bartender at the Union. She works Monday nights, and even though I don’t work at the Union anymore and am not obligated to come in, I brave the frat boys and the bad country music every Monday for the pleasure of her company. And it takes a very great pleasure for me to do that.

Which Katy certainly is. She’s one of my very favorite people. Also she makes the best White Russian in town, with vanilla vodka, of course. I have to bring my own milk, which is kinda weird. Herbie (the bar owner) doesn’t supply milk on a regular basis, so if I don’t bring my own odds are that either there won’t be any, or what there is will be spoilt. But, small price to pay.

I’ve known Katy for two years, as of this writing, since I first got the job at the Union. I freely confess that I was smitten with her when I first met her, which I can't think is that unusual. But Rhonda and I were still trying to make the long distance thing work at the time, so nothing ever came of it. (Now that Katy and I know each other better, I think she’d agree that that’s for the best). These days she’s dating a fella named Justin, a military guy who has just been assigned to...Fort Bragg, I believe. He’s disappointed that he didn’t get sent to Iraq, which just blows my mind. He wanted his combat patch for his uniform. I told him I’d go to a second-hand store and buy him one, if it stopped him getting killed in some desert somewhere. I mean, a stolen patch beats the hell out of dying, don’t you think? Katy feigns disappointment for his sake, as well, but really she’s glad he’s here and safe.

Since Katy’s just graduated Marshall and wants to leave Huntington, she’s going to follow Justin down to Carolina sometime late this summer or early fall. She’s thinking about going to grad school for marine science, which in Carolina she certainly should be able to do. I’m bracing myself to miss her terribly (she was gone for two weeks recently, helping Justin get settled and hanging out at the beach, and Brooke and I agreed that we were suffering from Katy withdrawal), but for right now, she’s still here. And that means that on Mondays I can still sit around, drinking White Russians and making fun of people and complaining about the musical tastes of the other customers, and exchanging stories about sex in unusual places or using strange methods, which is mostly what we do when we’re together. It’s a good time. I recommend it.

* * * * * * *

POSTSCRIPT: Well, she’s gone. Off to Carolina, leaving a big hole in the Union, in Monday nights, and in my life. Well, and Nikki’s life. And Brooke’s, of course. And Ben’s. And Herbie’s, though he won’t admit it. And those twins who hang out in there on Mondays, they’re gonna miss her. And the wings guys, Dr. Mac and his band of followers. And Mary Beth and the two Kims, of course, and Erin. And Emily. And really, just a-fuckin’-bout everybody. No one is unmoved, least of all Katy herself.

She’s worried about what’s gonna happen down there, worried about having to get a real job, worried about not having any friends, worried about maybe not making any new friends, worried about not liking her new friends; she’d rather have us, but we can’t all go with her, though at least a few of us would have if she’d asked. She’s never moved before, born and raised right here. I thought my experience with leaving home might be a resource for her, but that kind of thing you kinda gotta learn for yourself. No one can tell you what leaving home’s like if you’ve never done it. At least in Katy’s case, there’s someone waiting for her where she’s headed.

Incidentally, I don’t know if this is the best time to mention it, but I watched the original Ocean’s 11 the other night, the one with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I never noticed it before, but Justin, Katy’s boyfriend, looks an awful lot like Peter Lawford did in that movie. I mean, he’s a little shorter than Lawford, and he’s military so he’s got shorter hair, but man, the resemblance is uncanny. So, anybody out there who’s ever had the hots for Peter Lawford, now you know why she’s going to Carolina and leaving us.

In any event she’s gone, and I miss her frankly more than I’m comfortable talking about here. She was a treasure, a cast member in my life whose absence I feel deeply. But it isn’t forever…she isn’t even really that far away, and she’ll come visit. When I left Richmond the first time, I drove home every second weekend for a while, and I had farther to drive than she does. So there's some precedent for seeing her on a regular basis, though that precedent doesn't necessarily apply. On the other hand, I started visiting less and less and now I haven’t been there in almost six years. I’m gonna try not to draw any conclusions from that, though.

Anyway, Katy, I love you. Enjoy Carolina, broaden your horizons a bit, meet lots of new folks, get your Masters, and come see us when you can. Regards to Justin. So long, sweetheart.

--24 August, 2005