It was a dreary night in Manhattans East Village... warmer than normal for a mid December night. I was getting ready to enjoy a night of cocktails with an old college friend who I hadn't seen in some years. I always enjoy my time with Keith...hes and inspiration to me...he has followed his dreams of becoming a historian with fierce conviction...I was always envious of those who new the direct route to their dreams...I had always needed more life experimentation to rule out all possibilities....Springsteen might say I just needed to live in the ether longer!I remember pulling up a bar stool at a corner bar on the cross of 4th street and 3rd ave....ordering a beer of a Belgium varietal and kicking back waiting for my friend to phone me...
As is commonplace with me and bars...I began engaging the bartender in some small talk... I never make it a play to hit on the girl behind the bar...for one I was a bartender myself...and I always felt uncomfortable when it was done to me and two it just makes you look like an asshole. I remember her being cute...Latin girl with a watered down bourban madonna-esque style...sexy enough to bring me back on many occasions...but not enough into me to ask her out.
We talked as we often did...about life in New York...and Life in other places...other lives...the lives we lived before moving here...lives we missed, but could never return to again after being tainted by the beautiful lights and dark corners of the rough new york bar nights on the lower east side. The talk turned to Nashville, a place I had lived prior to moving eastward tom my Mecca...to New York...we talked about honkey tonks....She said she was there in a dream once...once....in boots....she would've been hot in cowboy boots...the ones from Roberts Western Wear....we could've drank shots of bourban & PBR at Tootsies I thought?
"Nashville?"...He said ... in a low voice...eyes staring forward with a gaze of age. "Kinda like a Tiny Vegas".... The tall stranger didnt introduce himself...sipped his beer...beer of your standard macro varietal. I an ever pleasant bar patron replied... yeah, I can see that...except I thought to myself...there were no casinos in Vegas??? As he raised his hand again to take another sip I noticed a Crescent Moon Tattoo.... humm...
Although he was much greyer in the temples...his rutted and aged skin didn't hide his masculinity...I knew this Man....this Pulitzer Prize winner..... "Whats your Name Stranger?? ... His Reply,...."Sam"
And like a zeitgeist from a Sheperd play he looked at me and said, "just remember the two most important words for a man in Life...... are Pussy and Completion... and with that advice given he disappeared back into the mist of a New York city night.
0 comments:
Post a Comment