This was turning into a total fucking disaster of a day.
“You okay there, Tom?” Chip asked next to him.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tom muttered, stealing a few more quick glances at the crowd before smiling at the older man. “I just didn’t know it was a homo– I mean, I didn’t know Joe’s was a–”
“I’m just kidding you, Tom,” Chip said as he slapped him on the shoulder. “You just looked like a homophobe, and I couldn’t resist.”
“Right, got it,” Tom said, forcing a weak laugh at the joke. He wasn’t a homophobe, he thought defensively. He just didn’t go out of his way to hang out with queers.
Chip pushed the newspaper towards him and tapped on the story at the bottom. “Here’s the real reason for tonight’s little party,” he said, staring at Tom with a wry smile. “In case you didn’t already know.”
Tom leaned forward and read the headline.
“Local Bartender Romanced by International Mystery Man”
He pointed his finger at the heavyset bartender behind the counter and glanced at Chip. “Him?” he asked with a disbelieving look.
Chip considered the question for a moment, watching Tom’s expression for any hint of humor before realizing he was serious. “No Tom, not him. As I said, this isn’t a gay bar.”
“At least not yet,” Tom muttered cynically, shaking his head. “The way these young people are nowadays, you just never know.” He scanned the first few sentences of the article. Before now, Tom had never bothered to read the local college paper. He’d always assumed that if it were anything like the people he saw walking around campus, it was a useless expression of naïve liberal viewpoints written by people who’d never stuck their heads out of the ass of Academia long enough to see how the real world really works. Based on the subject matter in front of him, his opinion wasn’t changed. He took another drink of his beer.
Reading further, Tom realized the bartender mentioned in the story had to be the good-looking woman who’d served him the last time he was here. He vaguely remembered the heated discussion she was having with her friend. A hot flash of anger passed through him as he recalled the way her bitchy blonde friend had dismissed him when he’d tried to speak to her. I should have shown that bitch who’s boss he thought with a shrug. He finished the article and ordered another beer.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, turning to Chip. “Some kind of James Bond wannabe is sending letters to a female bartender with a hot piece of ass, and the story makes the college paper?”
“Apparently it does,” Chip replied, focusing his blue eyes on Tom. “By the way, the bartender with a hot piece of ass is a friend of mine, so please mind what you say about her.”
“Oh... my apologies,” Tom replied. “I didn’t mean to offend... just making conversation.” He silently scolded himself for his lack of judgment. The old man was a regular. Of course he’d be friends with her.
Chip’s expression softened into a wide smile, but his stare remained ice cold. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
The bartender returned and dropped a fresh pint in front of Tom. Both men drank in silence for a few minutes as Tom studied the interior of Joe’s. Despite the untold number of dive bars he’d frequented in his younger years, Tom still marveled at the predictability of their features. The morose collections of decaying pictures and cob-webbed debris that cluttered the walls under the dull incandescent light. The sturdy, ass-worn barstools and stained, gummed, knife-carved tables. The amalgamated scents of tobacco, mildew, perfume and breath. And most importantly, the bar counter itself – ancient and coffee-black, shellacked and relentlessly wiped like a revered altar until it gleamed with a waxy pallor that was both dull and brilliant at the same time. All were the requisite features of Joe’s Last Stand Saloon and its dive-bar kin; this ubiquitous archetype that, as its name implied, sat lowest on the social scale. As Tom glanced around the room, he surmised that whatever glory ever dwelled in this ancient saloon sitting alongside old Route 66 had long since vanished, its remnants entombed beneath the thick layers of varnish on the counter where his beer now rested.
“They’re over there,” Chip said suddenly, his finger pointing towards the far wall of the bar, “In case you’re interested.”
“What’s that?” Tom asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“The letters that he wrote her, they’re posted on that wall,” Chip replied as he stared into the dark amber of his beer. “The photos are there too.”