Innkeeper

There are a few lights and half a bulbs are broken, a few ceiling fans but only half are spinning. The slow pulse and push that you experience without feeling. The jukebox is filled with classic rock. I painted houses one summer and that station was always on, the same playlist day after day, no one else wanting to change it. I get the feeling that not a lot changes around here either.

The bartender opens up a beer without asking and slides it to me. That's followed quickly by a shot of whiskey. It dribbles onto the counter and she doesn't wipe it up. I say I like her ring. It was a present from her grandmother. That is, she got it when her grandmother passed. They'd always wanted it, she and both her sisters. They were jealous it was given to her. She had plans to share it with them but doesn't think she'll go through with it.

She asks if I like her hair. It was just done today, dyed a bit redder, cut a bit shorter. She feels like a new woman with Richard gone. For good this time, someone asks. She nods. She finally told him he couldn't be in her house anymore, told him he had to go. Told him what she'd do if she ever saw him again, heard he was in town, heard he was in a fifty mile radius. He hit her one last time and said he was better off anyway. She said of all the times she hit her that was the only time she didn't hate. It meant it was over, and how could that be bad?

Everybody is on a basis that is past first name. First look, first breath, first thought. The regulars have a way of communicating where they don't need to communicate much at all, not in ways that are heard or seen. That's what happens, she says, when you spend decade after decade with people. That's the upside to never going anywhere. At least you know one place really, really well. She smiles. I can feel the others smiling, too, even if they're not.

My beer is close to being done but I still haven't finished my whiskey. She calls me a sippin' sister. She pours two more shots and says to hurry up. I finish mine off and take the second one. She takes hers and raises it. Always toast when drinking with someone, she tells me. What should we drink to, I ask. Ain't you got anything in your life worth drinkin' to, she says. I say, Let's drink to you then, but she informs me that it's bad luck to drink to yourself. Maybe that explains the last few years, I say. She smiles. OK then, I say, to knowing places well. That seems to sit right with everyone.