3 Bar Vignettes

Tempe, Arizona

1. At the Barcade

After some Tetris (made the high score board at number 13!) and pinball (did not make the high score board!), Tami and I took a seat at the bar, Star Wars themed boozy beverages in hand. Next to us were two men, one who immediately left when I sat down, and the second, Carlo, who was quick to introduce himself right away and bought us two shots of Don Julio. When in Tempe...

Carlo talked the way I imagine Now and Laters would converse if they had tongues. He spaced his words out, slowly telling me about growing up in Chicago, and now the rental price of his New York apartment. Soon, he was showing me the condo he was thinking of buying in Arizona. 

"Would you want to live here?" I asked him. "I mean, the politics are so different than the cities." 

"Hell yeah," he said. "Have you ever tried to park in New York City?"

Had he been drinking more than me, or did he purposefully mishear? I wasn't sure. Our conversation dwindled when he left to play Rampage (solid), but he returned right before Tami and left, asking if he could come with us to our next destination. 

"I really like you," he squinted as he smiled. 

"Thank you, that's really nice," I said. "But no." 

"Is it because I'm Mexican?" he asked, his shoulders folding inward. 

Horrified, I reached my pinky finger out and he instinctively returned the gesture. I swiped his pinky with my own and clasped his hand, pinky swearing that his race had nothing to do with it. 

"It kind of feels like it does," he mumbled as Tami and I walked away. 

2. At the Barcade - Behind the Bar

The bartender was a professional. He reminded me of my favorite bartender-turned-friend, Nick, at my neighborhood haunt in Oakland, who can read the mood of a customer the way I read the back of a Dr. Bonners soap bottle.

We pretty much skipped the small talk, leaving the only thing between us the bar and his barrel belly.

"How do you bridge a divide between people?" I asked him. He half rolled his eyes, walking away to tend bar a few stools down before returning.

"Education," he said, as though he'd never left. Just like Nick.  "I think we need to educate people." 

“But how do you educate people who don’t want to be educated?”

“Exactly.”

Maybe what's more important than educating people is contextualizing them. 

3. At the Sports Bar

"If you could have any Sesame Street character covering your motorcycle helmet, which would you pick?" I asked Shane, gesturing the huge Elmo head a sitting on a pool table. 

"Cookie Monster...I mean, if I had to." 

"Me too!" A conversation about how Elmo is just a wanna be Grover ensued. 

Sometimes I wonder if connecting without any reason at all is what matters.