Old Year’s Day

Portland, OR

The draw towards the establishment was inevitable. The store front may have well of been a loadstone magnet, and I a passing iron filing, innocent and vulnerable.  The decaled window was an exact creation of the Doors fifth studio album: the Morrison Hotel.  The fact that it turned out to be a bar, a happy revelation.  Had I known before going in that this was to be my sun, my center, holding orbit my social life over the next few years, perhaps I would have paused and had a ceremonious moment outside.  Instead, I pushed that old door open like it was 5 mins to happy hour ending.

It was the beautiful packaging sent me over that threshold to enlist a cast of characters within what would become one of my favorite haunts.  But such is the power of first impressions that is half the battle to taking that first step.  

. . . .

Looking in through the glass, you would think the Moho was open. A small crowd of silhouettes were bellied up at the near end of the bar, near the taps and the cooler.  It was close to lunch time but before opening.

 The darkness of the bar within was infiltrated with bright light as the cook flung the front door open. 

“You chuckle heads are starting early”

The Bostonian accent fit right in here, as the big man made his way under a red sox championship banner. This was an establishment with an east coast founder, made acutely apparent during game nights if all the paraphernalia wasn’t enough of a clue.  

Dingus lowered his big frame and rammed me almost off my stool, then the same to my neighbor Marky in deliberate and laborious revelry.  He was unsurprised to see us, this was our second home and hell, after his shift, he’d be bellied right up here with us. 

Mark was also from the east coast, but the wrong side of the tracks as far as sports go.  The cesspool of New Jersey had bred yet another Yankees fan.  He sported the faded NY cap, in contrast to my stained B worn in reverse.  Sun, paint, sweat, and time had marked both “pencil holders” alike. The friendship had a sitcom pace to it, one that funneled together work, play, and leisure into coherent episodes.

Marky is a salt of the earth type guy, private contractor, dog owner, loud talker, easy to laugh and immune to intimidation.  The type of guy who would raise his voice and thumb “Hey! The line starts back here pal” when someone tries to cut in line at the ATM or DMV cue.  The hero we all need in these situations. And he could handle being in a bar packed with the sporting enemy, through all the heckling.  In the end, he was the Moho’s adopted black sheep, one of the fixtures who belonged here.  

“Let’s play a game…” 

if I had a beer for every time I heard this from Marky, I’d be shitfaced.  

“We’ll take turns. Every time someone new enters the bar, you gotta yell at them “You know what your problem is?” He had demonstrated the phrase in an elevated gruff manner. “Then,” he continued excitedly “just when they are in the height of flight or fight, you smooth it over with some type of compliment, like ‘you’re too good-looking for company such as us’” he purred like a wooing pirate.

“freeze” I said.

“what?” His eyebrow was cocked and in slow-motion. He took the opportunity to lower his beer by several inches.  Based on the remains of foam rings around his pint glass, his draft was going down easy.

“fight, flight, or freeze.  Freeze is the third option that may house more than a minority of reactions.” I said with a Poindexter finger aloft.  Adding a rule was tacit agreement in situations such as these.

“Oh I guess that’s true, the deer in the headlights.” He almost said to himself before revving up again “But you startle me?…it’s your own damn fault! I’ll punch a mother”  He was looking at me like I was the mother.

The sound of the front door opening interrupted our merriment, and Marky shot his posture to alert, comically looking straight ahead.  Apparently, the game has begun.  He is always one to lead by example after rules have been laid down for sport. Never has he needed verbal confirmation from his accomplice.

Suddenly he turned his head to the newcomer. 

“Hey, Buddy!” he barked, instantly getting the man’s attention 

“You know what your problem is?” he was getting up out of his seat now.  

The brown uniformed man, hunched over and dragging an aluminum dolly loaded with boxes, opted for a panicked freeze halfway through the threshold. 

“You’re trying to make that delivery and could use someone to hold the door for you.” His tone had completely relaxed as he pushed his chair back to assist. 

The UPS man’s face melted to relief and then gratitude.

“Bravo” I holler and clap, “What can you do for brown?!”

Squaring back up to the bar, I muse joyfully aloud to myself “I can see this causing some trouble the deeper in the cups we go.”

            It’s easy to fall in love.  Easier still with a bartender.  They are the nymphs of Dionysius.  Maggie’s big doe eyes could cast a charm spell on men and women alike.  She had a figure for admiration that was in no need of the beer goggles her cliental surely wore.  We all had a crush on her.  A crush aggravated when she would just starts pouring our usual from the upright tap without asking.   She could be as agreeable in demeanor as in sass, so by the end of the night, even the laziest among us were happy to help her close up shop.  Maggie regards us as if we just belong, which we did, but it’s something greater when reciprocated by the bartender.  During slow moments she had that sincere listening ear, resting into the bar while asking earnest questions like a high school girlfriend.  “Do you have any tattoos?”

“Tattoos are for people who don’t have scars” Marky laughed.  She was always quick to join in revelry, so you didn’t feel a gag was wasted on her.  When she turned away, it was tough for the eyes to not follow, not that anybody seemed to put up much resistance.  “Someone that sweet and attractive must have a reeeeeeaal ugly side balancing the whole allotment of cosmic talents” I tell Marky, but purposely not in a whisper.

She swings her head back my direction from the liquor side of the bar with a raised eyebrow and a look that is both accepting the compliment while still weighing its backhanded delivery. 

“Maybe you’ll find out some day” she says passing our spot by while slapping the bar top with her flat hand and biting her lip with a casual spin and a sultry look back.

I feel an adrenaline spike with a tingle wash over the back of my neck and look over at Marky who is all eyeballs.  But the moment is advanced by Cousin Dingus’ interjection:  “You’d be so lucky, you bum!” This was addressed to me. Then, addressing Maggie, who is in front of him in the pocket of the bar turn: “He’s a bum Maggie, you know it.  You need someone so much bettah”  As he talks his voice is melting into a little boy flirting voice that woman just love from him.  But this time, she seems stern and refutes his assessment of me even though it be in jest.  Marky turns his head into my face and view.  

He too can read the signs. He again is all eyeballs and so am I.  

Shit, has my chance arrived?

Bree is at the bar next to Marky, she is already slurring as Mark explains the “Do you know what your problem is” game to her.

“Tell Wara about the show” she stammered. Marky instantly starts laughing and recounting.  

“So we were near the back of this concert and behind us this guy is being really loud.  We called him the refrigerator because his shoulders were 48” apart.  He was huge.  Two hundred people wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up though.  So I go back to talk to him and he has a 5^th of whiskey in his pocket and offers me a shot.  We’re back at our seat and he reappears later talking loudly, “I’ll recognize him, when I do I’m gonna bust his face up”  I was right in front of him with my back turned and Bree was like “he’s talking about you, what are you going to do?”  I gotta face the music, you know? so I’m like what’s up dude I thought we were cool, you offered me your whiskey that we drank together.  To which he says “I thought you were security”  and I slowly asked “ you offered whiskey to a security officer?”  Then he looks past me and is like “Is that your woman?”  His fists are balled up mind you, and Im getting ready to get my ass kicked, but am like “what the fuck does that have to do with anything?”  To which he says” well, I don’t fight in front of woman”

Marky put his arm around Bree’s shoulder and pulled her in close to recreate what he had done at the venue: “Yep, that’s my woman!”

It’s a good story, but I have other things on my mind. Months of strategic courtship from patron to bartender may be opening the window of actual possibility.  To try and pull a bartender is a feat attempted habitually, it’s happening right now in fact, in multiple bars, and with a success rate that almost doesn’t even track on the haptics.  One of the problems is they (the bartenders) lean into it, whether from social grace, or from boredom to pass a shift, or because they work for fucking tips.  You can never really know if they truly like you or are just good at their service industry job.  Also, there is the problem of drinking too much hanging out during and after their shift.  Plus, there is always the chance of you fraternizing with other potential suitors at the bar in front of them.  But all these jagged rocks are not my vessels hazard in this instant.  My issue is much more urgent and cosmic even.  My problem is that today is New Years Eve. 

I mean to push the bartender dynamic out of my mind and focus on our unique personal connection.  Ay, there’s the rub.  New connections have many fragile moments which define their very foundation.  In the beginning, every text is loaded with meaning, every encounter a delight.  But nothing is set, the whole thing is volatile.  During this initial courtship, calendar expectations in such young love can spell d-i-s-a-s-t-er.  The birthday.  Valentines.  Christmas.  What gift says I care for you, but with the implications weighed correctly?  When things have advanced beyond the ability to ignore these events, the hurdle must be navigated.  You’re not gonna get a dozen red roses for a new flame, but the understated gift can require much more thought.  

Presently, the pages had been turning, and the flirting had come far enough to make this NYE problematic. 

I must have become like a mute Sherlock at the bar, lost in a trance of calculations.  

It’s the part where everyone kisses at midnight that is the issue.  She was working a double and I to what? Mull around hoping our first kiss comes at the ball drop?  Our moment has arrived where I can’t back down from this tradition, but there isn’t romance in it.  I can’t even be assured to be next to her at midnight…maybe wait in line of a packed bar, like a shmuck trying to get a red carpet autograph? What a shitty first kiss anyway.  I saw no path, only anxiety mounting. 

The jingle of the front door announces its opening.  It’s the gal from the pizza place across the street bringing over bartered lunch for Cousin Dingus and Maggie.  She’ll be back at the end of her shift to collect a free drink or two.

“What the fuck is your problem?!”  Bree suddenly hisses loudly, leaning out from the warm hollow of Marky’s embrace.  The drunken mess had tried her hand at the game, but has jumbled the words horribly, and had to angrily bark them in an effort towards coherence. 

The poor pizza girl has a look of horror and freezes as she was placing the pizza box on the bartop.  To make it worse for her, the rest of us gasp, but then start laughing wildly.  “That’s another for freeze! oh wait maybe flight too” She had taken her crumpled face back out the door before any explanation could be offered.

. . . .

It was later that evening that I made my second call to the Moho, before it got too crazy.  I had an idea.  Maggie was lost in a bite, with mouth overly full of food, when she suddenly became conscious of me in the doorway and paused with big eyes, then held a wide grin with bulging cheeks like an adorable cartoon character.  I laugh and wave before turning to the jukebox.  Pat was on shift as well now.  After cueing up a favorite song as was tradition, I just needed to wait.  When the bass line came crashing down from She Wants Revenges’ masterpiece “Out of Control”, both patron (me) and barkeep (Pat) interrupt everything to find each other’s eyes in a knowing celebration that culminated in a towering high five.  This is a ritual made sweeter by the delayed gratification of a jukebox.  This is the Morrison, the best bar in SE Portland, and I don’t want to be anywhere else I think as I engage in a deep swig from my pint glass.  But I won’t be staying this evening, I’m here to enact a plan and disappear before the place is too overrun with tourist NYE drinkers.  

I’ve got to make my move with Maggie on my own terms I had decided.  I spy her setting up behind the bar and there are just a few others around her.  I wave off Pat’s offering of a refill and stand down at the turn of the bar near the door.  His face spells confusion as he fades away to tend another.  Maggie looks over and mouths “Are you leaving?” with furrowed brow.  This is the moment.  I wave her over and swallow my throat as she approaches.  “What’s up? You’re not staying for the grand festivities?”  She asks with cool sarcasm.  She had applied dark glitter streaking from her eye shadow.  I tell her I’m going down to the slow bar with chef, pointing my thumb over my shoulder toward the street.  A few unknown patrons sit close by.  She makes a disapproving face and I continue.  “But I was thinking…I know I won’t be your first kiss of the New Year, but…I’d love to be your last kiss of this year.” It caught her by surprise, and it was to be fight (kiss), flight, or freeze.  I could hear a mild gasp from the woman sitting on the corner, but I remained fixed on Maggie.  Her blush told me all I needed to know as I stepped up on the foot rail to lean forward.   And there we converged over that sacred bar.  The bar that would scar up with high heel dancing’s, spilled drinks, raucous cheering to playoffs.  And our lips met with a lingering kiss to start a whole new era, where there was no looking back to how we were before.  Not for a golden age at least.  

As I turned out to the wet pavement with a spring in my step to catch up with chef, I bellowed “Keep your New Year’s day, this oldest day of right now is my grand beginning!”

Chefs twisted face replied with a drawn out “huh?” For which he received some unwarranted and quite untrained boxing jabs in a sensational flurry. He began to hug himself and lift his leg in guard, making withering noises of effort all the while.

“Come on chef, it’s fight that is the best reaction! most definitely fight.”