It’s been years since I’ve wanted to punch the random stranger for making small talk with me in the elevator at nine a.m. At this point in my life, I had been working at my current job for twelve years. I worked in the mortgage department of a large bank and I had long since gotten over my fear of wearing ties and shaving every day. I felt at home in my work clothes and even perfected my “can you believe this weather?” talk when on a ride with a stranger that lasted longer than two floors.
It wasn’t always this easy though. I had a hard time settling into this adult life. I struggled to feign interest in the clichés people regurgitated to circumvent those uncomfortable moments among strangers while walking into the bank and riding up to my office. I found their early morning optimism overbearing as these mindless goons would chirp: “I’d complain, but who’d listen?” or give another equally droll quip like: “A million dollars short of being a millionaire.” I often expect a Ned Flanders style “hi-diddily-ho, neighbor!” punctuating the end of this stale ham sandwich of a salutation.
I was usually hung-over back in my mid-twenties.
I also battled morning traffic in DC which had the proud honor of being among the worst traffic in the country. By the time I walked into the building at nine a.m., I had already been victim to these vehicular bullies for hours. My morning thus far had typically consisted of fighting other commuters to merge while being the recipient of violent threats hurled at me. Why don’t people just let you in? It’s not like we were rescued from the Sahara and are in line to get our first cup of water. No one wants to be at work anyway! I saw one guy weave in and out of traffic like he was Dale Erhnhert; speeding through yellow lights, missing the bumpers of his fellow commuters by mere inches every time he switched lanes. Then half an hour later I saw him in the bank’s cafeteria complaining about how much he hated being there!
My fellow humans would toss vulgar suggestions from half-cracked windows accompanied by crude hand gestures. Fancying myself a multi-tasker, I took pride in my ability to flip people the bird, gun my engine, and scope out a possible entry point in the next lane which almost always seemed to be moving faster. I accomplished all this as I negotiated bouts with nausea, dry mouth, tremors from the previous night’s frivolities, and being haunted by the gradually diming light coming out of my eyes day by day in the rearview mirror. To make it to work without beating someone to death on the side of the road with a tire iron was a miracle.
After all that the last thing I wanted was to have some daffy bright-eyed prick I didn’t know greet me with a way-too-peppy salutation. My coworkers and building mates, they fought the same traffic I did, why did they all seem so overly cheerful? “Yes, yes, yes, amazing weather!” I wanted to shout back, “Wow, the leaves are changing colors like they do every year around this time! A-fucking-stounding!” Why were these bastards trying to bond with me about the sun rising like it had every single day since the dawn of man?
It also drove me crazy to think about the time I wasted in rush hour traffic before and after work. I obsessed over those little quirky facts about how many hours or even days we spend in our lives doing random tasks like brushing our teeth. They say that at the end we would have spent three years of it flossing. I couldn’t bear the thought of the time I was wasting in the car.
I tried audio books. I tried learning a new language. I looked around and saw women applying make-up, men reading the paper, even shaving with electric razors. I was growing older by the minute, my life was slipping away one stop light at a time. Everyone else seemed to be using this time wisely. I saw people laughing along with shock jocks as they no doubt were slapping unseen prostitutes on the ass with unseen fish (I listened to Howard Stern once and that’s what he spent my entire commute doing). I just didn’t have the patience or attention span for any of it.
Something had to change and it wasn’t going to be the traffic.
* * * *
When I was about five years old my mom and I were in the car. It was rush hour and we were hitting every red light there was in the city.
I remember looking over at the car next to me and being terrified at what I saw. It was a man in a white shirt and tie. He was behind the wheel of an old car. It was rumbling. The man was loosening his tie with one hand and wiping the sweat from his brow with his other. Once done, he put both hands back on the wheel and gripped it tightly. That’s all it was; a business man. Not a monster, but it scared me worse than any horror movie ever could.
Almost as if he could feel me staring at him, the man had looked over at me. Something in his face pleaded to me. He had stress in his eyes and I could sense the anxiety that had him tightly in its grip. He looked miserable and not just in the moment, but in life. I wasn’t scared because I thought he was a danger to me. He didn’t look like a threat. He just looked angry and helpless. He scared me because I was afraid of becoming him some day.
I thought, “Oh my God, is that was being an adult is? I never want to grow up!” Without actually saying a word, that man shouted to me “Never become what I am!” I’ll never forget his face or the desperation in his eyes.
The Stressed Man’s eyes were locked with mine for what seemed like forever.
Then the man smiled. I think it was forced at first, but became genuine as I smiled back at him. I waved to him and he had nodded. Our light turned green and the man drove off down the road.
Who knows what the truth was? Maybe it wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe his car was about to run out of gas. It could have been nothing. But it didn’t matter. In my mind I saw a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I knew I never wanted to become that man.
As I grew into early adulthood I felt myself becoming him a little bit each day. I started having bills pile on top of bills. I had to remember to get my teeth cleaned every six months, health insurance, 401k plans. How long would I have to work, how many decades would I have to keep this up before I could retire? Would I be able to retire comfortably or would I be living off canned beans and playing the lottery like some desperate bastard?
Then one day the inevitable happened. I was stuck in morning rush hour. I was waiting my turn at a stop light. I was hung over, of course. My mouth was so dry I could have lit a match off my tongue. I picked up a random water bottle and tried to remember if it was actually water or if it was piss from some drunken night when I couldn’t wait to find a bathroom. Right at the exact moment when I opened up the bottle and did a quick investigative sniff is that’s when I felt his eyes upon me.
I looked over and saw a little boy staring at me. He was in the car with his mother. The boy smiled at me in the exact way I had smiled at that stressed-out man decades ago. Right then, the smell from the water bottle reached my nose.
It was piss.
I carefully screwed the cap back on.
“I became him,” I thought to myself. I should have done something different. But I smiled and drove on when the light turned green. But I didn’t just become him. I became a worse version. Mouth agape at the stop light holding my own urine, having no idea from which drunken night it had been sprayed into the water bottle.
That day at lunch I went apartment shopping for a place within walking distance of my office building.
I found an apartment less than half a mile away. They asked for a security deposit on the spot and I moved in a week later.
It was living in this city and among its residents where I finally began to feel like an adult. Going out for drinks no longer guaranteed a hang-over. Someone bumping into me was no longer given the look of death. I would now offer a polite “excuse me.” A family asking me if I would take their picture was saved from being told to “go fuck yourselves” or “why don’t I take a picture of your rectum after I shove that camera up your ass.” My new and improved self would smile politely and offer a very pleasant, “I’d be happy to.”
Adulthood arrived late, but it did arrive.
Then around two thousand and seven, the bottom fell out and the economic crisis began. I was a commissioned loan officer which meant my income plummeted with home values. I immediately started looking for part-time work.
I was the only single guy in the office so I considered myself pretty lucky that I was able to consider a job on the weekends to help make ends meet. I had no wife, no kids, a bachelor’s life, so it would be pretty easy for me to transition into a job bartending on Friday and Saturday nights. It was either that or move to a cheaper apartment out of the city and go back to commuting.
I avoided that alternative not only out of fear of throwing my car back into the rush hour arena, but also because happy hours were coming back into fashion with the impending crisis looming over our heads. Tensions soared and so did our blood alcohol content. I didn’t want to move out of the city and compound my problems by getting a DUI like some kid fresh out of college.
My married friends had it worse. A lot of spouses just don’t get the whole “had a rough day, need a beer or two to smooth things over” concept. Granted, it does sound rather silly in theory: you had a hard day, yet instead of rushing home to your loved ones, you rush out to spend even more time with the same people you were just forced to deal with for the previous eight hours. However, the people you work with know what you’re going through and no matter how understanding a spouse tries to be, and no matter how eloquently you paint the portrait of your stressful day, it’s just easier pissing and moaning about your troubles with someone who has shared the stress.
Aside from all that, Happy Hour is patriotic. Its roots are rather innocent. It began in the 1920s and we can thank the United States Navy for this wonderful tradition. Recreationally, there isn’t much to do in the life of the average sailor while out to sea. So at the end of their grueling shifts the commanders organized entertainment for the young men. The events ranged from boxing and wrestling to other kinds of sports and games popular at the time. It helped the sailors release some energy without getting bored and falling to less constructive means of entertainment. Eventually it reached the shores and alcohol was added to the menu. The concept continued to spread around until the time prohibition became what may be the biggest buzz kill in history.
During prohibition the happy hour concept became somewhat less innocent. Society had a difficult time sobering up after the outlawing of alcohol. Men would gather secretly after work and throw down a couple pints before heading home to the family. Unlike present day happy hour where cheap beer prices and chicken wings are advertised proudly, these happy hours were whispered about and conducted in secrecy. Held behind unmarked doors, men gained access to the coveted spirits by way of secret passage and passwords. Of course, after prohibition ended and alcohol was made legal again, this tradition blossomed into the wonderful present day phenomenon we have all come to know and love.
Grabbing a few drinks after work also circumvents the heavy evening traffic. In the mornings you can’t avoid the nightmare. You are stuck with the on-the-go grooming, radios jackass morning shows, and the books on tape. But in the evening there are options. And no matter how charmingly recited that English chap is barfing back the narration of Dickens on your audio book,, it can never beat out two hours in a pub shaking off that polite facades we are forced into becoming for those forty hours a week, two thousand eighty hours a year, forty one thousand six hundred hours in a career spanning two decades. That’s why the language in a bar is always a little sharper, a little more vulgar, and a little less politically correct. “Fuck me! If I have to spend one more minute listening that fucking buffoon ramble on about Conversation Rates, or….” Most guys I worked with wanted to do happy hour at least three out of the five works days.
Having married friends is kind of like when I was a kid and had that one friend with the overprotective parents who were always keeping an eye on him from the kitchen, from the garage, always at the edge of the playground making sure he wasn’t doing anything inappropriate. The type of parents that had to poke their snouts into their kid’s affairs and make sure that no one was trying to force him into having too much fun by doing something dangerous or out of line. My married buddies would go to happy hour while texting their wives and citing traffic issues as an excuse to “stay late” and “get some paperwork done.” Then, as that happy hour comes to an end, the dirty jokes stop, the wallets comes out and their dignity is as scattered and scarce as the free pretzels.
One night at happy hour I ran into Dan. He was an old friend whom I had known from high school. Apparently he had been living in Bethesda over the past couple months. We exchanged the usual “so great to see you” and then ran down the checklist of friends. We traded information back and forth about who was married, who moved away, who’s been arrested and who was dead. I told him about the bank and our recent financial woes. After one too many beers I began feeling a little vulnerable and anxious. Dan was paying more attention to the football game on TV, so I figured I could use him as a sounding board as I was certain he was barely listening anyway. I was three sentences into my confession when he offered a simply solution: “Come work with me. I’m at a bar called O’Dooley’s down in Virginia. It’s a hotel bar, it’s great.”
Dan always found himself working in an Irish bar until he got fired for drinking on the job or fighting a fellow coworker or, even worse, a customer. He had worn out his welcome in the Irish pubs in our state so he had branched off and began reaping havoc across the border.
Dan was one of my few friends not married at this point. We were the only two single guys left from our class. Other than that, we have very little in common other than our affinity for alcohol. He was one of those sports fanatics who could quote a current NFL quarterback’s high school record. Anything played with a ball or stick, he was all over it. I knew enough about football to know the Redskins were always losing. I actually felt bad for him because he got stuck with me. My sister knows more about sports than I do.
“I’m serious. Come work with me. We’ll have a blast,” Dan said and then suddenly screamed “WORTHLESS CUNT! YOU DAFFY FUCKING TWAT!” At first I thought he meant me. But I remembered the game on TV. Someone had dropped the ball or thrown it to the wrong guy or missing the goal posts or some shit.
I contemplate Dan’s suggestion. Working together would be a riot but at what cost? Bartending would no doubt help me with some of the money issues. But what new disasters would be born of the aforementioned solution? I may slowly chisel away at my credit card debt, but how long before I needed to buy a new liver, a new car, bail money, a lawyer and a cure for some venereal disease I hadn’t even heard of yet? “I don’t know man. Virginia is a hike.”
“O’Dooley’s is worth the hike. It’s a Hotel bar.” He seemed to emphasize the fact that it was a hotel bar as if it were a real selling point. I didn’t see the significance.
The game on TV seemed to be grabbing about seventy-five percent of Dan’s attention until the two minute warning. At that point I was downgraded to about two percent of his focus. This essentially meant that our conversation wasn’t really a conversation. He would slide in his comments and suggestions in between swigs from his drink and glances at the game. Now and then his face would sharpen, his eye brows would arch and he would slam a fist onto the bar “OH YOU MOTHER FUCKER! RUUUUUUUN!” He screamed at the television with a ferocity that made me recoil the first couple times he did it. I was smart enough to wait until a commercial.
“I really do need to do something though. I’m struggling right now.” I admitted.
He leaned back in his seat and sighed. He looked at me and took another drink. Dan raised his eye brows. His face had returned to an understanding expression emoting a genuine interest in our dialogue. When he spoke to me his voice returned to a calm and understanding tone, “Seriously, come work with me. It’s not that much of a hike if you take the back roads.” And then suddenly: “COCKSUCKERS!” as if the anger and vulgarities where his way of punctuating the sentence. The game had snuck its way back on.
“I don’t know, dude.”
“Well, you need the money. And it’s a bar; free booze, dude. YOU FUCKS! At the very least, even if you make nothing extra, you still won’t be spending anything on the weekends. DOUCHE BAG!”
He had me at “free booze.”
“Ok, I’ll give it a try,” I finally say.
Dan patted me on the back and said, “Nice.”
I wanted to add something to the conversation about the game. I didn’t want Dan to feel totally isolated in his fanaticism. I have two stock phrases that I like to yell during games and find that they almost always apply. It’s very important for a non-sports enthusiast to ingratiate himself to a room full of diehard fans if he does not want to endure endless ridicule. The first, and the one I decided to forgo at the time was “Where’s the flag!?” At any given point this battle-cry will rally at least half the room and invite never-ending high fives and conversations which will no doubt call into question the referee, his upbringing, mental state, sexual preference and the legitimacy of his children. It doesn’t matter if a flag was necessary – I have screamed this on several occasions even when the game had been played in strict accordance to the NFL rules, policies and guidelines and I have found that people just assume I saw something they didn’t. There’s always a little interference going on somewhere. However, I decided on the always rousing: “I would have run it in for the touchdown.” One of the key rules to being a good fan is explaining how you would have scored the necessary points to win the game if you had been playing and they threw, batted, or dribbled the ball to you.
“That’s what I’m saying!” Dan high-fived me. “You’re going to love O’Dooley’s. It’s the best Sports Pub in Virginia.”
“Wait a minute. Sports pub?”
Raleigh Jones Artist 