Of being back behind the bar. Like I do every night.
Apparently, being back behind the bar is my new “I never finished high school” dream.
The venue was larger, and we never seemed to open, but people kept showing up at the bar–some of them people I know who’ve been sober for twenty-plus years.
I couldn’t find the goddamned Seagrams to make seven and sevens, and the well liquors were all made by a different company.
The speed racks were all mismatched and affixed not to the ice wells, but behind the bar, some of them at head height.
And the door guys kept coming behind the bar, some of them with their shirts off, trying to bartend because there were customers who’d appeared while I was looking for the well vodka.
I was like, “Put your fucking shirts on. This is not the Boyz Cellar. And get out from behind my goddamned bar.”
But whereas I once commanded obedience (if not respect) from the people in my charge as head bartender, they now looked at me like: you’re not running shit around here anymore.
And for all I know, it was the Boyz Cellar.
