Nurse the Hate: The Regular

Almost imperceptibly I had become a regular at the wine bar.  At first I had stopped by once every couple of weeks, which quickly led to me stopping every couple of days, which in turn led to every day at dusk.  I always sat at the bar at the same stool.  Second from the left, back to the side wall, clear look at the doorway.  I never sat with my back to the door so as to avoid ambush.  Though there was no real reason for me to expect an assassination attempt, I felt it was always better to be safe than sorry.  I had not even been in a fistfight since a decisive victory over Peter Cole in the fourth grade.  Still, I wanted to make sure that if Peter had a festering grudge from that split lip 28 years ago, he wouldn't be able to put a slug in the back of my skull.  Had I bothered to look on Facebook I would have known that Peter was now an insurance salesman in San Bernadino CA, was a father of two girls, enjoyed mountain biking and was a fair distance runner.  He did not appear to be an assassin.  Knowing that wouldn't have changed anything though.  I would always face the door.  It calmed me to think I could see what was coming.   

There were three of us that were daily regulars.  Paul sat at the far right end of the bar directly opposite of me.  The greatest mistake a person could make would be to sit down next to Paul after 8 PM when he had his fourth glass of red wine in front of him.  Regardless of the topic of conversation of the day, he could be counted on to twist it into the presidency of James K. Polk.   His fury knew no bounds regarding the Walker Tariff Act.  No one ever argued back as no one ever walked in that was well versed in early 1800s American politics.

Paul also gambled heavily on hockey.  The bar had no televisions so Paul consistently checked his phone to see the progress of his wagers.  There was a hole in the wall bar a half block away with multiple big screens dedicated to sports.  Paul never went to that bar claiming he didn't like their choices of alcohol.  I had learned on very solid word that Paul had been forever 86'd from the joint after a lengthy glass smashing incident when the Philadelphia Flyers lost a game to the Buffalo Sabres despite being up three going into the third.  Say what you will about Paul, but he was passionate about his hockey.

Lester was the last of the regulars.  He always sat at the two top by the men's room.  He had been rather despondent for the past month after "losing his muse".  He would brood in the corner with an open notebook hoping inspiration would find him again.  Lester performed music that could be best called "challenging".  He was a vanguard in a new movement which he called "noise folk".  He performed with drum loops and found instruments.  His songs had oblique symbolism and were almost devoid of structure.  They were, to my ears, unlistenable.  He had his fans though.  Two music blogs in Sweden championed his work continuously.  Lester would later meet filmmaker Jim Jarmusch at a small dinner where Jarmusch would accept a sample of Lester's work.  Jarmusch, taken with the solitary vision, would place it in his most successful commercial film, giving Lester a firm hold in the artistic underground.  This event was still years away though.  During this current period, Lester drank and moaned of the pain of the loss of his beloved muse.  I think she was a young woman from Finland that became a nanny.  He would never tell me any details.  I think he loved her though she, like me, supposedly found his music coarse and unlikeable.

I enjoyed the routine of the place.  I would sit and drink wines blind trying to guess the grape and region.  I could be counted on to get two thirds of my first wines correct, but would sharply nosedive on glass #3 and beyond.  It was then I learned that anything that tasted vaguely of dust and leather was usually from Italy, though I always called Southern France.  The bartenders would look at me with sad eyes as I failed.  They would offer me words of encouragement but I could see in glances they shot each other they had a sort of pity for me.  I would pretend I didn't notice and avoid talking about President James Polk or hockey.  It was a system that worked.  I felt comfortable there.

The bar lost its lease when the surrounding area became too trendy for its own good.  The clientele had gradually shifted from shabby art types to fast chatting yoga moms.  It happened so slowly that Paul, Lester, and I never even noticed.  The bar blew out their cellar stock the last month before closing.  We drank aged Burgundy and Barolo like house cabs in an extended Irish wake for the place.  I didn't go on the last night.  It made me feel sad, and I felt stupid to have any emotion about a bar closing.  I tried to pretend I didn't care.  I walk past the building sometimes after work on autopilot.  The new tenants turned it into a vegetarian restaurant.  It's usually about a third full.  I never see Paul or Lester anymore.  I see Lester's name pop up in the papers sometimes when he has a show.  I don't have a regular place now.  All that time I faced the door.  I never saw any of it coming.