Monday, July 25, 2005
Scenes from Summers Past
Six of us enter the small saloon on the harbor. It's a small, dark place that smells like burnt nicotine, hops and the sea. The girls push dollars into the jukebox, and before long the sounds of last summer's songs fill the bar. (This summer's songs are too new to have found their way into the jukeboxes of this kind of dive.)
I'm at the bar, ordering drinks. Jameson's Irish Whisky for lads, with beer chasers. Mandarin and soda with limes for the girls. There are a half-dozen or so salty drinkers bellied up the bar. I hear the two next to me grumbling about "summer people." They aren't happy that we've invaded their bar and filled it with bass, beats and non-melodious vocals. I ask the barmaid to open a couple of bottles of beer for them. They nod their heads at my peace offering but hardly look any happier about our presence.
It only takes three more rounds of whisky and vodka and seven or eight songs to change this. Now the girls are on the tables, kicking their legs out from under their pleated skirts, singing along to the songs. The old fishermen are smiling from the bar. They've figured out that we're not so bad afterall.
We've all got our sunglasses on because the blindness makes us feel somehow less visible, more anonymous, less vulnerable. Booze, shades and music: these are our ring of Ganges, allowing us to ignore the requirements of civilization. One of the fisherman reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out his own sunglasses. A moment later he's wearing his sunglasses in the dark, dancing alongside us, a part of our fraternity of immortal, beyond good and evil, rockstar decadants.
I guess I shoulda known
By the way u parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
That believes in makin' out once
Love 'em and leave 'em fast
Little Red Corvette is our last song. We climb down from the tables, take down our last swallows, and stumble out into the night. The sky is full of stars and tonight, right now, the stars are telling us that we are young, we are beautiful and we've been right all along.
I'm at the bar, ordering drinks. Jameson's Irish Whisky for lads, with beer chasers. Mandarin and soda with limes for the girls. There are a half-dozen or so salty drinkers bellied up the bar. I hear the two next to me grumbling about "summer people." They aren't happy that we've invaded their bar and filled it with bass, beats and non-melodious vocals. I ask the barmaid to open a couple of bottles of beer for them. They nod their heads at my peace offering but hardly look any happier about our presence.
It only takes three more rounds of whisky and vodka and seven or eight songs to change this. Now the girls are on the tables, kicking their legs out from under their pleated skirts, singing along to the songs. The old fishermen are smiling from the bar. They've figured out that we're not so bad afterall.
We've all got our sunglasses on because the blindness makes us feel somehow less visible, more anonymous, less vulnerable. Booze, shades and music: these are our ring of Ganges, allowing us to ignore the requirements of civilization. One of the fisherman reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out his own sunglasses. A moment later he's wearing his sunglasses in the dark, dancing alongside us, a part of our fraternity of immortal, beyond good and evil, rockstar decadants.
I guess I shoulda known
By the way u parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
That believes in makin' out once
Love 'em and leave 'em fast
Little Red Corvette is our last song. We climb down from the tables, take down our last swallows, and stumble out into the night. The sky is full of stars and tonight, right now, the stars are telling us that we are young, we are beautiful and we've been right all along.
