We were older now, my long-lost drinking companion and I. And possibly smarter. Whatever I wanted from bars when I first starting going to them, this is what I wanted now, and I couldn’t imagine anything better. This connection. This empathy.
We got quiet again. He patted me on the back and smiled. I extended my hand, and we shook. We agreed that it was great to see each other again, there at Milano’s of all places, where we never hung out, here, after all this time, out of nowhere. Sensibly, we finished up our drinks. We said good night. We wished each other well. And we left. Headed, once more, toward different destinations.
• • •
Where was I headed? At that moment: to Brooklyn, home, to my bed, to sleep.
In the grander sense, I didn’t know for sure where I was going, but something that night had shifted. And of course it was that night, but it was not only that night. It was that year. It was the last few years. My work, my marriage, even my habits: All these had changed, in big ways and small, because of age, because of time, because of experience. Maybe I no longer needed to be a regular anywhere anymore, at least not the way I had been. A chance visit to a bar I seldom drank in had been so strangely meaningful, so rewarding. And I knew that if I’d just defaulted and gone to one of my usuals, it wouldn’t have happened. One of the comforts of regularhood is that it holds few surprises; its rhythms are steady and consistent and predictable, so that when any disruptions occur, they are all the more jarring, and sometimes terrible, as they had been at Good World. Maybe I needed to take more chances with bars. Maybe I needed to be willing to be a stranger again.
One of the new places that was part of the bar boom in my neighborhood was especially inviting. It’s a little place, with about ten seats at the bar, four booths that seat four people each, and a yard in the back with enough space, on a nice day, for about the same number of drinkers that fit indoors. It’s a mom-and-pop joint, run by a local couple—mainly a beer-and-shots bar, nothing fancy or complicated (though you can get an excellent Manhattan). One night, not long after it opened, one of the owners asked me if I knew anyone who was looking for a shift or two. I took it as a hint. (I’m still not sure if she hoped I might be interested, but that’s how I interpreted the question.) I hadn’t been on the other side of a bar in more than fifteen years, and hadn’t given it even a minute’s thought. But maybe it would be the perfect way to break up a week that otherwise consisted mainly of being home, alone, writing. I was starting to feel isolated. I told her I couldn’t possibly work nights—I felt far too old to close a bar at four A.M.—but I wouldn’t mind giving one day shift a week a shot. The next day, I was trained. And I’ve been happily working there ever since.
As at most bars I know, my regulars are mostly men. And they’re a good crew: cabinetmakers, chefs, painters, teachers, other bartenders, and freelancers of many stripes. I love my day drinkers: Since they work unorthodox hours, they can come to the bar when others can’t. During the day, it seldom gets too loud or too crowded. We talk, we toast, we catch up on one another’s news, lives, families. Every now and then, when I have to take a Tuesday off, I miss seeing them. When I tell them that, some seem to think I’m trying to flatter them, but it’s the truth.
Observing my customers over on the civilian side of the bar often gives me the uncanny feeling that I’m watching a film about my own life, even if I’m just out of frame. I see people falling in love with this bar, as I fell in love with so many other bars. I see how it happens and the way it takes hold: First they’re in once a month, then twice, then every week. Even if they’re a little shy at first, all it takes is a good conversation with the person sitting on the next barstool (or with the person behind the bar) to feel fully at ease. It has become a second home for them, as Puffy’s and Good World and Grogan’s and other bars once were for me. They come alone. They come with friends and coworkers, and sometimes even their wives and adult children. They come in good moods and celebrate, and in bad moods to drink away their troubles. This is their community center. This is their local. And just as so many bartenders became my friends over the years, I’ve become their friend, too.
And of course I can’t help paying closest attention to the women who drink here, especially those who are regulars and, among them, those who are young and single and come on their own. The lives of a few seem to revolve around this little bar. This is where they’ve made their closest friends. Sometimes, I see them elsewhere in the neighborhood. When I do, they are often with people they met at the bar, not infrequently members of its staff. And I feel like I’m having a flashback. They remind me more than a little of someone I knew years ago. Recently, I noticed one woman coming in from time to time with a friend. Then she started coming on her own. She’d take a seat at the end of the bar near the door, drink beer, and knit. She has told me how much she likes the bar, how comfortable she feels there, how much it reminds her of warm, unpretentious places in her hometown. By now, many of the regulars know her by name, and the knitting needles and yarn come out less often. When I see her, I remember grading papers at Puffy’s Tavern, ensconced in one of those booths, drinking Guinness, occasionally listening in on conversations among the regulars—and then becoming one of them.
Like me, the women who are regulars at my bar love to drink. At a bar. In the company of men. There are moments when I want to protect them if it looks like they’re about to make a familiar misstep: go home with someone not quite worthy of their affection, confide in someone who might not be trustworthy, drink one too many. But I can’t intervene too much, and I think they’re getting as much out of this kind of life as I once did. Being a woman at home in bar culture is a way of figuring out who you are, and of getting comfortable with her. It’s an assertion of independence. I’d be the last person to get in the way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Not long after I started writing this book, my husband, Frank Duba, was diagnosed with cancer. He faced it with extraordinary grace until his death in 2010. At the time of his diagnosis, we were separated; love and circumstances unseparated us. This was a story I could not tell here, but Frank is present on every page, and no words of appreciation or affection could ever suffice.
I’m grateful for my painstaking and patient editor, Megan Lynch, who rescued me from many of my worst impulses, her wonderful assistant, Alexandra Cardia, and publisher Geoffrey Kloske at Riverhead; for my coolheaded agent, Scott Waxman, and his associates; and for Ira Glass, Julie Snyder, and their colleagues at This American Life, which aired an early version of this book’s first chapter, setting the whole thing in motion.
I’m indebted to Catherine Gilbert Murdock, the author of the excellent book Domesticating Drink, who gamely and graciously answered my questions about women and bar culture before Prohibition and directed me to other helpful resources.
My dear brother, Jeremy Schaap, supported and encouraged me immeasurably. Among my beloved friends, I especially thank Elena Alexander, Jami Attenberg, John Bowman, Philip Casey, Jiwon Choi, Andy Kolovos, Lisa Ng, Dael Orlandersmith, John Paul, Lu Ratunil, Michael Sharkey, Ann Shostrom, Geoffrey Smyth, Annika Sundvik, and Jeffrey Walkowiak.
And: Anaheed Alani, Michael Andre, Jeff Baker, Matthew Beckerman, Claire Birmingham, Susan Black, Carla Bolte, Lex Braes, Dee Byrd-Molnar and Paul Molnar, Kate Christensen, Andrew Cohen, Wyn Cooper, T. L. Cowan, Brian Currid, Jennifer Dickinson, Susan Dumois, Aylin Emeksiz, Dori Fern, Brendan Fitzgerald, Roland Gebhardt, Benjamin Gervis, Dan Gillham, Jeff Gordinier, Sophie Gorlin, Teri Greeves, Dave Guimond, Rick Hamlin, Anthony Hauck, Debbie Hecht, Ken Heitmueller, Vivian Heller, Jean Holabird, Sylvia and Bob Jorlett, Blaise Kearsley, Bernice and Paul Kelly, Jon Kelly, Max Langrind, Katherine Lanpher, John Lavelle, Hugo Lindgren, Howard McCalebb, Brian McNally, Andra Miller, Reggie Miller, Meredith Morton, Joe Mueller, Sarah Nankin, Maud Newton, Eustace Pilgrim, Jasmine Rault, Angus Robertson, Roots Café, Maria and John Ross, Maura Spiegel, John Stoate, Ruth Sullivan, Mark
Sweeney, Josephine Vazquez, Wilhelm Werthern, Craig West, Charles Yoder, Maggie Zackheim, Jenny Zeuli, Susan Zugaib, I raise a glass to you all—sláinte, skål, salut, na zdrowie, prost, cheers.
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