the end of an era

Pour one out tonight for the place that closed last night--the place where you sang "The Whiskey Song," wore a boot brace, stole a vest five sizes too small and played "Fat Man in a Little Coat," threw up, stole glassware, shot pool, tended an unattended bar and scammed free drinks, brought your own Milanos, broke the lock to, and climbed into, the cubby under the stairs that held the vacuum, turned off all the lights after closing time and sat on the floor behind the bar with the bartender and continued to drink long past two, first met your boyfriend and a West Virginian wearing gray cammo pants, had your first drink in Kato (a Sam Adams bottle, because you didn't know any of the Midwest beers on tap yet), scribbled in Chad's birthday cookbook, ran around the kitchen like you had any business being there, got thrown out of by one set of owners and welcomed back by another, peed in the men's room, smoked in the women's room, ate patty melts and salads with French dressing before a long Thursday night, teared up to "Carolina," watched Seth barely avoid an ass-kicking when he sang a Todd Snider (or was it John Prine?) song for the townies, missed so when you left town that some nights you could not breathe, once stole a bottle of wine from a girl who ordered it, took one sip, and had to leave before she passed out (that one you drank while you watched her friends pour her into a cab), fought over punk music, creative nonfiction, and grammar, drew filthy pictures on coasters, stole drinks, snuck drinks, finished other people's drinks when they weren't looking, paid for drinks, drank something called "The Tarantula" and immediately sprinted for the alley, spent a summer night with the B and Jeano drinking $120 worth of White Russians, held your after-thesis party, stole Limerick Champion t-shirts, won fair and square Limerick Champion t-shirts, tried Scotch eggs and Reuben balls, wandered into the storeroom before it got busy on a Thursday and realized that the owner had only twenty bottles of 99 Bananas in stock and no whiskey, drove to the second you got back into town from Kentucky and one failed job interview, drove to the second you got back into town from Wisconsin and a successful job interview, gathered on Monday nights, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, and Thursday nights, avoided on hockey nights, triumphantly returned to last summer in pink sunglasses, griped, laughed, cried, and drank. Oh, how you drank.