28 february 2005

I think I have a bar.

Like, the kind of place where I know all the bartenders, and they know me. I know when they work. I know what they serve, and what they make best, and what it costs. I know where each of them is from, and how long they’ve been here, and at least one version of why.

I know the other regulars. I can go there at 8 pm on a Monday or 3 am on a Saturday and enjoy it the same.

I can go alone.

My bar is called the Doos. It is pronounced, more or less, dose. It is an unglamorous, unmarked, illegal bar underneath a highrise. From the outside it looks like a big black utility door, but when you heave it open – which you never would – there is a bar inside. A poorly lit, poorly painted, marvelous bar I love. It feels like the basement that one of your friends had in high school, a big damp basement where the adults didn’t venture, where you could stay up all night and be loud and play bad music and smoke pot and watch movies and make out and throw parties. All of these things happen at the Doos. Except there is a full bar, just like you would have had in high school if you could have.

In high school, my friends didn’t drink. We dressed up in funny costumes and hung out at Barnes & Noble or Houlihans. Such is the curse of the suburbs.

But now I have a bar. I have never had a bar before.

From now on, wherever I live, I will have a bar.