you cant spell barflies without bris

Want to hear a joke?

———

I am desperately trying not to think too hard about how many people have drank out of this here glass before me. How many sweaty forearms have skittered across and stuck to the bar top like glue paper to a fly’s tarsi. And I’m caught. buzz buzz. 

The air in here is wet and heavy. With the right amount of atmospheric pressure, I'm sure it could rain. I’m trying not to think too hard about how much of the air here is exhalation. Secondhand sickness. 

The half-burnt neon sign, sporting the 3-logos-old branding of some horseshit light beer, is suffering a slow death. Lightning. The ceiling tiles damaged from years of smoke. Every stool is tacky, both tactile and aesthetic.

After twisting the glass around with painstaking care, like analyzing each frame of the Zapruder film, I see a chip in the rim of this glass. Maybe Grassy Knoll would make for a good ale or mixed drink. No, definitely a mixed drink. Yeah. Probably something with crème de menthe. Oh that sounds good.

Is the chip spiderwebbing? A real fuckin’ amateur beer pour has produced too much head to determine one way or the other. It doesn’t help that it’s so god damn dark in here. Why is it always like a crypt in places like these? Christ. 

I suppose if I was poetic I would say something along the lines of: the neighborhood dive bar is the crypt of the post-industrial working class. And that those who gather here are toasting a spiritual death. One day their bodies will break down, and their families will send them to assisted living, or worse, just abandon them entirely. That funeral dirges of old have been replaced with 80s hard rock - choruses of hallelujah supplanted by choruses of whoas and yeahs and tonights and come ons. Thunder. And the emptiness of the lowest form of conversation, Remember When?, between the weekday crowd stands in stead of the empty condolences and How Are You Doings of parishioners and lamenters. Here, there is no moment of silence. There cannot be. Even a moment would be too much silence, and the darkness and regret and pain would start spiderwebbing. They would wade deeper into the fly trap. The lamentation comes from the dead, mourning the living. 

That’s what I would say if I was poetic. But I'm not; so I won't.

This chip. Maybe I’ll get a disease if it catches my lip just right. If that won’t kill me, maybe complications from my impending adult Gentile bris will. Don’t even ask, man. Just another god damn thing. 

I know I should have a better attitude. It’s good to be alive. It is. It is. And generally, I feel that way. I do. I really do. But tomorrows are abstractions until tomorrow becomes today. How many painful todays can one take? Old blues and folk and country singers have songs for sadly and solemnly poring over a pour. Divorce. Inner turmoil. The endless exploitation of the middle and lower class. But that is not why I'm here. What am I doing here again? Oh yeah. Want to hear a joke?

I mean God damn, though. Would I were 40 again. Never mind 35. Nor 25. Etc. The ages I reflexively pine for are growing both in quantity and range. Youthfulness I once mistook for maturity fading into the rearview, caught like clouds unable to pass a mountain range. The tectonic collision pushing the clouds down, back, away, apart. 

I feel for the few in here with me. The dust that has settled on them will in a few years settle on me, too. And I will be the one who’s on a first name basis with the dishwasher, too. And some sap with a bleeding heart will occupy my eyes and look upon me with lament and horror. But I can’t think about that now. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to forget tomorrow. Oh yeah. That joke. 

A man walks into a bar on the eve of his adult circumcision. The bartender says “you look sick. Really sick. Like death itself has sicklied o’er. Are you okay?” The man tells him of tomorrow's procedure and says, “I just … I’m nervous for tomorrow. I mean, think about it. My whole life I’ve looked down and known what would be looking back at me, you know? And in less than 24 hours, everything will have changed. …...”

The bartender says “well, believe it or not, I am more familiar with this than you may have guessed. I actually was born into a non-religious family. Oh, that was back in the fraught days of Topeka’s religious turmoil. But that’s a story for a different day. Anyways. Later on in life, I found religion. The Old Religion, to be exact. The good Lord revealed Himself to me right when I needed him most. Accepting His grace, I, too, found myself on the precipice of an adult bris.”

The bartender looks around, and leans in. ”Now, just between you and me, can I offer you a little tip?”

The man says “I’m good for now, but I’ll definitely need one tomorrow.”