Gone in a Puff

I try to be as pseudonymous as possible on my blog, because I interact with a lot of different groups of people. Most of them are not net savvy, but you can never be too careful. But I want to bitch about my favorite bar, and it's just got such a great name I don't want to make something up. I've been going to Smokin' Jack's every time I get a chance when I'm over in that county. It would be a forty minute haul otherwise. It's my favorite bar in either county (with the Rat Pack running a close second). It's kind of hard to explain why it's such a great bar, but it has something to do with the physical set up and the atmosphere. There's the actual bar and a few booths, but most people sit at the bar. There's a back room where dart stuff happens. But you end up mostly crammed at the bar, and you don't seem to mind.

The service is quick and the people who come in, as local as you can get although you will have union workers coming through in packs, are better than most of the places I've been in the county where I live. They haven't met a stranger. They usually open up a conversation with a joke--a very nasty one. Most of the time it's even funny. I've even poked a complete stranger in the arm and asked for juke box money and got it. But maybe he was just surprised. I see the same people on a regular basis, so I can cajole them like anybody else now. In a recent sign of receiving my patron's rights, I was told about the secret room on the side of the bar where drunk patrons can sleep it off if they need to. It's not one of those rooms. It locks from the inside. It took two years for me to be told about the room, but Jack finally told me about it.

And then there is Jack. Or at least was. The reason the bar is great is because Jack is great. He took the place from a drug dump to the best bar in the county. He turns a good business, he has Swampfest, brings in live music, all that sort of thing. He's a good bartender. He makes good conversation. He has commitment issues, so there's always a new girl behind the bar every two months, but that's OK. He's the kind that always says, "Are you good to drive?" before you head out the door. I think he's a good bartender because he has a liberal arts education. Har. But seriously, he has a history degree with a focus in preservation. It gives him an aesthetic edge. He knows there's an atmosphere to good bars, and he's managed to create that. But three weeks ago, he woke up in the morning saying, "I'm done." And he sold the bar.

He sold it to the bouncer, named John. But I think it'll stay Smokin' Jack's and not Smokin' John's. Because the only thing John smokes is too much reefer. I've been to Smokin' Jack's three times since the transition with John. I no longer like the place. I never realized what a difference the bartender makes, but let me tell you, it's tremendous. John is older, he's missing some teeth, he's short and he always wears an American flag bandanna around his head. He's also...sneaky. The first time I came in when he was taking over, he spent a great deal of time talking to me. Mostly to tell me how good looking I was and how often did I come in here. Which, considering he was the bouncer and didn't know shows how lightening fast his recall ability was. Jack never told me I was good looking. I didn't need for him to. I don't need my bartender to get a hard on for me, because he's pouring my fucking drinks. I have to trust what he puts in there and the fact that he's on my side and not trying to get into my pants. I didn't spend too much time talking to the people around me, because he kept coming over before I figured out what he was doing. I thought he was chatting up the patrons because he wants to keep them from going somewhere else. Silly me.

The second time I came in, it was with an even bigger pack of people. Sneaky John comes on over and starts talking me up, chiding me for not having come down to the bar even sooner than I already have. I explain to him that I work a hell of a lot and that it's a forty minute drive for me to get here. It was meant to imply, "Shut the fuck up, because it's a privilege for you when I'm here because it's inconvenient for me." He apparently took that to mean, "she needs some place to stay in this county so she can come here more often." For fuck's sake. He even starts blabbing at me while my crew is talking to me, expecting me to ignore them to listen to him. He's neglecting the other people at the bar, for which some of them are getting really pissed. Rightfully so, I would've.

After a long round of the silent treatment, he turned it up a notch. The next thing I know, he's offering me pot and the room in the back. So apparently, all the work Jack did to make the bar not the kind of place where that stuff happens at the drop of a hat (and much worse) could just go up in a puff of smoke. And that pissed me off several ways. First, because he was coming on way too strong and I'm, well, married, and absolutely not interested in him, the former he should know and the latter he's apparently choosing to ignore. Second because it just really seemed like a slap in the face to Jack. It seemed disrespectful somehow, because the deal isn't even complete yet. Sneaky John doesn't have full control of Smokin' Jack's. And he's already pimping out the safe room. Bastard. I must have waved him off with quite a bit of attitude, because five minutes later, there's this little pink drink in front of me. He has one too. D/B is jealous at this point, because we usually coordinate free drinks for the good of all. I hadn't done anything to try and get it, but I did tried to get her one. She finally wouldn't drink it because she was pretty sure it had vodka in it. But he wouldn't tell us what was in it even after asking several times. D/B finally said, "Go ahead and enjoy it. If the bastard put anything in it, I'll shove his teeth down his throat." And she wonders why people think we're "together." So I drank it. It was a good drink and really well mixed.

It was called "rocket fuel," and apparently has gin and vodka and triple sec and something else in it--kind of like a long island ice tea with only the clear booze plus some flavoring of some sort of fruit and grenadine. It's also really powerful. But not as powerful as Sneaky John hoped it would be, apparently, as he continued to bug me for the next twenty minutes about whether I felt "OK" and that the drink was "really damned strong" and that maybe I'd want to go "lay down somewhere." I don't need a coy bartender. I don't need a bartender who is looking out for his penis's interests instead of mine. I can't have a good time and drink my beer if I have to worry about where he is and what he's coming back with. And I shouldn't have to consider whether pissing the bartender off means I don't get to come back anymore. I've pissed plenty of male bartenders off--and I could care less, because it wasn't my favorite bar and I didn't care whether I came back anyway. But this used to be my favorite bar. But without Jack it ain't smokin' anymore. So finally I just got aggravated and said, "Listen, buddy. I may be little, but I can drink a hell of a lot more than you think I can. I smell stronger after a day's work than that little thing can kick. Cash me out." And I paid for all of our drinks up to that point and I left early. I came back a third time with El Hijo, but he wasn't there. Jack was, though. I gave him an earful of what I thought about him leaving, and I wished him the best of luck.

But I'm probably going to have to find a new bar.

-- Virgil