This personal experience essay is about a night I spent in a bar quite a long time ago.
Some things change and some things stay the same. I won't tell you what's different now but if you're reading me you may see for yourself.
by: Rielle Vobi
I met Pee Wee here, in this unexpectedly keen bar for Lockland, Ohio called Mill Street Brew House. It was a couple of weeks ago on a Monday night. That night the bar was fairly empty. Only a couple of hard drunks with nothing better to do (myself included) than feed their scarce dollars into the juke box and listen to the young, virile bartender tell his conquest stories sat clustered around the mahogany bar. Though and finally Pee Wee entered and we all had something more entertaining than ourselves.
It didn't take long before I had Pee Wee up and dancing. We cha-cha'ed to Santana's Black Magic Woman and Evil Ways while I exclaimed, "Go, Pee Wee. Heeey! Look out now!" and drank too much.
The man with a dirty-brown pony tail that lay like a snake down the long length of his back bought Tootsie Roll shots for the whole bar. Indeed, a big spender. I suppose it was his way of saying hello. I turned mine down explaining it was too sweet but thank you anyway. He insisted I do a shot of my choice. I have to say I wasn't difficult to persuade. So, I downed my shot of straight Absolute and listed to Pee Wee lecture me on the ugliness of my lip ring.
I was immediately interested in Pee Wee. He's an old black man, slight of body but with clothing to compliment his frame if not his age. His eyes almost close when he laughs. He laughed often. I'd finally met someone who could rival my own slovenly drunken "happiness". Perhaps I was drawn to him for purely selfish reasons. Most likely the desperate search for propinquity. Until Pee Wee walked in, I was the only black person in the bar. As a twenty-seven year inhabitant of Cincinnati, I've grown closer to ignoring the stares and questioning eyes. However, in this particular bar, the stares last longer than usual and the questioning eyes are clouded with shouts of "the nerve!" and "Who does she think she is?" So, yeah it was like a cool cloth placed on a smarting burn when Pee Wee entered the bar. Immediately we bantered lightly. There was no reason for us to behave as strangers.
It reminds me of the time I went to Gatlinburg with friends. They were white and I felt wholly alienated. For two days I saw not one other black person. And when I finally did they were a family and we spotted each other from moving cars. Anxiously, excitedly and happily we waved to each other like long lost friends, the smiles on our faces so bright they were almost sad.
"Do you know them?" my friend asked incredibly. Strangely, I didn't answer for moments.
"No." I felt the need to explain to them the reasons for such strange behavior between strangers. "But, imagine if you were the only white people in this town and you suddenly saw some other white people. How would you react?"
Silence. And nothing more was said.
Eloquently put I know but I could think of no other way of really getting them to understand.
Pee Wee's here again tonight. It's Friday and Mill St. Brew House is jumping! The little bar is almost packed. There are three blacks in here tonight. Pee Wee, myself and Pee Wee's "niece" as this was how she was introduced to me. She looks all of fifteen and no one but me is batting an eye as she dances seductively with her uncle. She pushes her butt into his groin and I've never seen Pee Wee filled with such glee. His wide brimmed, black hat is toppled off his salt and peppered head numerous times and she lifts one leg off the floor while holding the length of a blue and white floral dress in her palm. The hand of Niecy (as I've named her) is raised above her head and her expression is one of utter absorption. The attention she's receiving is moving her along with Blues Persuader's (the band for tonight) rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Cold Shot. I'm struck with something akin to irony when the bass player cranks out the first lyrics. "Once was a sweet thing, baby...". I imagine Niecy was once a sweet thing, although it's hard to picture her young teen face without the hard and knowing brown eyes. I admire her. She's given herself freedom. Freedom from caring what anyone is believing about her and freedom to behave without consequence. Whether or not I know about responsibility and repercussion, I still long for a bit of her laxity. Without consequence.
She's dancing with someone else now. He's a hulking white man with an unkempt beard. His head looks as though it's an inch from the ceiling. My thoughts drift to the two of them in bed together and I push the revolting image from my mind, admonishing myself.
Why do those kinds of thoughts slip into my mind as if a bulldozer crashed into my bedroom merely to serve as an alarm clock?
Pee-Wee's dancing again. His bowling shirt collar is turned up so the lines are off center and he grooves without apology to Walk The Dog. I remember my cousin once taught me how to Walk The Dog and I wish I could remember now. I haven't danced yet tonight. I've been sitting, writing and watching rather than becoming part of my notes.
I want to place Pee Wee in my own image of him. I want my notes to reflect culture and the unordinary. But, this isn't my fiction ( I see him as a southern black man who digs the blues; who is the blues) this is Pee Wee's truth: He's got an old man's rhythm and a boy's enthusiasm. He is a northern man whose skin is the color of a blackberry's and I'm sure Niecy is someone's niece just not his. He's not at all a product of the south, simply a castoff of Cincinnati's Republican society which has not forgotten they cast him away but ignores him. When they do see Pee Wee they flip their eyelids inside out so their image is skewed. I don't want this. This harsh reality and sadness for Pee Wee welling up inside me is not what I want to know and remember about this Friday night. Perhaps I should just learn to flip my lids. I think of why on earth I should feel any sadness for Pee Wee when it's obvious Niecy will be ensuring his happiness tonight. But, I feel she's like my Bud Light buzz. Fleeting.
Now, if anyone's out of place it's this chick. She looks at me with timid and frightened eyes while she reaches to set her beer on the table I'd commandeered all to myself. I nod nicely to her and smile reassuringly. Of course she can set her beer here while she dances. I wonder exactly why this woman is not down on Main Street. With her leather sandals, manicured nails, salon cut hair and a boyfriend who looks as though he stepped off the pages of a J. Crew catalog they are more out of place than I am. I think she knows it too. Why are the rich so frightened when they are out of their element? Yes, there I am! I've got one up! I'm not frightened when I'm out of my element. I make it all my element, this United States of America. Good for me. I suppose.
Whoa!!? What's this? Another black? And, a black male at that. He's wearing work clothing. A blue mechanic shirt with his name stitched in a patch. I can't read it from where I'm sitting. At least not without being entirely obvious. My God! He's going to dance. And with a white girl! Here I am thinking I'm brave. Boy, people are offended tonight. They're quietly offended.
I've grown bored looking at everyone else's lives. I ask the drummer of Blues Persuader if he knows Bobby McGee. No such luck. But, he asks me, "Why? Do you want to sit in?"
"Yeah, I'd like to but I don't know many lyrics."
"Well, what do you know?"
As I tell him Steamroller I think of how short he is. No wonder I didn't notice the fourth black in Mill St. Brew House. Who could see him behind his drum set?
"Yeah, I think I could do that."
"Cool."
"Rielle?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you like a beer?"
"Ummm, sure."
Jimmy, the incredibly short drummer, is saying something to me and I nod my head as though I'm listening but I'm actually wondering who the hell it was that just bought me a beer and knew my name. I'm sure I would've remembered meeting him. Even in a drunken stupor I'm pretty sure.
Jimmy leaves. He's going to ask the guitar player if I can sit in on Steamroller.
"Here you go."
"Thanks." I swallow the rest of my original Bud Light and know I do not know this person.
"How do you know my name?"
"The bartender told me."
"Oh."
"My name's Gary."
Why this man bought me a beer I don't know. Most likely (because I can smell a racist a mile away) it's got something to do with his sick male libido inducing him to spend two of his precious dollars on the hope I'll give him my soul or body. Not gonna happen, Gary. Not in this fucking lifetime.
"My friend's over there." He gestures to Pony Tail Man who thought he'd slipped in unnoticed.
"Oh yeah? Well, I don't think your friend thinks too highly of me."
Gary smiles knowingly but still asks, "Really, why?"
I'm smiling just as knowingly and a bit diabolically and say, "Well, I wouldn't know. Why don't you tell me?"
Gary retreats. The fucking coward.
I'm bored with you, Gary, and just so in your face with how bored I am.
"Yeah, well. I brought a friend in here a while ago and some friends he was sitting with told some stories about me. Lies."
"Like what?"
"Nothing. Well, thanks for the beer." I dismiss him.
Surprisingly, he leaves without further incidence.
Suddenly, I want the solitude of my notes again. I pick up the pen.
"I want to know what it is your writing."
Some new guy with bad teeth has finally vocalized his interest.
"Nothing really." I tell him. "I'm just remarking on the band."
"Oh, that's cool."
My life. My uninteresting and wholly deprived of art life. This shit sucks.
"They're going to play one more song and then you'll get up." The Blues Persuader guitar player tells me. Thank God, I think. I need a charge to keep me from slitting my wrists from boredom. Singing will do it. Yes, even if I suck (because I don't know the whole of Steamroller's lyrics either but I do know how to bullshit my way through it) singing is still a charge. Especially for a bar that is filled mostly with racists. Certainly a charge. And, on top of that, I know I'll make them admire me in spite of themselves. Because, I won't suck.
Well, I didn't suck. I actually rocked. And, no one danced. All eyes were mine. They all belonged to me for mere moments and I feel a sadistic joy in knowing the audience couldn't help themselves. I wonder if Michael Jordan ever felt this way.
I'm suddenly being taken seriously. People are asking me who I sing with. They're telling me I should be with somebody when I tell them I'm not in a band. And, another musician asks me to come and sit in with his band. Apparently they do Steamroller "correctly". I wonder, as he tells me this, exactly how correctly they could do it, being one of the many white bands in Cincinnati performing blues. I bullshit him and tell him I'm really interested. Truth is I haven't been interested in Cincinnati's local bands since Marsha Brady hit the scene.
From singing one song, I've become the target of a couple, who until now sat unnoticed, at a corner stable no doubt scouting. They look....hungry.
I look up to find Pee Wee and Niecy have left the building. When?
I ready myself to leave and the couple is calling me. I walk to their table somewhat intrigued. They talk to me about music and I talk about the female's culture. She's from Italy and gorgeous.
I can feel it. Hell, I can see it. More so in her eyes than his. They're looking for an interesting evening. With me. I excuse myself gracefully and drive myself home. Alone.
Think it's about time to find a new local watering hole.
Essay by Rielle Vobi
Read 328 times
Written on 2007-04-27 at 01:38
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Some things change and some things stay the same. I won't tell you what's different now but if you're reading me you may see for yourself.
Mill St. Brew House, Lockland, Ohio
Mill St. Brew House, Lockland, Ohioby: Rielle Vobi
I met Pee Wee here, in this unexpectedly keen bar for Lockland, Ohio called Mill Street Brew House. It was a couple of weeks ago on a Monday night. That night the bar was fairly empty. Only a couple of hard drunks with nothing better to do (myself included) than feed their scarce dollars into the juke box and listen to the young, virile bartender tell his conquest stories sat clustered around the mahogany bar. Though and finally Pee Wee entered and we all had something more entertaining than ourselves.
It didn't take long before I had Pee Wee up and dancing. We cha-cha'ed to Santana's Black Magic Woman and Evil Ways while I exclaimed, "Go, Pee Wee. Heeey! Look out now!" and drank too much.
The man with a dirty-brown pony tail that lay like a snake down the long length of his back bought Tootsie Roll shots for the whole bar. Indeed, a big spender. I suppose it was his way of saying hello. I turned mine down explaining it was too sweet but thank you anyway. He insisted I do a shot of my choice. I have to say I wasn't difficult to persuade. So, I downed my shot of straight Absolute and listed to Pee Wee lecture me on the ugliness of my lip ring.
I was immediately interested in Pee Wee. He's an old black man, slight of body but with clothing to compliment his frame if not his age. His eyes almost close when he laughs. He laughed often. I'd finally met someone who could rival my own slovenly drunken "happiness". Perhaps I was drawn to him for purely selfish reasons. Most likely the desperate search for propinquity. Until Pee Wee walked in, I was the only black person in the bar. As a twenty-seven year inhabitant of Cincinnati, I've grown closer to ignoring the stares and questioning eyes. However, in this particular bar, the stares last longer than usual and the questioning eyes are clouded with shouts of "the nerve!" and "Who does she think she is?" So, yeah it was like a cool cloth placed on a smarting burn when Pee Wee entered the bar. Immediately we bantered lightly. There was no reason for us to behave as strangers.
It reminds me of the time I went to Gatlinburg with friends. They were white and I felt wholly alienated. For two days I saw not one other black person. And when I finally did they were a family and we spotted each other from moving cars. Anxiously, excitedly and happily we waved to each other like long lost friends, the smiles on our faces so bright they were almost sad.
"Do you know them?" my friend asked incredibly. Strangely, I didn't answer for moments.
"No." I felt the need to explain to them the reasons for such strange behavior between strangers. "But, imagine if you were the only white people in this town and you suddenly saw some other white people. How would you react?"
Silence. And nothing more was said.
Eloquently put I know but I could think of no other way of really getting them to understand.
Pee Wee's here again tonight. It's Friday and Mill St. Brew House is jumping! The little bar is almost packed. There are three blacks in here tonight. Pee Wee, myself and Pee Wee's "niece" as this was how she was introduced to me. She looks all of fifteen and no one but me is batting an eye as she dances seductively with her uncle. She pushes her butt into his groin and I've never seen Pee Wee filled with such glee. His wide brimmed, black hat is toppled off his salt and peppered head numerous times and she lifts one leg off the floor while holding the length of a blue and white floral dress in her palm. The hand of Niecy (as I've named her) is raised above her head and her expression is one of utter absorption. The attention she's receiving is moving her along with Blues Persuader's (the band for tonight) rendition of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Cold Shot. I'm struck with something akin to irony when the bass player cranks out the first lyrics. "Once was a sweet thing, baby...". I imagine Niecy was once a sweet thing, although it's hard to picture her young teen face without the hard and knowing brown eyes. I admire her. She's given herself freedom. Freedom from caring what anyone is believing about her and freedom to behave without consequence. Whether or not I know about responsibility and repercussion, I still long for a bit of her laxity. Without consequence.
She's dancing with someone else now. He's a hulking white man with an unkempt beard. His head looks as though it's an inch from the ceiling. My thoughts drift to the two of them in bed together and I push the revolting image from my mind, admonishing myself.
Why do those kinds of thoughts slip into my mind as if a bulldozer crashed into my bedroom merely to serve as an alarm clock?
Pee-Wee's dancing again. His bowling shirt collar is turned up so the lines are off center and he grooves without apology to Walk The Dog. I remember my cousin once taught me how to Walk The Dog and I wish I could remember now. I haven't danced yet tonight. I've been sitting, writing and watching rather than becoming part of my notes.
I want to place Pee Wee in my own image of him. I want my notes to reflect culture and the unordinary. But, this isn't my fiction ( I see him as a southern black man who digs the blues; who is the blues) this is Pee Wee's truth: He's got an old man's rhythm and a boy's enthusiasm. He is a northern man whose skin is the color of a blackberry's and I'm sure Niecy is someone's niece just not his. He's not at all a product of the south, simply a castoff of Cincinnati's Republican society which has not forgotten they cast him away but ignores him. When they do see Pee Wee they flip their eyelids inside out so their image is skewed. I don't want this. This harsh reality and sadness for Pee Wee welling up inside me is not what I want to know and remember about this Friday night. Perhaps I should just learn to flip my lids. I think of why on earth I should feel any sadness for Pee Wee when it's obvious Niecy will be ensuring his happiness tonight. But, I feel she's like my Bud Light buzz. Fleeting.
Now, if anyone's out of place it's this chick. She looks at me with timid and frightened eyes while she reaches to set her beer on the table I'd commandeered all to myself. I nod nicely to her and smile reassuringly. Of course she can set her beer here while she dances. I wonder exactly why this woman is not down on Main Street. With her leather sandals, manicured nails, salon cut hair and a boyfriend who looks as though he stepped off the pages of a J. Crew catalog they are more out of place than I am. I think she knows it too. Why are the rich so frightened when they are out of their element? Yes, there I am! I've got one up! I'm not frightened when I'm out of my element. I make it all my element, this United States of America. Good for me. I suppose.
Whoa!!? What's this? Another black? And, a black male at that. He's wearing work clothing. A blue mechanic shirt with his name stitched in a patch. I can't read it from where I'm sitting. At least not without being entirely obvious. My God! He's going to dance. And with a white girl! Here I am thinking I'm brave. Boy, people are offended tonight. They're quietly offended.
I've grown bored looking at everyone else's lives. I ask the drummer of Blues Persuader if he knows Bobby McGee. No such luck. But, he asks me, "Why? Do you want to sit in?"
"Yeah, I'd like to but I don't know many lyrics."
"Well, what do you know?"
As I tell him Steamroller I think of how short he is. No wonder I didn't notice the fourth black in Mill St. Brew House. Who could see him behind his drum set?
"Yeah, I think I could do that."
"Cool."
"Rielle?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you like a beer?"
"Ummm, sure."
Jimmy, the incredibly short drummer, is saying something to me and I nod my head as though I'm listening but I'm actually wondering who the hell it was that just bought me a beer and knew my name. I'm sure I would've remembered meeting him. Even in a drunken stupor I'm pretty sure.
Jimmy leaves. He's going to ask the guitar player if I can sit in on Steamroller.
"Here you go."
"Thanks." I swallow the rest of my original Bud Light and know I do not know this person.
"How do you know my name?"
"The bartender told me."
"Oh."
"My name's Gary."
Why this man bought me a beer I don't know. Most likely (because I can smell a racist a mile away) it's got something to do with his sick male libido inducing him to spend two of his precious dollars on the hope I'll give him my soul or body. Not gonna happen, Gary. Not in this fucking lifetime.
"My friend's over there." He gestures to Pony Tail Man who thought he'd slipped in unnoticed.
"Oh yeah? Well, I don't think your friend thinks too highly of me."
Gary smiles knowingly but still asks, "Really, why?"
I'm smiling just as knowingly and a bit diabolically and say, "Well, I wouldn't know. Why don't you tell me?"
Gary retreats. The fucking coward.
I'm bored with you, Gary, and just so in your face with how bored I am.
"Yeah, well. I brought a friend in here a while ago and some friends he was sitting with told some stories about me. Lies."
"Like what?"
"Nothing. Well, thanks for the beer." I dismiss him.
Surprisingly, he leaves without further incidence.
Suddenly, I want the solitude of my notes again. I pick up the pen.
"I want to know what it is your writing."
Some new guy with bad teeth has finally vocalized his interest.
"Nothing really." I tell him. "I'm just remarking on the band."
"Oh, that's cool."
My life. My uninteresting and wholly deprived of art life. This shit sucks.
"They're going to play one more song and then you'll get up." The Blues Persuader guitar player tells me. Thank God, I think. I need a charge to keep me from slitting my wrists from boredom. Singing will do it. Yes, even if I suck (because I don't know the whole of Steamroller's lyrics either but I do know how to bullshit my way through it) singing is still a charge. Especially for a bar that is filled mostly with racists. Certainly a charge. And, on top of that, I know I'll make them admire me in spite of themselves. Because, I won't suck.
Well, I didn't suck. I actually rocked. And, no one danced. All eyes were mine. They all belonged to me for mere moments and I feel a sadistic joy in knowing the audience couldn't help themselves. I wonder if Michael Jordan ever felt this way.
I'm suddenly being taken seriously. People are asking me who I sing with. They're telling me I should be with somebody when I tell them I'm not in a band. And, another musician asks me to come and sit in with his band. Apparently they do Steamroller "correctly". I wonder, as he tells me this, exactly how correctly they could do it, being one of the many white bands in Cincinnati performing blues. I bullshit him and tell him I'm really interested. Truth is I haven't been interested in Cincinnati's local bands since Marsha Brady hit the scene.
From singing one song, I've become the target of a couple, who until now sat unnoticed, at a corner stable no doubt scouting. They look....hungry.
I look up to find Pee Wee and Niecy have left the building. When?
I ready myself to leave and the couple is calling me. I walk to their table somewhat intrigued. They talk to me about music and I talk about the female's culture. She's from Italy and gorgeous.
I can feel it. Hell, I can see it. More so in her eyes than his. They're looking for an interesting evening. With me. I excuse myself gracefully and drive myself home. Alone.
Think it's about time to find a new local watering hole.
Essay by Rielle Vobi
Read 328 times
Written on 2007-04-27 at 01:38
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text|
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