The Regular

I’m here regular.

I’m not no drunk. Drunks don’t make it to work on Monday. I never misses. The young dudes they come and go, but we old fellers stick to it. They think they know everything, but we was young guys, too. They’ve not been old yet. And when we was young, we were younger than them — I know it’s true even if it doesn’t sound like it makes no sense.  They never been to Okinawa. They think a headache is a cancer.

It’s familiar here, and familiar is good. Dink knows I want Cutty and that’s that. No waving the bills and waiting and looking silly and friendless at the rail. There’s always somebody to buy you a drink and you buy them a drink and Dink does his arithmetic funny and it’s less than it ought to be, and we all knows it. We all get enough, until enough is enough.

We’ve worn a rut in the saddle and there’s a dent like me in the seat, and there’s a cobweb behind the teevee that an architect couldna made. Time goes by here, like traffic passing by you can hear but not see. Let it go. The door shifts back to its place and the dark settles on you like a blanket. It’s always Christmas and New Years and Easter. Let’s have a little party.

I been alone all these years now, but not so lonely anymore. The boy went wild after his mother, God bless her soul, was gone. He didn’t remember her in the bed calling for one more glass of water over and over. He was little. When you’re little there’s just a hole with nothing to fill it. I fills it here.

[Inspired by The Regulars, at the always fun Square America]