Which Exit?

October 2, 2005

I hadn't been to the local bar in ages, but last night found me home alone and restless on a Saturday night, so I strolled through the beautiful fall night and plopped myself down on a stool. The place was empty, and so dark that I almost didn't see the bartender.

"What can I get you?"

"Uh—a Budweiser, I guess."

Cheap and easy.

"It's empty in here," I said.

"Yeah. I think there are a couple of parties in the neighborhood. I keep seeing people going in and out of the building across the street. Also, the weather. It's such a nice night, people are out and about. It'll get busy in here around two o'clock when they all start to wander back to the neighborhood."

It was about one o'clock when he made the prediction, and sure enough, an hour later, things began to pick up.

The first guy to sidle up to the bar ordered a Red Stripe and then asked about the song that had just begun to play on the house stereo. "Is this that guy who sings Ain't No Sunshine When You're Gone ?"

"I dunno," the bartender shrugged. "It's not my music. It came up randomly on the bar's iPod."

"It's Nina Simone," I informed them. " Feeling Good ." I was at the other end of the bar, and they didn't seem to hear me.

"Sounds like that guy," said the bartender.

"Yeah," the guy nodded. "It must be him."

" That guy is Bill Withers," I said. "This is Nina Simone. A woman."

The guy gave me a cursory glance, but didn't respond. I didn't repeat myself, and resigned to have them think of me as the lonely old mumbling drunk. Whatever.

Soon every seat at the bar was taken, and a few of the small tables were filled too.

To my right sat a guy from Iowa who somehow guessed, successfully, that the girl next to him was from South Dakota. She couldn't believe he guessed and tried to figure out how he knew. "I'm from Iowa," he said, and pulled up his sleeve to reveal some sort of Iowa tattoo that was too dark for me to make out. He wasn't showing it to me, anyway.

To my left sat two girls and two guys from Arizona. They all went to the same high school. The girl sitting closest to me said she'd moved here about three months ago.

The bartender made everyone jealous when he said that he grew up in the Virgin Islands. St. Thomas, I think he said.

"Wow, that must've been nice," said the girl from South Dakota.

"Yeah, sure, you know. It was. I appreciate it a lot more now, though. I mean, it's just like anywhere else when you're a kid, y' know? You get bored and want to bust out."

These conversations were all going on somewhat simultaneously. It wasn't one big group discussion, or anything. The group to my left wasn't in on the conversation with the group to my right. It was just coincidental that everyone was talking about where they grew up.

The girl from Arizona asked me where I was from. "New Jersey," I shrugged. It felt a little anticlimactic.

"Oh, that's close."

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Where in New Jersey?"

"Exit 25."

She looked at me dumbly.

"That's a joke."

"Oh."

It feels like this blog is dying a slow death.