They got an ex-bartender, also drunk, to finish my shift. She stole $80 from the till and blamed it on me. I left that dysfunctional family of barflies there. When I checked in occasionally over the next year, they were all still there, all still drunk, all still nodding into their drinks and barely recognizing me, not at all recognizing themselves in their friends sent to detox for repeated DUIs, not recognizing themselves at the bottom of the glass.

Me, I stopped drinking on the job because I stopped bartending. I saw myself at the bottom of the glass. And I saw how easy it would be to stay down there. I haven't been back in years.


Are you a regular?


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