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beer iPhone pic by apolinar fonesca
I am an artist/carpenter by day and a bartender by night. I become fully alive after dark -- listening to my village's burghers, workers, and guests wax philosophical or simply emote and hold forth on just about everything. I guess I'm a vampire of sorts. I stalk my victims, plying them with craft beer and jalapeno poppers. However, words are given me freely -- no neck biting or sexually charged staring or double entendres necessary. The experience can be: funny, shocking, exasperating, edifying, nauseating, painful, informative, entertaining, heartbreaking, wonderful -- whatever the feelings it evokes, it's all good. It's real. All in all, I must confess I simply enjoy standing in the confessional, listening, dispensing cold beer.
"This occupy Wall Street business is a bunch of crap. Those hippies, queers...Communists, these idiots don't know anything about our Constitution or Founding Fathers -- they were all against Communism. They were Capitalists. Wall Street has made America, America. If they knew their history they would know that the Founding Fathers weren't radicals -- they were businessmen. They saw what the French Revolution did to France and what the Diggers were trying to do to England."
The fresh-faced, newlywed, twenty-something, recently employed, utility company administrative assistant was interrupted by a large, gay (unbeknownst to most at the bar) electrician, " What are Diggers?" The young man signaled for another beer, laid his hand on the "queers" right shoulder, smiled and went on, "Diggers were a bunch of radical English dudes that wanted all private property to be abolished and the country to become a big Hippie commune. Adams and Franklin saw what was happening, Franklin went to France and England, there are a lot of similarities with what is happening today, things were changing, Socialism was starting to get popular and they knew what it would do to this country. They saw what it could do to all of our institutions, everything, religion and everything." The muscular electrician stared straight ahead, took a large sip of beer, "Wasn't Jesus a Socialist?"
The fresh-faced newlywed furrowed his brow, pursed his lips, adjusted his pint on its coaster, "What do you mean? What religion are you?" "I'm Catholic", replied the electrician, smiling. "Oh", said the newlywed.
Buster, a mentally challenged regular, ordered a cheeseburger with sweet potato fries, then looked straight at me and said, "I love Jesus."
"I know you do", I said plunging a beer glass into the disinfectant.
