My trip to a (black) bar on the deep South Side was not as eventful as you’d think.
My one (white) colleague from Mississippi’s band had a gig in an Irish-American enclave just to the southwest of there, so I took my bike on the subway, got off a stop early, and biked till I saw this one bar I had heard about.
There were no good places to lock up my bike, but there was a sign just around the corner, so I locked it up there, and then tapped on the window to be let in (there was no buzzer, like at a lot of these places).
The (black) (middle-aged) (tough-looking) (bearded) bartender came up and let me in, and it was just him in the bar at that point.
I introduced myself and got a beer, and he said he kept the door locked since he was waiting for bank, and they do that anyways till more people get in there, and then they keep it open.
I asked if there was a buzzer, and he said no, people just tap on the window or wait till he notices them, and then he lets them in.
I then gave him my story, about how people at the (black) neighborhood bar in my old neighborhood had mentioned this bar and another one, and how I had always wanted to go there, so I since my friend’s band was playing just south, I took the chance to go.
At that point, he asked me where my bike was, and I told him I had locked it around the corner.
“You think it’s safe?”, I was like.
“In this neighborhood, you never know,” he was like, and he told me if I got it he’d keep it in the back room for me while I had my beer, so I went outside to get it.
Right by it was a ramp sidewalk, and there was a public transportation van letting out a(n old) (black) guy in leather jacket with tons of finger rings in a wheelchair, so I said excuse me and went to the bar.
After I got out of putting my bike in the backroom, the (old) (black) guy was there....
There was a beautiful hand-painted poster on the wall for Hilda’s birthday, and so people were gathering that night at the bar for it... The woman was the bartender’s sister, and there was even some food trayed up in the back for her.
I introduced myself to the (old) (black) guy, and somehow he and the bartneder started talking about women, and the kind of woman who calls you up and wants you to come by, no matter what time of night it is and how bad the parking is.
Later, some other customers came in, and the bartender took care of them, and I introduced myself to them too...
It wasn’t so much that it was a (black) bar that made it awkward, but that it was a regulars bar, and it was going to be a birthday party for a patron that night.
Anyhow, I talked to the bartender a bit more, and he said the other bar that I’d heard about would be no problem, that there was a buzzer on the door and I could go in there no problem, and “it would be cool.”
He also asked me if he could ask me a question, and when I said yes, he was like, “Do people ever tell you you look like Steve Kerr?’, and when I said I had gotten that before, he said that he had thought at first I looked like someone he worked in a steel mill with, but then he realized I looked like a celebrity.
Later, when Hilda came in, she introduced herself to me, but I was finishing my beer and I wanted to get my bike out before the bar got too crowded, so I didn’t talk to her much...
(Would I have stuck around longer if there were more [black] women in the bar? Otherwise, at that point, the patrons were all male.)
As I left, she was telling someone she thought I was a worker in the anti-violence prevention program active in the neighborhood, and the bartender held open the double set of doors as I got my bike out through them.
He had already told me a better set of direction to bike to my one (white) colleague from Mississippi’s gig, and then was like, “Hey, next time you’re in the neighborhood, stop by.”
And he meant it!
No comments:
Post a Comment