Evening of Barhopping from Several Months Ago (1 of 2): Conversation with a (Black) Lady.

A few months ago when I was downtown during a weekday for some stuff at the art school where I’m teaching, I went around to some bars that were closed on Monday, which is the day I usually am downtown to barhop.

This one bar I go to was a soft jazz bar that was open for a cocktail party for young lawyers from a local law school, but other customers could still go in, so I sidled up to the bar a few seats away a larger (black) woman, since although there were other seats at the bar, I wanted to position myself in a reasonable distance to strike up a conversation with her, if she was sociably inclined.

Anyhow, we started chit-chatting, and she said she was “flying solo,” and it turns out that she works downtown for the federal government but has her house in the big (Irish-American) neighborhood far south of the city, where I’ve always felt very intimidated.

I said as much, and then she told me what she thought.

“Newsflash,” she was like, “I’m black,” and she pointed to her forearm.

Then, she said that statistics for the neighborhood say it’s 98% white, and that she knows the other 2%, because they all live on her block.

I told her how I had been to some bars around there when my one (white) colleague from Mississippi’s band played there, and she said she hasn’t been yet, though she always peeks in.

“Maybe I’ll go some Saturday night,” she was like.

“Maybe instead of going from zero to sixty,” I was like, “You should stop by on a slow weeknight, and feel things out, to see if it’s safe.”

“Good point,” she was like.  “I always look in, though!  It’s so busy on a Saturday night, I want to go.”

Somehow we also started talking about AIDS in the (black) community, and she said that her 19 year-old nephew found out he was HIV+ from Facebook.  The girlfriend of some guy he had been sleeping with posted that she had tested positive, so he went to go test himself, and he too was positive.

Then, she also said that in Indianapolis, where she’s from, she knows about this “fine looking brother” who was a drug dealer and always had women, and kept sleeping around without protection even though he knew he was HIV+.

“He’s in the hospital now, and some damn women try to kill him, he need a police guard.  They try to come in there with guns and everything.”

“No shit,’ I was like.  “How many women are doing this?”

“Fo’, last time I heard,” she was like.