Plywood Sign Bar (I of II): Stories from Phyllis.

The day before St. Paddy's Day I stopped through the bar near me with the plywood sign to have a drink, and Phyllis was talking to the (old) (white) guy sitting next to me about how she was dating this guy who passed away and her little granddaughter went to the funeral, and she stood up on the prayer rail and looked into coffin, and then asked if [the guy's name] was asleep.

"No honey," Phyllis said she told her granddaughter, "He's dead now, and is with God in heaven, but you can talk with him in your prayers."

"Gramma," Phyllis says her granddaughter told her, "Don't ever become dead."

When I was leaving, I asked Phyllis if the free corned beef was happening on St. Paddy's Day at the bar. She said it was, and she was going to be bringing in chocolate cupcakes with green icing, but she wouldn't stay long because of the bartender Sharon who was working.

"You know her?", she was like.

"Yeah, she's been nice to me," I said.

"That's 'cause you're white," Phyllis said. "I've seen so many times she won't serve a black customer, or a Mexican customer, or no-one," and she talked about this regular (black) customer who was coming in for years and would leave a $5 bill for a tip always, whether he had one drink or four, and he would put it out and just set it on the bar when he had his 1st drink.

"I've been in here and seen him wait so many times," she was like, "And she does that to the Mexicans too. That's just not right, I think that's just not right. I love everyone! I say, the more people the merrier, let everyone come in, bring 'em on!"

Went to that neighborhood bar with the plywood sign again.

The other week I went to that neighborhood bar with the plywood sign again the other week.

It was "dollar draft" night, and the place was full of (Mexican)s, and there was that loud (Mexican) oom-pah music with tubas playing on the jukebox.

The bartender ("Phyllis") also had a lime out and was doing tequila shots with a Mexican woman a few seats down from me, and saying to herself, "If everyone's gonna party, I'm gonna party too."

There were little neon green plastic dishes of free Chex mix everywhere, too, and after Phyllis went to help other customers, I asked the (Mexican) woman next a few stools down for me if I could have some that were in front of her, but she pointed to it and mumbled a few things, and then pushed it down to me anyways. When I went to eat some, I realized it was wet, like someone had spilled a beer in it.

"Sor-ry," the (Mexican) woman was like, and shrugged.

So, I asked Phyllis for some more Chex mix.

"A beer fell on it or something," I was like, and so she pitched it and got me some, but then when she brought me some more, she started talking in Spanish with the woman a few seats down from me, and then was like, "Oh, that wasn't wet, Rosita just likes hot sauce on everything."

At that, the (Mexican) woman looked at me, shrugged, and was like, "Sor-ry," and Phyllis starts talking to her in Spanish, and being like, "Si quieres mas, tengo mas."

Later, Rosita put more money in the jukebox and went to dance by herself in the middle of the floor, and all the (Mexican) men were watching her and clapping, and one older guy kind of stood back with his arms folded a little too close to her...

After ten minutes I hear her yelling and slapping him and shouting in Spanish, and Phyllis runs down the bar towards them and shouts, "Get out of here, we don't need that in here!", and then she went by where Rosita had sat down, crying, to comfort her (in Spanish).

Later, before I left, when there was a pause in everything, I asked Phyllis where she had learned Spanish so good.

"Growing up on the streets," she was like.

Stories of my new neighborhood (2 of 4): Phyllis update.

Saturday night after getting my one (white) friend from Mississippi to take me out to IKEA - I paid gas and dinner for him; we went to this restaurant called "Iraqi Kebab" that we saw on the drive out there, my beef couscous main dish was okay, but the eggplant soup was dynamite - we caught a country-western band at an Appalachian bar near me, and after we left and he went to head home, I went to that one bar with the plywood sign out front, and as it turns out, Phyllis was working.

She said they asked her to move from her new apartment, because there's been some vandalism since she moved in - someone broke the glass in a fire extinguisher case, and someone overturned a potted plant in the hallway on the next floor down - and they think it was her, since nothing like that had happened before she moved in. She says it's shit, but if they're going to treat her like that, she wants to move anyways, and at least they're giving her her deposit back.

I suggested some other places in the neighborhood where I had seen signs out advertising rooms for rent, and she said she'd look into them, but she needs a small place where they don't do credit checks because she's never had a credit card or gotten into trouble that way, but her sister once put her utility bills in her name and so of course she refused to pay them, and so she ruined her credit.

New bar in my new neighborhood.

Last week I had a long day, and at the end of it I went down to this bar a few blocks away from my house to grab a drink and read a book... The bar has this hand painted plywood sign above the door and looked dirty, so I've been wanting to try it out for a while.

I went in, and there was no one my age - the bartender ("Phyllis") was this older (white) woman with graying hair who looks like she's been around the block, and the clientele was a couple older Mexicans, and a later an older (black) guy walked in (though it seemed like he was speaking some African language on his cell phone?).

Anyhow, the beer was like $1.75 for a mug, and the bartender was chatty... She had this kind of low-class (white) accent, and was telling me how she was living with her aunt right now but looking to move out - she had moved in with a boyfriend and it hadn't worked out - but she had to save up, and the money was shitty... She also was saying how she grew up in the city in the Puerto Rican neighborhood, which used to be all Polish and Italian, "but then it changed".

That kind of race talk made me a little edgy, and then out of nowhere she started talking in rapid Spanish to one of the Mexican customers, and then when some (white) guy who had walked in asked her about it, she switched back to talking slowly in her low-class (white) accent and was like, "I started learning last year, I got bored," and when the Mexican guy ordered some sort of soda, she held up a straw and asked him what it was in Spanish, and then, looking kind of bored, repeated the word in a near-flawless accent.

When I left, I walked by like two yuppie bars full of (white) people my age or slightly older.

Day after thanksgiving...

...at the bar near me with the plywood sign out front!

Phyllis wasn't bartending, it was the other bartender with dark hair who I had met before.

There was this older middle-aged Mexican woman who was stumbling out with the help of friends when I was walking in, and the bartender was saying, "That is the last time I serve Rosita Southern Comfort, the last time!"

Then when she served me, she told me there was a table in back with leftover Thanksgiving food if I wanted any.

"Has it been there since yesterday?", I was like.

"Good question!", she said, and laughed. "No, I just took it out of the fridge and set it out for everyone; it's left over from yesterday, you should have stopped by"

I went up, and it was two big plastic containers of ready-made coleslaw and potato salad, and a big aluminum tray of fruit salad from the can, so I got a big bowl of fruit salad to go with my beer (I love those maraschino cherries they have in there, that are drained of their strong taste).

"So did you have a full meal yesterday?", I was like.

"Yeah," the bartender was like, "We had two seatings."

"No shit," I was like.

"That was a joke," she said.

Sometime after that, I noticed that the entire corner of the bar near me was a memorial, with signs saying "MARTIN WE'LL MISS YOU" and other things like that.

She noticed me looking, and was like, "Yeah, I'm not sure if you heard, but Martin passed away."

"To tell you the truth, I didn't know him," I was like.

"He was that older Irish guy who was a real estate agent and landlord that came in here always, we'll miss him," she was like. "Though, he probably shouldn't have been coming in here, the drinking killed him. So many nights it was him and me, and I'd tell him to go home, and he'd say that he was keeping me company till close, and I would say that that's nice, but I have to hop on the bus and you can get in your car, so just go home now so I can leave."

Later, when I left, I was said bye but said wrong the name.

"No," she was like, "My name is [I forgot again]."

Then, she was like, "Your name is [my name], right?", and when I told her yes, she was like, "That's my brother's name," and right when I was like, "Oh," she was like, "And don't assume I like my brother."

As I was leaving, she started telling someone again that it was the last time she was ever serving Rosita Southern Comfort.