Some (African-American) bars....

The other weekend I went to some African-American bars on the deep southside, in the mid-afternoon before a graduation party of a (black) undergrad who I had in section a few years ago...  I had a bike, and went where I felt safe, so I skipped one bar but went to 4 others:

1) The "popcorn lounge", named after the James Brown song.  It was pretty packed, and one woman was grooving at the end of the bar, and I realize in retrospect I should have sat near her and chatted; the people at the end of the bar where I sat weren't very chatty. 

The best part was that the (black) (female) bartender would just snatch up the phone when it rang and would be like, "POP KOHN!", with strong emphasis on the 1st syllable.

2) At another bar that I've heard about for a while, I buzzed in, and there were a couple guys and a girl and a bartender (all black), and I kind of joined in their conversation while they chatted... 
 
They were talking about the hot weather, and all the women dressing up in not enough clothes and sitting in the front rows of churches to tempt preachers, and one of the men retold an urban legend about a preacher who spoke to some such woman from the pulpit and was like, "I may be a preacher, but I'm also a man!", and told her not to wear that again. 

They also told me that Wed. was the best night to come since it was game night, and they had everything up to Twister, though people didn't pull that out too often.

The heavier guy also bought shots for everyone, me included, and the bartender girl rang this big bell up on the wall and we all downed the shot, and then the guy who bought shots was like, "Hey, hey," to me, and the bartender girl told me to flip my shotglass over.

When I had come in, too, I asked what their cheapest beer was, and then the girl asked if Old Style was fine, and when I was like, "I ask for the cheapest beer, and you think I have standards?", everyone laughed, and I think I made them like me.

3) At the 3rd bar I had to buzz in, too, and there was a heavyset guy by the entrance with his head on the table, and a couple women grooving to themselves and dancing in their seats in seats at the bar over by the jukebox... 

The signs in the bar included a handpainted poster inviting people to "RED BEANS AND RICE WITH RUTH" every Friday, and another sign saying that "PROFANITY SUCH AS M.F. AND BITCH WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."

As I sat there drinking my beer, all of a sudden the older guy falls over behind me, and I have to jump up and help him up with a few people, even though he weighs probably at least 280lbs...  We put him in a seat and ask him if he's okay, and immediately someone gets the bartender to get a half-glass of lemon juice, and they make him drink it, while he keeps saying that he hasn't had a drink in two-and-a-half years.

"How would you feel, if you didn't have a drink in two-and-a-half years?", he kept asking everyone, including calling it out to the 2 women grooving down at the other end of the bar.

They shrugged, and I called out to them, "I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed!", which made them laugh.

Then, some younger (black) woman kept asking the guy if she could go get him some food... 

"I think they have bags of pork rinds for sale at the bar," I was like.

"We already tried that!", she was like.

After she left to go get him some food, I talked to the guy more, and he was saying he has been on call for his firefighting job a lot, and so he can't drink like he used to, and he had 3 beers and 3 shots that day.

"That Johnny Walker, he will lay you on the FLO'," he told me and the 2 woman grooving at the end of the bar.

He also said he didn't live in that neighborhood anymore, because he didn't want to live "in a place where anyone could live," and he said something about guys moving in with women and then moving out and going from house to house and never working.

Then, he looked me in the eye, "You understand, right?"

I then said I expected a lot of people like that would find themselves getting into trouble, and he just nodded, sadly.

4) At the last bar, it was very run down, and the night bartender was this short plump (black) woman having a beer down at the end of the bar by herself, while everyone else was watching "Wheel of Fortune" on TV.

She bitched to me about how the bar just had an A/C unit like you'd have in a house, and the place would be hot by the time more people came in later that day, when she had to work.

Later, she got up and stared into the mirror wall behind her and reapplied her mascara.

I asked the bartender about live music, since they had posters about it and my one (white) colleague from Mississippi had asked me to keep my eyes open for that, and she said they just had DJs.

"Any live bands?", I was like.

"No," she was like, "Not like there used to be."

. . .

When I finally showed up to the graduation party, I had a nice buzz on, and like I expected, his family was a lot of church people, so there was food but no liquor, and I was glad I had pregamed.

So, I got some spaghetti salad and some 7-layer salad and some fruit salad and some chicken wings and even made myself a chicken salad sandwich on a roll I sliced in half, and then I talked to everyone, including a teacher from the 'burbs who was a cousin of the undergrad's, and a relative of his who was this older (black) gentlemen who came up from Arkansas at the age of 17 to get a factory job, and had made his way north picking crops through Missouri, then got here and stayed with distant relative till he got set up in work.