My Father’s Bar | Dylan Galassini

My Father’s Bar

DYLAN GALASSINI

Admittedly, it was my first night sober in a week, and while I laid in bed, blindly. All I could think of was the bar cart back home, that my dad kept neatly stocked.

I remember the lock that was never locked. It would have been pointless anyways to have it locked. Even if it were locked, the stainless-steel poles, that stretched from the floor to my chest, and assembled the cart, were too far apart. A bottle could easily be fit between. So, I never opened the cart. I didn’t need to.

On the left-hand side, was the assorted liquor. My task was to slide the liquor between the assembled rods. I started with the Malibu rum. That my dad, only, kept around for Mr. X’s famous rum punch. Then I’d return downstairs, cocky, presenting the booty like I was Captain Jack Sparrow. We would drink the tropical flavor as the Captain should. Straight. Chased with whatever. In our movie, my name would be Captain Dean Sperro, That’s what I’d say to you. (some stupid joke or dego charm) And Dean Sperro trades in his slops for a gold chain. Trade in pirate’s booty for real ass. I’d keep the drunk scallywag step Depp swaggered, though. For it was the same subtle rhythm I walked most of the time. Especially when concealing the then, almost, finished bottle of booze back in my father’s bar.

Sorry, I digress. Back to the bar.

So, it had the poles; the rods, this silver structure. But what really added the depth and subtle beauty of it all, were slabs of green sea glass. Opaque and handsome. Forged in the sea. That’s what the liquor stood tall on. Until, of course, 46 | Montage

I tipped the bottle over, and snuck away with the score. It became routine, breaking the rules, and un-breaking the rules. Hell, maybe I was even writing the rules. You would say I never stopped writing the rules Once the Amareto, Malibu, and Irish cream were through, we worked our way up the bar. We didn’t know how good we had it drinking my father’s Grey Goose and Knob Creek. Now, we skimp for plastic bottles of liquor, and light beers.

On the right of the cart was, the wine-- also suspended upright in the cage of Bauxite Ore Rods. The wine I only drank once. With You I haven’t drunk that well in a long time. The Mediterranean’s first and most successful aphrodisiac.

“No wonder, the Greeks were always humping.” The joke went over your head. I wiped the plumpness from your lips.

Fuck- back to the bar. Notes of you seem pointless.

Nights spent at my father’s barwere immature. so, high school, and I’ve just now grown far more mature, in my drinking. So yes, I never drank my father’s wine except that once. I was bold and rebellious, but I was never brave enough to do something so irrevocable, so finite, so staining-as to uncork a cork that wasn’t mine to uncork. I could--handle the heavy burden gallons of booze brought, but that wine, that wine, was far too personal. Also, it would just kind of be gay to drink red wine with a bunch of dudes in my basement while they’d talk of the next girls they’d fuck.

I was lying in my college bed, my room littered, with Natural Light cans, and empty bottles of Barefoot. All I could think of was my father’s bar cart. Rules written, made and promised. A bed and

--my father’s bar, right? All done up, ornate. But--my father’s bar is just a charade, A mirage of grandeur, a bar set, a bar kept.

I wondered if, with open eyes, a spoonful of the world’s sweetest wine, could cure the cheapest hangovers, or loneliest mornings. I wondered if with open eyes, My father’s bar could be met.

For, my father never drinks. And he’s never punched a TV because the Bears didn’t cover. And he’s never been hit by a friend, or cheated on a woman who loves him.

And, for me, that was just this week.