Décimo10

One is foolish to feel sorry for writers.
They're all fucking liars, and they fatten on pain.  Also, they invariably steal women.
- Godwin Lloyd-Jons

Sorry, I'm gonna bartender rant for a spell in the hope that people will be more nice to their fellow human being.  I actually dated an actress and upon reading the passage below she remarked to me that she never knew I was an actor; I never have been (sorry to blow the maybe illusion).  I have been, and am, a bartender who watches and learns from those better than me.

When people ask me what it is like being a bartender, I sometimes mention the metaphor from The Green Mile clip below.  At the end of the day, one can often feel like John Coffey walking around with the sins or ills of others trapped inside of you; a persistent cough riddles the body until it is somehow able to regurgitate what has been accumulating within.

I am, by the way, in no way condoning violence, merely employing a touch of artistic licence.

P.S. Throughout the entirety of 'The Jesus Years' there are no similes to be found, only metaphors.  My reasoning will be explained at a later juncture.

Chapter 9:  Ottawa.  An Actor meets X.
 

Eventually, I to be an actor.  An old friend of mine was a manager of this certain talent type and he, as they say, bowed the most gracious and agreed to hook me up.  He’d been to this sticky well awhile by that time’s passing and taken to its weird wisdom by getting his left nipple pierced to commemorate the years earned inside; one day I picked up and phoned, he reached, rolled over and recognized the wandering of our demographic; we talked and the passion grew - a student to teach, he found.  Yes, the second joy, he said. 

And at his work.  At my Now work, I so very slow to catch on to the cadences Ef belched and whispered occasional to my ear, at a total loss to the mostly make-believe.  This was the apprenticing of a reality slug cowering with every whisper of the grand impresario’s maybe presence for the longest of stretch: stout Kes - the money man and absentee owner to the actors, stage hands that I bonded to in the almost immediate sense of stiffs bred for the hot menial and the lighting of world whilst within a self-induced lack of sleep. 

This the pronounced slouch as I stood back and attempted to climatize myself to this other side of the stage, the non-public one.  I studied and ran my lines with Ef, researched the ad-lib.  I waited behind the curtain and peered out through narrow crack, an almost older man trying to garner experience for the services of pleasure.  To know me then would have been quite evident why it be that, as I was finally thrown to take up mark on floor and present certain look out over crowd, I blew near great gobs of chunks from the nerves inside; an empty ice bucket to my constant side.  And these only mere matinees to begin with, not an anywhere near the larger of audience - before me, the neophyte, eventually seasoned enough to resemble a halfway decent actor.  Learning.  Willing to, at very least.  I covered for the sick and the supposed of and the fucked up the along the way.  But I was Ok, and alright, and the mostly amateurs in the crowd never really noticed.  My friend, my manager continued to be patient with me, used to say, “You have your qualities, Henry.  Relax.”  My my, how he kissed the Bacardi bottle Gold of those nights. 

But I understood the people end of my problem - I gave up on the How to flip the Bird and get Away with it.  I would smile and think in the moment, probe the other actors, jealous of their more natural.  To me they were not acting at all; I admired these people - short Barney, big Fred and Betty blue dress et al - these fellows of my then stage.  I sly stole tips and their marvellous grips and watched them work the crowd with such an incredible ease, even when it was the absolute final thing that they felt like doing particular day or night: because of the headaches or their troubles at home, second job.  From them I found to look the various of crowd in the eye and have an anyone truly believe the whatever that I be saying or displaying to them at that moment.  And yes, sometimes I did not care, but one dealt with it.

And yes, eventually I so became proficient enough to work the fame of a night show. The bigger money and the larger of critic to earn and persuade that I’d done learned my nerves - to an extent, for they never truly go completely the away and one mustn’t ever really let it get them bitter.  And if You knew more of me it would surely make sense the where that I come from on this.

On some off nights and maybe the odd eventual free afternoon, myself and fellow human of thespian persuasion took to the streets of my Ottawa, purely for the purposes of supporting our brethren around town; we was the ones whooping and a-hollering from the cheap seats at the back.  Heard.  We reeked the usual of cliché and the some of us pot or worse, and the audience, yes, often to do a turn and a stare, to offer a one by one join in - or to yell a collective Shut the Christ Up.  It didn’t really matter: at least the one amongst the randy of us always knew the doorman and we usually won, or lost and moved on to another show free of charge.

This the segue, and the some of us off on one of those wonderfully hand in hand nights giddy after work and mostly hard-on for another show, an any show, this one that led back to my girl of recent quiet Monday night - Miss X being there across the wood and performing relaxed, somewhat before us.   A group of we theatrical types had staggered in past the doorman - an also friend of my manager - and grabbed a table or two for the last of the floor show.  Sound and light.  And courtesy to flip of passed around loonie we’d chosen this specific of Elgin Street, this slightly off the Broadway version of my Ottawa, away from the tourists and teens of the downtown proper of our Byward Market area.  This was my Centretown.  The stage of X and tail end of a show still new and now hot.  And not at all a Monday.  Eventually mine the open eyes of an actor reviewing a film, casting my vote for the Oscar from across the room.  This my one category of the Allowed: bartenders voting for bartenders, owners one vote for owners.  And the kitchen staff, the busboys, the hostesses sipping quietly upon the straws of their bi-weekly tip outs, the maybe plain white envelopes whose stuffed contents never truly exist to government taxman.                   

Short Barney said this:  “She’s beautiful, Hen, what’s the more of it?”

I believe big and large Fred whispered this with all his heart:  “I believe in her truly.”

These the certain adjectives I shall use to picture them to the You stuffed in my head, our little code to show that I do indeed care how they step, the way of their look.  And this is the what of the Betty blue dress in our troupe: “I make it a crusade to sleep with girls like this, on pure principle.  I wake up early and kiss them fat square on the pout of their perfectly smeared mouths before they have a freaking chance to even begin to grasp the facts I have done on them.  And, then … leave at that.”  She’d brushed her two hands together, finished her performance as the most wonderful of those that choose to emote beauty with a sexy messiness sure enough to highlight naughty to match her favoured blue of always dress. 

“Pretty funky,” Fred swayed from the rope of that night’s stage.  And we of the maleness consumed and gave way to the eventual crude sayings of his and my many alternate personae.  I shall spare any linkage to the this and that of the set up to our stroll through the doors that particular night I speak of now, but as I’ve said, we be tipsy.  This was me with friendly Barney for a kickstand - eventually given sleeve-o-Kilkenny Cream Ale in hand.  My speech short but compact but necessary.  Yes, loud all of us.

I speak all of this Say now physically removed from that grand country of Spain from which I had never been to until this near past.  I think to whomever You be in this thought back on that wonderful All with the inevitable wisdom and wiggle that accompanies the colouring of the once upon. 

X turned a certain way.  I looked at her a similar manner that night. Yes.  All of this did indeed happen in the before.

And those beginnings with my friends from the theatre of this above remain a forever special of the memory, alongside the Latin country which now bares its name on my hairy ass.  Glorious ink of permanence.  Never gone, as is the thought of myself pushing past long hair of short Barney, my arm down onto his shoulder to rise myself from the comfortable chairs of the modern bar age; Ef waved a fist and one bony middle finger and I decided to resurrect my own.  I continued working my way through that late Saturday of night, and me, a someone never overly seen outside of a pub, pausing to announce that I was off in search of high adventure.

My hands are trembling with this past; I, to this Now day, have a constant trouble pouring shots just to the line, enough so that You might find what I have to say slightly suspect: that I may be a liar and not an actor.

X full-smiled me and from three-deep nodded a Yes or No to the empty prop in my hand; What the hell, I obliged her over the heads of others.  I looked back through the weekend warriors and found that my friends were watching my movie, sucked in by the celluloid of a sublime moment magnified through imported ales, maybe stouts.  Heavy-on-the-pink Cosmopolitans became the mouths of ladies within music one didn’t even care for but would withstand because of pretty dress or depression or friends who love the nightlife, like to dance.  But I am sorry.

This be me talking from this Now - whether or not the truth, whether or not Jesus was running through my head during this particular past.  He may or may not have been thee son of God, as my brother truly believes - and we fight and we talk and this be another story; but I am no liar, normally but loathe to fake, even for family. 

For real.

I don’t even count myself as an actor, even though I left L.A. to kinda maybe become one eventually; Feel at ease in believing when my brain gives You that night as the beginning of a something not performed.  X was busy and I’d after all been given a glass of consumption through a throng of dance music and too much make-up.  Certain things were done and I had another smile to paste into a life barely beyond thirty of year, myself having enjoyed experience there in front of one of the greats of my industry - in mine eyes from hers of hazel at least.  The wave of shoulder-length auburn hair, a surge in the surroundings before those certain eyes.  And there I be attracted to her ease with crowds, there I be a boy watching her at work: almost front row groupie.  It was all about the craft, me having to toil away in the semi-burbs - away from my Centretown - and she of the higher Show, in the bigger time of mine streets of home and personal drink. 

Eventually I was to return and tell my friends with my face, with slow sip of imported ale and creamstache left to linger forever above my smile.  I was a pub man relaxed in a busy dance lounge.  I did not care where I was, nor the shade of sponge effect to interior walls, or about the glint of gloss applied to finest of oak bar and rail.  This was me reclined - Jesus not necessarily running around in my head during this part of past.  This was me in ponder and surrounded by good friends from a show we did four or five times a week.  This was me staring away, politely over their heads: I was stealing once again.  A movement of her arm or an almost wink that neither promised nor deflated the evening for her clients.  The lights that did not need to dazzle off her, and the way she was not in sync to the music of that night’s show - just kinda somewhat aware of it.

As she swirled not shook her straight martinis.  Chilled gentle but prompt.  I know this now, or rather learned to do that Saturday of night.  I leered, but broke no Commandments that I know of in the process; yes, I had my manners with me as always.  To an extent, I should say.  I had stopped paying much attention to my circle of friends, there being an enough of them to carry two or three at least conversations - my little wander of gaze gradually lost its notice to the others; Ef was on his fourth Bacardi, twirling his hidden nipple pierce and mostly forgetful of the fact that he was a manager amongst his charge.  A stroke here, a pet there, it was all good and fine and mentally written down by all, but the truth was that we all performed some version of this act or that other, any night at the High School Bar and Grill. 

When new at said place of employment - me the good boy for perhaps a week - Betty reached down and cupped my ass, with absolutely no probable cause or warrant: “Mmmm… soft and hard.  Me like.”  And this with a tray of drinks in her one hand. 

Eventually guys and gals in a cramped space, easy access to alcohol - and it is, yes, sex. 

I remember You all of this childish banter purely for the What that was going through my head that there Saturday night of the Before.  It certainly was not Jesus.  It was an almost rise of jealousy the more that I brought myself through and across to X up on stage: who was cupping her ass, who was bothering her with the double entendre.  I knew too little and yet just enough to take a thought too far.

I was going to have to stalk her.  But this was Ok - in them years before Jesus.  In the morning, I told myself at the time, I would pop a few Extra Strength Tylenol and feel the exact same way: justified and truly romantic.

---

Ah, the things flying around the internet.  In light of my characters' names, I've included the clip below just to show how the times they have a-changed.  Wow.  Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

And to end this little ditty, with respect to bars and the shit and shite that makes its rounds, there is a musician that used to (probably still does) play Ottawa a lot.  He has rightfully been called the best artist you have never heard of; his name is Danny Michel and I once saw him play the Manx on Elgin Street (is that still there?).  The song below is called Whale of a Tale, off of his album Fibsville.  It tells the story of meeting a guy in a bar, one of "those" types that have done everything under the sun: no matter what you say, they have walked on the moon and had lunch with Elvis all within the same day.  Oddly, they never seem to have enough money for their bill, let alone a tip.

As always, click play for a listen.  I've provided a link to his website below.  Check it out, thank me later.

Dannymichel.com