An OTA Monday Apology

(Excerpt from the forthcoming, Oregon Tavern Age: Sketches from Coastal Drinking Life)

There I sat, at a back table in a far corner of an OTA joint, drinking black coffee from a 1970s mug at 11:00 a.m. I was working on a book that will never be published, but writing the book nonetheless. Light leaked through the back door and a game show played on television.

Near me, an OTA man nursed a can of beer and diddled the buxom babes of the video slots. Besides the veteran female bartender, who, along with her brother, co-owns the place, which they recently inherited from their father who owned it for 33 years before dying of cancer, there wasn’t anyone else around.

Stillness reigned. I love stillness.

A somewhat burly man entered through the back door. He went up to the bar where the co-owner sat. She penciled through a crossword puzzle and sipped coffee. He wasn’t there for a drink. He asked if he could talk to her. She agreed. He remained standing. She turned toward him. They began talking.

I caught only bits and pieces of the exchange, but I didn’t need to hear any of the conversation to know what was going down. It was obvious from his leaning body language and softened speech. I’ve witnessed this scene a dozen times and it rarely veers off script.

He had shown up to apologize for his bad behavior in the bar over the weekend. What was the reason? A fight? Harassment? Vandalism? Rude comment to a bartender? Petty theft? Profane gossip? Grinding a tourist? Or, a garden variety miscreant of one kind or another that only OTA soil watered with Fireball can cultivate?

It was a Monday morning in winter and somewhere gray on the North Coast…or Central Coast…or South Coast. The precise location didn’t matter because in OTA country the same scene was unfolding in multiple joints from Astoria to Brookings.

In most cases, it’s a younger man, a local, working class, but once a young woman came forward for penance. I recall only one instance where the man didn’t come alone. What a night that must have been if it called for a dual, tag-team apology.

Monday is the reckoning. Monday is when the owner hears the apology. Monday is when the owner decides to accept the apology and welcome the miscreant back into the fold or exile him forever into the wilderness of Chinese lounge gin and tonics. Something just couldn’t be forgiven.

From what I’ve observed, it usually tips 90-10 for acceptance. If the apology is accepted, I always see a hug or handshake exchanged. Maybe even a draft poured to break bread again. There might even be restitution of a cord of wood for the tavern woodstove.

A sentence of permanent exile is hard to watch being meted out, but I’ve seen it. He’s not even welcome for the holiday potlucks. That was all he had on the holidays and he always brought something.

On this Monday morning on the Oregon Coast, the owner accepted the apology. I could tell that. He left a short time later and I went back to the book. The owner went back to the crossword.

Try this metaphor out: consider a few OTA lives as ships at sea. Sometimes the seas turn rough and the skipper hits the sauce too hard and can’t see the dangerous swells. He’s not even at the helm. The tavern provides ballast in the ship’s hold, keeping the craft afloat when breakers of alcohol should have capsized it. Yes, there is a dangerous irony creeping around here. I’m not blind to it, but I choose to look beyond because there is more there.

Sometimes, there is nothing semi-orderly in OTA lives, or all our lives for that matter, except the tavern or the metaphor of the tavern; the tavern will always take them in. I know this. The tavern has taken me in, too.

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