Oregon Tavern Age: Nirvana

A Friday afternoon in Coos Bay OTA country. I was sitting at a table near the front door a few feet from the bar. On the wall above me was a framed tribute to a former OTA regular who died after a bar fight in this joint a couple years ago. Apparently he got sucker punched. No one was ever charged.

I was drinking an Oregon ale and writing in my journal about the extraordinary day I’d just experienced with my great friends in Port Orford. One of them had crafted me a customized half burn barrel that would soon bring me boundless outdoor pleasure. Almost 20 years had passed since I was a burn barrel man—now I was again. Oh what grand risque times unfolded around my burn barrel! I could write a book about them.

An OTA couple sat at the bar. They were hitting the sauce hard and talking very loudly, almost yelling at each other. I didn’t mind at all because they were telling OTA stories and telling them with profane gusto.

They riffed so fast I couldn’t keep up with my note taking, but I was able to glean this:

There was something about the man reading Playboy in the 70s as a kid and learning how to install a car stereo.

There was something about the man having ringworm and the woman saying, “Maybe if I sucked your dick it would get rid of it.” He thought that an excellent remedy.

There was something about the man needing a chainsaw to cut down his pot plants.

There was something about the man using a neck brace for some kind of insurance fraud.

There was something about the woman taking a shot of white tequila and almost throwing up but it made her really fucking horny.

A bespectacled and toothless man wearing the greasiest blue and purple Western shirt in the history of Western apparel approached the couple. They hailed him as “Ed.”

I stopped writing and looked at Ed’s face and felt utterly mesmerized. I had never seen such a face in three decades of patronizing OTA joints. It almost glowed; it was well beyond OTA. But where was that unknown territory? At the moment, the answer eluded me.

Ed had apparently delivered a pack of cigarettes for the couple from a nearby smoke shop. He was promised a drink for his errand.

I couldn’t stop staring at Ed’s face. Something in his countenance thwarted all my abilities as a writer to describe it.

What was it? Beatific? Possibly.

I saw the OTA man slip his hand down the pants of his partner. She fought him off.

It hit me! When I looked upon Ed’s face, I was gazing upon a man who had transcended OTA status. He had achieved OTA nirvana.

Exactly what that means, I do not yet know as of this writing.