Oregon Tavern Age: Vampire Pat
It was opening week of the NCL, National Concussion League, and I sat at a table in a corner drinking a craft malt liquor and polishing a manuscript.
A wild and bald OTA man sat at the bar and held court on all matters football. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk or insane, but clearly his life now had dynamic purpose because football season was finally here and we could stop talking about abortion and the Pandemic.
Another OTA man sat at the bar and listened to the performance.
Football Man was a Steelers fan and had a Steelers tattoo. He also had the Portland Trail Blazers logo tattooed on his skull.
The female OTA bartender was giving him the business about everything. Apparently, so the story went, she had freaked him out not too long ago when he went out to the patio to smoke and she switched the patio monitor to the 700 Club and he beheld the image of a 340-year old Pat Robertson talking about the end of the world because of liberals.
Football Man was aghast at Robertson’s appearance. The man looked like a “vampire, Dracula from Bram Stoker’s novel, a black eyed soulless son-of-a-bitch.”
I was laughing aloud at my table. The bartender said Football Man needed a little Christianity, but then she also said Robertson was most likely inhabited by an alien and secretly preparing for an invasion.
You know what sucks, really sucks? That Prince and Tom Petty are dead and Pat Robertson is alive and that his evangelical and totalitarian vision for women may win out in the end, considering the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
And he hates the Taliban? He and his ilk are the Taliban in this country! They’ve got a lot of women on their side, including many Republican politicians, some, if not all, who undoubtedly have had abortions in their youth.
Someone scored a touched down and the conversation shifted back to football and gambling and Oregon beating Ohio State and other crap.
I made a few edits, drank my beer, and knew this OTA crew would get me through the football season.