A woman leaned against the facade of Tiny’s Tavern in North Bend.<\/p>\n
She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail. She also wore black cat-eye gasses, pink pajama bottoms, a gray hoodie and UGG boots. A cigarette dangled from her lips. A nose ring sparkled in the sunlight. There were hushed OTA whispers in the lines of her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you my bartender?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m your bartender,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She snuffed out the cigarette with her fingers, shoved it into a pajama pocket, and we went into the tavern together. It was 11:45 on a weekday morning and I’d never had a bartender wearing pajama bottoms serve me a drink before.<\/p>\n
Steve Miller’s \u201cJungle Love\u201d played on the digital jukebox. I was the only customer. I sat down at the bar and ordered a local session beer. I listened to Steve sing: Everything’s better when wet<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The session materialized in record time. Must have been the pajamas.<\/p>\n
I looked around Tiny’s. It was tiny and had carpeted walls, something I’d never seen before.<\/p>\n
Bruce Springsteen’s \u201cPoint Blank\u201d came on. I hadn’t heard it in 25 years and never before in a bar.<\/p>\n
I was gonna be your Romeo you were gonna be my Juliet<\/span><\/span><\/span> The bartender chose this semi-obscure song, perhaps the bleakest in Bruce’s catalog? I started liking her. I started thinking of a short story about her in the \u201cPoint Blank\u201d tradition and wondered what Bruce would have made lyrically from a pink pajama-wearing bartender before noon who had walked to work in a dead mill town because no one would give her a ride.<\/p>\n I looked to my right, to the marquee menu over the deep fryer and grill. It had movable type and was surely the last movable type menu in America.<\/p>\n A menu item caught my eye: gizzards, $3.<\/p>\n I asked the bartender if anyone ever ordered the gizzards.<\/p>\n \u201cOne woman. Yes. I’ve got a regular who calls in for three takeout orders,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Takeout Gizzards\u2014great rock band name.<\/p>\n \u201cHow old is she?\u201d I was expecting someone elderly, OTA to the stone greasy core.<\/p>\n \u201cIn her 20s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat’s she drink?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCoronas. She slams a couple before leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHang Fire\u201d by the Rolling Stones came on.<\/p>\n In the sweet old country where I come from<\/span> Three women entered the joint\u2014all OTA.<\/p>\n \u201cLunch time!\u201d one of them said. \u201cShot of whiskey.\u201d<\/p>\n The bartender went to the Jack Daniels Fire.<\/p>\n There is word for the convergence of fire like that. I’ll let a wordsmith figure it out.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus I’m winded!\u201d she continued. \u201cThree blocks is a long way to walk!\u201d She laughed.<\/p>\n She wore black lycra shorts and a black lycra top. No coat. In November. She weighed well over 250 pounds and was about the happiest person I’d seen in years. A lot happier than me.<\/p>\n The bartender handed her the shot of Jack Fire.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m here to defeat the Ninja!\u201d she yelled, referring to video slot machine that featured a Ninja holding a sword. She made Ninja-like sword movements with the shot and then pounded it.<\/p>\n A new bartender appeared and the pajama lady left. I never got her name as she sashayed out the door.<\/p>\n I sipped the session and watched the new bartender punch in juke box selections. A Billy Joel song from the 70s came on that I didn’t recognize.<\/p>\n A framed photograph of an old woman above the back bar intrigued me. You never see this sort of decoration in brew pubs\u2014but they are legion in OTA country. They are landmarks in OTA country.<\/p>\n \u201cWho’s that woman?\u201d I said to the bartender.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s Evelyn.\u201d<\/p>\n The music stopped. The digital goblins were mucking up the works.<\/p>\n And then the bartender launched into Evelyn’s OTA story and I hadn’t even solicited it.<\/p>\n (If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A woman leaned against the facade of Tiny’s Tavern in North Bend. She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail. She also wore black cat-eye gasses, pink pajama bottoms, a gray hoodie and UGG boots. A cigarette dangled from her lips. A nose ring sparkled in the sunlight. There were hushed OTA whispers in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[24,547,545,21,27,538,23,546],"class_list":["post-3538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-bars","tag-gizzards","tag-north-bend","tag-oregon-tavern-age","tag-ota","tag-tavern-writing","tag-taverns","tag-tinys-tavern","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3540,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3538\/revisions\/3540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>These days you don’t wait on Romeo’s you wait on that welfare check<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>and on all the pretty things that you can’t ever have and on all the promises<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>That always end up point blank, shot between the eyes<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n
\nNobody ever works<\/span>
\nYeah nothing gets done<\/span>
\nWe hang fire, we hang fire<\/span> <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n