The football game blares from televisions around the hotel pub. Their noise fills the room, from behind the bar and from every corner, so loud as to be the air, the atmosphere of the room. There is the cheering and shouting of the crowd in the background, but in the foreground, there is the commentary. There’s comfort in the knowledge of the announcers, they bring a time honoured voice to the game, soothing to the men at the bar. In their power suits, the men look keen and crisp. They are dressed to impress. They are power brokers. They break power, build power through hostile takeovers. They’re men that monitor their quarry, conspire them towards their demise, conquer them, swallow them, then make them theirs. Brokers, they break them.
The businessmen come to the pub tonight, ties loosened, wanting to drink. They congregate at the bar at the end of the night to put the day away. After crunching numbers all day, sealing deals and shaking hands, they need to let loose. They shout above the din of the television, keeping a conduit of conversation through them, keeping it light, drawing laughter from each other. The conversation has to be simple, basic, quickly picked up and not missed, like a lateral pass in football, like a drop pass in hockey. This is their leisure, where they step out of their world and strip life down to its lowest common denominator.
“Wrecked ‘er? Damn near killed ‘er!”
“Wrecked ‘em, wrecked them, not her. You know? Rectum?”
“No, just her. I’m strictly monogamous.”
“Is that how you like it?”
You, behind the bar, you pour their drinks, ply their food. This is your establishment. You have a sense of propriety here. You are good at what you do, you know your job. You give a hospitable persona and they appreciate that. You match their banter, talking like you’re one of them. They like the glow of your face, your smile. They like the liberty of your breasts, your cleavage showing from the open V of your sweater. It makes you the carnal center of the room, the prize. Their eyes dive into your cleavage from every corner to where you, behind the bar, are at its head, its center and fulcrum. They take this as license and you offer this license for gratuities to augment your meagre server’s wage. It is the flow of currency between you, the pursuit of gratuity. They step closer, lean closer on the bar. The bar stretches between you and them like a fence.
You smile and laugh at their jokes and the line gets drawn closer to you, the front moves closer. They are more forward, they make that movement, although you don’t give them everything from behind the bar. The bar stands between you and them. You don’t react to their comments, so they populate that silence with innuendo. They look at your naked finger and this is a state of undress to them. You’re open and vulnerable and it excites them. They sense pursuit and it incenses them.
What they don’t know is that your rings are sitting at home, where at that same moment, your husband is giving your daughter a bath; her last activity before retiring clean and warm to bed. Your ring, that circle of solid and pure gold that belongs on your third finger, the finger that has a direct carnal line to your heart, sits on your dresser while you work. To wear it to work would burst the illusion, turn away gratuities. It sits in the dark waiting for you, in the bedroom where your husband will be sleeping, ready to wake to your return and welcome you home. The patrons will never know this in their fleeting dalliance with you. They may enter the softness of brief association, but would never touch the solid unmoveable truths you hide. You would never let them close enough.
“So how old are you?” one of them asks.
“27.”
“27? Darryl Sittler.”
“Frank Mahovolich”
“Shane Courson”
“He was a bum!”
“Jacques Villeneuve was number 27 too.”
“Same as his dad.”
“You know who should be wearing 27?” the first man asks, looking at you.
“Who?” you ask, knowing by the smirk on his face something is coming.
“Me.” he says.
The look is passed and the other men react with laughter. It has struck the right chord and now the laughter rings like a harmonic. You laugh along and shake your head. With artful timing, you offer another drink and they accept. It’s a toast to good times and more tips for you. At the till, you check on the balance and without warning a toonie sails across the bar and bounces off your breast. The quarter test. You catch it after it bounces off your chest, before it hits the ground and they are amazed, laughing and clapping. They are indeed impressed. You then press your breasts together and they each toss coins at your cleavage, none succeeding, but each having immense fun in doing so. You laugh the hardest, at the irony of it all. When you return to the till, they moan and protest, but you need to get back to work. You pick up the coins from the floor and more are tossed into your shirt, which you shake out from the bottom when you stand back up. They all go into your tip jar. As you busy yourself with your work, the patrons return their attention to the game and their drinks. They see the fun is over and they fall into the next available form of entertainment.
You consider closing early tonight. You’re tired, too tired in fact. This is not where you want to be. It’s too busy tonight, the waitress that was supposed to come in had not and you are doing the pub alone tonight. You know your daughter is having a bath tonight and normally, in the old normalcy before taking this job, you would draw your own bath after your daughter would be asleep. After that bath, you would go to sleep as well. You’ve worked too many late nights now, with too little sleep between them. Bills need to be paid and pounds of flesh need to be served. You think of pounds of flesh; yourself served on a platter and devoured. You know your husband would explode with anger if he knew what had just gone on tonight and you feel pangs of guilt. Your guilt is richer than the change in the tip jar. They are gratuities, tips, but they are not without price and they are not making you any wiser. You frown privately. You shiver. The pub is always so cold, the door always opening to the winter air. You want your warm bed, your warm husband, the real humanity of rest.
A food order comes from the kitchen. You avoid looking at the cook as you take it and wordlessly pass it to a patron although the cook stares at you, hoping for your attention. The cook is a diva, has been making too many suggestions beyond his scope, beyond the kitchen and into your personal sphere. You won’t go beyond that door into the kitchen tonight because there are too many corners, too much heat from the grills. You feel the heat coming from the kitchen but still the cold from the door makes you shiver. You don’t accept that heat. Let him sweat it out alone back there, you think. You decide to close early tonight. You know how to subliminally ease the patrons out of the bar, keep new ones from coming in. The cook will be leaving soon. You will rush him out as well and after he leaves, then you can close up and go home. You intend to do just that.
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