What'll Ya Have?

It was just after a brutally long day of blue collar work, sweat stains forming a yellowish acrid diary of what I've done and how much ass I've busted; the whole damned day now painted on my armpits like some foul smelling Rand McNally. Rush hour traffic hits my senses like a deftly swung ballpeen hammer in the hands of a cattle butcher right to my temple and the headache that takes up residence just behind my right eye all but GUARANTEES my next course of action.

Bar.

NOW.

Call it rampant alcoholism. Call it the product of a 5th generation hereditary monkey on my back. Call it whatever the fuck you like, but after 9 and 1/2 hours in 96 degree weather busting your hump for pocket change and a pitiful excuse of a 401K, you'd call it the same thing that I do: Sweet relief in the form of fermented grain.

Work truck tires squeal against the loose gravel as I pulled into the first drinking establishment I laid my eyes. Little Zeke's Social Club. Private club, one dollar to join, as were most bars down here in Charleston County were want to do. And believe me, when I stepped into the cavernous air conditioned cave that was Little Zeke's, my prayers were answered. A dead and silent bar, save for the soft muted melody of Robert Johnson on the jukebox singing about beating his woman to death and burying her while the Devil chuckles softly in his ear. Bliss, my friends, bliss. I saddled up to the ancient oak bar and sat waiting for the bartender to finish up whatever it was that he was doing in the back and start poisoning my liver and cleansing my soul.

"What da' hells you want is, huh?", croaked the voice of a man who's been smoking unfiltered Pall Malls since time immortal. The bartender slowly shuffled his ancient frame towards me from behind the bar, skin as black as a monitor lizard and just as wrinkled and scaly. He looked ancient, and if not for the white puff of hair that shot haphazardly out of the side of his John Deere hat, in the dim lights and shadows of the bar, he could have been a wraith. Probably just shy of 80 pounds, I swear, looking into those deep red rheumatoid eyes was like having the whole humble pie shoved down my throat. I managed to light a cigarette and ask for a Crown on the rocks before he croaked in with, "Six fitty, boss. Bit early to be doin' the drinkin', eh boss?"

Not at all, man. Not early enough.

"We don' get too many white folk in here. Just sayin' is all.", as he looked me over like I was some four tittied alien. Just needed a drink, is all. Figured this place was as good as any. He nodded and mumbled something in Gullah, then proceeded to pour himself a shot of reliable Ol' Crow. My kind of bartender. For another three hours, he proceeded to tell me his life's story, and it was a story more worthy than anything ever posted on here, that's for damn sure. But I will do my best to faithfully regale you all with the sordid and tragic tales of William Robertsm, otherwise known as Billy Roots. Blue's musician, gambler, thief, father of countless, husband to none, murderer, hero, and now in his 76th year of life, bartender extraordinaire.

So there I sat, audience to a grizzled old red-bone boozehound who's toothless maw opened up into cavernous chamber of secrets, and let his ancient weathered "wisdom" spill forth. During the course of our conversation, I sat fixated on his gums. Black as midnight coal, with veins of blue peeking in and out like a gold mine of gingivitis. A snaggled yellow nicotine stained tooth was it's sole occupant, his tongue the tooth's constant lover because as he rambled on and on, it would dart back and forth across that tooth like a blind man seeking his way around an unfamiliar room. Billy Roots was his name, raping life like a fat old drunken sow was his game. That old black son-of-a-bitch served up the stiffest Crown and water in history. Over the course of four hours, he would tell me the strange and sordid tale that was his life. Tragic, miserable, dark fated, and yet wonderfully chaotic all at once, this motherfucker became the standard upon which all other bartenders would be judged in my eyes.

I feel, that if you're a bartender, it's your duty, nay, your responsibility not only to serve up a stiff drink, but in the process also keep us amused. Perhaps a witty anecdote, a filthy joke, a tale of the ages; I don't know, something to keep me coming back to give your ass some money. Now I understand during a busy night, that sort of thing just isn't possible. But for customers like me, who enjoy the solace of a dimly lit bar in the afternoon, perhaps one or two other drunks like myself keeping you busy, at the very least somehow mask the reality that indeed I do have a drinking problem. And Billy Roots did just that. Wisdom of the ages, my friends...

Billy Roots on:

Love:
"Love be the Devil. Don't you ever forget that, son. Love is truly the Devil manifest in the form of an emotion. How else can you 'splain how a man in love can kill another man over a woman? That shit be just a nicer way of saying you wanna fuck. Stickin' your little dick in some woman ain't no love, boy. Seein' red when another man stares at your woman with the same eyes you had when you saw her ass shakin' and bakin' in that cute yellow dress you first saw her in ain't love. It's just human fucking nature. Like your scientists in them old white folk schools say, just natural chemicals swirling around in yo' head...givin' you the illusion of something other than what it is. The Devil ain't got a hold on THIS motherfucker, that's fo damn sho'. So go ahead, son, go ahead and lose your mind over a piece of pussy. I'm gettin' too old for that shit anyhow."

Murder:
"You lookin' at me, and I know what you thinkin', boy. Old black man never done did hurt nobody. Sheeeeet...back in my prime I was harder than times in '29. Bad attitude and booze never did make me a kind man, I tell the truth right there. Time was, I must have been no older than 17-18 when I broke God's most important commandment. Back livin' in the Delta, we folk had three things: Blues, Booze, and Broads. I took quite easily to the harmonica, and my boys and me could tear up them juke joints, son, I ain't lyin'. I always had a penchant for the pussy, and playin' blues was just pure sex. It oozed sex. Pussy was there for the takin' when I was growin' up, and now when after all these years and all the hardship I put everyone and myself through...pussy and a quick temper may have been the reason I know the Devil is keeping a seat warm for Billy right by his side in Hell. That fateful night, she had thighs that could blind out the sun, and after watching her give bat those pretty hazel eyes at me all night, I sure as shit knew I was gonna knee deep in that ass before the sun rose. After our set was done, and the whiskey ran dry, I took her back to her place. We smoked some of that weed, and got down to business. Goddamn it was hot in her house, that much I will always remember till the day my lungs stop breathin'. So hot, sweat was pourin' into my eyes, making the whole room fuzzy and that much more like a dream. But the pussy was so damned good, boy. Like going back into the womb it was, so warm and wonderful that nothing since then has compared to my sweet sweet Ophelia's pussy. I should have stopped though when I heard the front door open. I should have stopped when I heard her husband whistling a spiritual and calling out her name like he must have done every night after coming home from work. I should have stopped and jumped right out that window, ass naked for the moon and the sky to see.

But I didn't.

Like I said, love is the Devil. And when he burst through that bedroom door eyein' me dick deep in Orphelia's ass, body shivering in lust like a crab at low tide, everything turned slow motion like. I remember him hollerin' murder at the both of us, and Ophelia sat there wide eyed like a doe. He came chargin' at me with a big ol' pig sticker he pulled out of his boot. Naked as the day Momma brought me into this world, I jumped up on the bed and kicked that son of a bitch right his mouth, feeling teeth come loose and bone cracking in his jaw. He stuck me good though, right in my thigh, but I hit him in the mouth a few more times with my fist and started choking that motherfucker for good measure. Oh, we tussled and rustled that's for damn sho', but a man in love is more dangerous than a man cornered. That black motherfucker had me but good, laying on top of with me with his knees on my chest and his fingers around my throat, Orphelia screamin' bloody murder. But you lookin' at ME and not him, right? Damn right. I pulled that shiv out of my leg and before I passed out and took a one way trip to Hell, I shoved that fuckin' thing right in his throat. He looked at me wild-eyed and gurgled something I'll never know, and crashed into the wall. Murder is a messy act. Alls I remember is blood, and lots of it. I ran and ran and ran, butt naked all the way back to my brother's house, maybe 20 miles through woods and swamp. After that day, I left Mississippi and never went back.

Murder is a funny thing, I reckon. I guess if a man needs to die, you do it. Simple as that."

White Folk:
"I'll never understand you people. Time was, you folk did everything in your power to keep my folk and our ways of life as a far away from yours. I watched cousins and childrens and mothers get attacked by dogs and sprayed with fire hoses all because we wanted to eat at the same damned diners and go to the same damned schools. I watched nigga's get hung from cypress trees, and I listened to the mother's of little girls who've been shot in the woods like dogs cry and curse your folks names, all because you is white and we be black.

Now, white kids wanna be like us and your women wanna fuck us. *laughs out loud* I'll never understand you cocksuckers."

Raising Children:
"You got kids yet? No? Good. That's a smart way to live, boy. I got kids. Sheeeeet, I got kids all right. By my last count, 14 in all. You wanna know the secret to raising that many kids?
Visit them, make them smile, kiss the momma on the cheek, and get the fuck out of there. They only gonna grow up hatin' you anyways, so what's the point in stickin' around all day and dealin' with shitty diapers and hungry mouths to feed? Billy Roots got more important things to deal with...

...like visiting my other kids on the other side of town."

A Good Drink:
"Crown Royal, Ol' Crow, Jack Daniels, Wild Turkey...shit, son, a whiskey by any name will still make the day a little bit brighter. Shit'll make you crazy, make you fall in love, make you kill a man, make you respect yo'self, make you hate yo'self, and make you laugh like you never laughed before; all these things, over the course of one night. So drink up, Danny, drink up and forget the troubles of today. Because come tomorrow, you're better off not remembering what happened yesterday anyway. Now get out of here, boy...you're gonna scare off all the black folk and ruin my reputation."

And just like that, I was drunk and had forgotten all about the troubles of the day I had at work. In the end, I guess that's what a good bartender should truly be. Someone to serve you upan anecdote and a shot. Someone to make you feel better about yourself.

Here's to Billy Roots...see you in Hell you crazy old son of bitch.