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By Root 1005 0

naming the place as this bar or that tavern, as if no name were sufficiently bad. The parking lot was full, the trucks ― they were almost all trucks ― parked at angry, confrontational angles, as if preparing themselves for a demolition derby or having just finished one. It was the sort of bar that gave one pause, especially if the one was someone like me, who'd never been in a bar like this before. True, I'd been to plenty of "bar and grille's": there were dozens of them near our house in Camelot. But they were the sort of places that provided crayons for the kids, and special place mats for them to deface, and stern warnings on the menu not to let the kids draw on anything but the place mats, and they were also the kind of places that issued even sterner warnings ― on the place mats, on the walls, on the waitresses' and waiters' uniforms, everywhere ― forbidding you to smoke or else, and in these ways the "bar and grille" seemed exactly like the world outside the "bar and grille" except with more rules and fewer ways to break them.

This place was different, and after entering it I understood immediately why bars exist and why people like to drink in them: if a "bar and grille" reminded you of all the things you shouldn't do, then a real bar gave you the idea that there was nothing you couldn't do, and no consequences to face if you did do it. My first impression of the place was wrong; it wasn't depressing at all. For one thing, it was better-looking inside than out. The bar floor was pine, with a bowling-alley slickness to it. Overhead there was a low drop ceiling with flaking acoustical tiles that I could touch and did, which gave me a nice sense of accomplishment. For another, there was Peter, standing next to the men's room, selling drugs ― dime bags, he called them, ten-dollar plastic bags of marijuana ― to guys who looked a lot like him but happier, more talkative. For that matter, Peter in the bar seemed a happier and more talkative version of Peter, too, and that's why I say the bar wasn't depressing. Being in it seemed to free Peter. Or maybe it was the pot, much of which he seemed to deal to himself. Or maybe it was that I'd agreed to do what I in fact had no intention of doing. Right when we first got to the bar, Peter pointed at me, said, "That's him," and made introductions all around. There was Barry, Mick, Shoe, and Lyle. Of course, I didn't get their names straight at the time, but they didn't seem to mind and made me feel right at home. At one point, Peter even put his arm around me and said, "We need you, bud," which nearly made me cry and made me feel as though I needed them as much as they needed me.

But then again, it might have been the booze making me feel that way. Peter bought me shot after shot of bourbon, and soon I started calling myself by the wrong name, and this got all of them laughing good and hard, which made me glad, so glad that I drank some more. I must have done at least a good baker's dozen of shots. After a point, I have no memory of any real conversation or of time passing, although it must have, because I found myself sitting on a stool at the horseshoe bar, the guys were nowhere to be seen, and there was a band playing.

There was no stage in the bar, but in one corner there was a band playing anyway, four guys ― two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer ― with long, stringy hair peeking out from under their ski hats, nodding their heads violently in time to a song that seemed to have no time. The bass was so loud it wasn't just a sound but also a feeling coming up through the floor, up into me, through my groin, my heart, my throat. The sound pulled me toward the band, although first I got another shot of bourbon from the bartender.

I took my drink and went and stood in front of the band. I didn't recognize the song they were playing, but when it ended, someone yelled out, "Creedence!" This seemed to encourage the guys in the band, because they launched into another song, a favorite apparently, and the dance floor got crowded ― women dancing with men, women with women, men without