Myers Afraid-of-Bear has claimed the corner barstool near the front door, and everyone who comes in that way has to maneuver around his massive six-foot-six frame. Myers doesn’t actually sit on his barstool; he stands over it like a guard dog while he drains glass after glass of Budweiser. Sometimes, toward the end of the evening, if there aren’t too many people left in the bar, he’ll stand on his barstool and let loose his coyote call, one of the most mournful and beautiful sounds ever heard. Most weekend nights, Myers makes a little walking trip up Harrison Street, stopping at each of the bars along the way, where he stands tall and silent in the smoky gloom or the raucous hilarity of the different establishments. The First Nash and the Bourbon Barrel are his favorites, but he dutifully visits the Whitman and the Grand Saloon and the Wheel Club, although he is quickly thrown out of the Wheel, because the owner there doesn’t like him or his coyote call.
Heather, a young woman with closely-cropped, bright yellow hair stops to admire Brando’s tattoo, and he hands her one of his business cards. She flirts for a moment with the man in the eye patch, then passes on down the length of the bar, exchanging a word or two with the other customers sitting there. She stops behind two men, the older one of them in a battered cap and rubber boots caked with earth. Putting a hand on each man’s shoulder, she massages their backs. “Keep your hands to yourself, honey,” says the older of the two men. He playfully slaps Heather’s hand away from his friend’s shoulder and replaces it with his own, massaging the younger man’s back with large, circular motions. All three of them laugh, and Heather passes on.
Heather, a young woman with closely-cropped, bright yellow hair stops to admire Brando’s tattoo, and he hands her one of his business cards. She flirts for a moment with the man in the eye patch, then passes on down the length of the bar, exchanging a word or two with the other customers sitting there. She stops behind two men, the older one of them in a battered cap and rubber boots caked with earth. Putting a hand on each man’s shoulder, she massages their backs. “Keep your hands to yourself, honey,” says the older of the two men. He playfully slaps Heather’s hand away from his friend’s shoulder and replaces it with his own, massaging the younger man’s back with large, circular motions. All three of them laugh, and Heather passes on.
The Love Dogs are playing tonight, and the drummer, Greg, is flipping his sticks high in the air and singing loudly and tunelessly. Two young women in jeans and tie-dyed cotton shirts watch him from their places at a small table near the stage. One of them--Rachel--smokes and keeps time with the music, waggling her cigarette in one slender hand. Her roommate, Tamsin, sits with an arm slung over the back of her chair. She taps her knuckles lightly against the wood and occasionally hums a few words of the song.
The Nash is filling up quickly. Besides the regulars, there are a few grad students in jeans and jackets and a handful of guys who work for the railroad and the potato processing plant. The tables ringing the dance floor are filled with groups of secretaries, freshly curled and lipsticked for their “Girls’ Night Out,” and trios of frat boys and used car salesmen, the former in skull-hugging baseball caps, the latter in crotch-hugging polyester slacks.
Frankie, one of the owners of the First Nash, is waiting tables tonight, helping out the new bartender. Frankie’s dressed in stringy drapes and beads, and her frosted hair shoots around her head at odd angles. She claps whiskey shots and beer bottles down on the bar in front of the regulars, then balances a tray loaded with more bottles and shots on one bony, jutting hip and winds her way around the crowded tables, repeating drink orders and laughing one-liners out the side of her purple-lipsticked mouth. She replaces soggy cocktail napkins with dry ones and sets new drinks down in the center of each table. Rachel and Tamsin are drinking White Russians. Rachel stirs the milky liquid with her finger, then repositions the glass in the middle of her cocktail napkin.
At the back of the room, a young man in a faded red and grey plaid shirt and a fledgling goatee paces around the pay phone that hangs on the wall near the twin doors marked “Gents” and “Ladies.” He stops and drags a blue plastic pet carrier from under a table in the corner, lifting it to eye level and peering through the perforated front panel. He pokes his littlest finger through a small opening in the door of the carrier and strokes the creature inside. The young man whispers to the animal, then sets the carrier down on the floor again, pushes it back under the table with his boot, and glances anxiously at the unresponsive pay phone.
At the back of the room, a young man in a faded red and grey plaid shirt and a fledgling goatee paces around the pay phone that hangs on the wall near the twin doors marked “Gents” and “Ladies.” He stops and drags a blue plastic pet carrier from under a table in the corner, lifting it to eye level and peering through the perforated front panel. He pokes his littlest finger through a small opening in the door of the carrier and strokes the creature inside. The young man whispers to the animal, then sets the carrier down on the floor again, pushes it back under the table with his boot, and glances anxiously at the unresponsive pay phone.
Two women in biker leathers come in and stand near the bar. One holds her helmet in front of her like a shield. The other runs a leather-gloved hand through her fried blonde hair and looks around for a place to sit. The bartender motions the women toward a couple of vacant stools at the far end of the bar. He leans over the bar to hear their order above the music, then turns to draw two mugs of beer.
*Photo of First National Bar courtesy of Connie Rodriguez-Flatten, 2011
*Photo of First National Bar courtesy of Connie Rodriguez-Flatten, 2011
