Guy Walks Into a Bar

Guy walks into a bar on Christmas Eve. No punch line awaits him, no drum badum-bum to the joke that is his life. Who goes to bars on Christmas Eve? Junkies and whores, the sick in the head, black in the lungs, dead in the liver. They've missed their last couple of AA meetings, the crazies in this bunch. They've missed the past multiple years of church services, the candle light of cathedrals never characterizing their Christmases. This is not a jovial bunch, not a "Merry Christmas" is heard in the place, unless the word "fucking" is used preceding the greeting or wrapped within it. There is no cheer to be found in this particular bar, this dive bar on this back street in this shitty part of this dark and quiet city on this holiest of nights, amen.

No, there isn't a smile to be found here.

Guy walks into a bar on Christmas Eve, musing about the celebration that is upon the world. So some baby was born in a barn. So he was supposed to save the world. So where is he now? thought our guy.

He ordered a shot of Captain and felt his spirit warm with its hot spice and tingle. Jesus, he thought. How does Jesus celebrate Christmas?

Guy walks into a bar on Christmas Eve, all right, and his whole life is in fucking shambles. His girlfriend of three years left him last week, emptying drawers of their contents and then filling them with bitter curses and tainted memories as she left. She broke all his liquor bottles open, pouring their contents down the drain, muttering and crying, the shattered glass scattering, running to escape her overwhelming sadness, her waterfall of hot tears. She broke all his liquor bottles like she wanted to break his bones, like he had broken her heart every day for nine months now. He was a broken man, a dead man walking with unseeing eyes and a careless, glib tongue, and an affinity for belligerence (but not every night, he justified). Ever since he had lost his job, ever since his girlfriend had miscarried, oh the world had ripped at the seams and the bottle had been his only comfort. It had all happened in one unlucky thirteen day period, and yes, ever since then, our guy at the bar on Christmas Eve had been a different man.

Guy walks into a bar on Christmas Eve, broken beneath his ribcage but not a crack on the surface, wondering, Didn't Jesus hang out with fuck ups like me?

Our guy was four shots deep and barely getting started at 8 pm on the Eve of the Blessed Birthday of our Lord. Somewhere across town, there was a family having dinner together, rosy faced from the egg nog, hearts full of good will, an entirely different kind of drunk.

The neon sign hanging over the bar's cavernous mouth flickered a little, flashing iridescent red on the pure, fresh snow.  

Guy walks into a bar on Christmas Eve, and this guy was once only a boy. He had a mother and a father, as so many of us do, and a heart full of dreams and deep desires. When he was five, he wanted to be a fire fighter. When he was eight, he wanted to be an astronaut. When he was eleven, he wanted to be a rock star.

Children do not understand the terms "unemployed" or "alcoholic," and none dream of becoming such.

But our guy had become the worst. No session on a mall Santa's lap, no prayer to the Christ, no Christmas dreaming, could have saved him from this fate. Jesus himself could not (or was it simply would not?) lift him from the bar stool and restore his wondrous, sober innocence.

Our guy was six shots deep and feeling a buzz in his fingertips at 8.42 pm on the Eve of the Day he once had Dreams of. Somewhere across town, a group of children were opening presents, flabbergasted by Santa's generosity, satisfied parents and grandparents looking on, dreaming of the upstanding adults these children would become.

The bar's neon sign drenched the snow in warmth. One letter on the far right flickered madly and then burned out.

Fast forward to 11.25 pm on the Eve of the Day that our guy now Damned and Dreaded. He could no longer remember how many shots deep he was. He stared at the wall of liquor bottles before him, the bartender, his hands. He marveled at his own weary existence in this funny, cruel world. He thought (or prayed), Jesus, where are you? Can you do me a favor and help me out of this mess? 

On the other side of the world, a mother screamed, murderously distraught, holding in her arms the now-soulless body of her starved child.

Even on Christmas Eve, the death toll goes on.

The red neon drenched the white pavement in a bloody low light. Flicker, flicker, and then the sign went black.

Fast forward to 1.14 am on the cold, dark morning of the Mass of Christ. Guy's body in bed, shallow breathing, stomach lurching, heart struggling. Vomit aspiration on Christmas is not a romantic way to give up your spirit, but our guy wasn't a romantic. He was a realist. And realists die faster.

Guy walks into a bar in the middle of a Christmas night. He is a wraith, a mist, a spirit, and he has stepped into the Other Side. Dead on Christmas. Too much to drink. He marvels at his still-weary existence in purgatory or hell or wherever he is (he can't figure it out). He sidles up to the bar and sits down next to a man, bearded and robed, dark in complexion, sympathetic in the eyes. A laugh plays at his lips like he knows the punch line to the joke, and he says to our guy, "Will you buy me a drink, buddy? It's my birthday."