Bar Fight

Image by Lane Savant


Bar Fight


This is what really happened.
Not what the cops said.
Not what the lawyers made out
of what the cops said.
And not what the judge said,
which was based mainly
on his own set of prejudices.

Coming home from my guitar lesson
where I was studying how to play blues,
I stopped at a bar for a drink
and to sit for awhile.
I parked my case at a table in the back
and ordered a Guinness.

This guy comes up, he's drinking wine
out of one of those long stem glasses.
He starts talking to me
and asks me about my music.
I told him I was just learning
and couldn't play very well at all.

So he says "C'mon,
I betcha you can play up a storm"
I begged off "No," I said "not really,
I'm just learning"
"Yeah, yeah," he says,
"don't mean to pressure you.
Buy you a drink?"
"Sure"

We got to talking about guitars
and music and stuff.
About three beers later
he asks me again to play.
Three beers is right at the edge for me
and I was kind of flattered
that he would ask.

Mostly, for me, it's
"Do you take requests?,
how 'bout "stop playing?"
So I pulled out the guitar
and hit some chords.
They sounded nice.
Nobody complained.
I had another beer.

Pretty soon I was wailin',
really getting into it,
the guy was smiling
and everybody seemed to be enjoying it,
so I just kept on, getting all creative
and having a good time.
But soon the beer caught up with me
and I started missing the strings
and whatnot.
So I had to quit.
Got a nice bit of applause.
So I packed it up
and told them I had to leave.

When I stood up, I realized
I had had more than I usually drink.
Feeling kind of unstable,
I asked for some coffee.
My wine drinking fan got up to leave,
paid for all the drinks
"thanks for the music", he said.

I sat for a while, drinking the coffee.
About a half hour later I felt better
and tried to stand up,
but I stumbled and fell face first
into the wine glass
on the table in front of me.
The glass shattered and cut my face up
and the stem shoved up into my cheek
and jammed into my sinus.

Somebody called an ambulance
and the bartender tried to stop
the bleeding with a bar towel.
The doctor fixed me up.
It wasn't really very serious.

I think it was the ambulance guys
who assumed it was a fight,
and they told the cops.
The cops took it from there,
they wanted to know who the other guy was,
I couldn't tell them anything
so I had to listen
to a shitload of humiliating crap
from the judge.
At least I didn't get jailed.

Anyway, in a couple days,
I went back to the bar
and asked about the guitar.
They remembered me, saved it for me,
and had it stored in the back.
I felt like buying the house a drink.
But it wasn't the same people.
And I only had five bucks on me.

Doug Palmer

Posted over on his site Feel Free to Read
Listed as #47 over on Magpie Tales 61