Dancing on the Bar

I’m finding that life is full of pointers from a friendly universe, to guide us on our way, if we are open to the moment like a small child seeing everything for the first time. These words from author Earl Mckenzie spoke to me this morning, and helped crystallize my resolve:

Retirement gave me a sense of the brevity, uncertainty and urgency of time. I also recalled what Isaac Bashevis Singer told one of our classes at Columbia University: if you have a story to tell and you think that if you don’t tell it nobody else will, you have a duty to tell that story. *

So here I’m starting to write that story, as nobody else could, in spite of difficulties which have held me back for many weeks. Time to grasp the nettle firmly so it doesn’t sting. What I have to say may not be poetic or polished. It will have no definable structure, only to speak for itself as and when the urge demands. Starting with a recent story.

We had a few days in Swansea for a double celebration. On previous anniversaries we’ve gone to Amsterdam, Lisbon, Paris and Brussels: all capital cities. This time, perforce, we looked for something nearer. Wales is just a few hours’ drive, and its capital is Cardiff, which I imagine as huge and sprawling. Perhaps it has a vibrant hub, where the shops, pubs and cultural activities are footsteps apart, and you can range randomly between them. But something suggested Swansea, I don’t know how I got that idea but it was spot on. It was laid out as if just for us. Our apartment, via AirbnB, sat between the Marina and the Maritime District, both full of good modern architecture, public art and historic monuments.

In search of an early pub lunch we went to Wind Street (pronounced Wined). Many places weren’t open. There’s one called The Bank Statement, I never found out why, run by the Wetherspoons chain, renowned for its cheap drinks and easy atmosphere. The Falcon in our home town is like a second home for a quick lunch on market days, but The Bank Statement wasn’t our cup of tea: noisy and scruffy, unsuitable for our 14th anniversary. Karleen said we could go to Ask Italian, our favourite restaurant, but we’d celebrated her birthday there, the day before. There was a place open across the road called Coyote Ugly, doors wide open, claiming to be world-famous. It consisted of a vast cavernous hall with a long bar on one side. It had opened minutes before we entered, so we were the only customers. Our barmaid said it was the Happy Hour, all drinks cheaper. We had a good meal and when we went for more drinks I asked her why there was a rail above the bar. Someone fell off, she said.

It wasn’t till then that we learned of the movie from which this place gets its name, in which girls dance on the bar, and customers can too—if they’re female.

“Your—is she your wife? —Yes!— can go up there too, She’ll be entitled to a free shot.”

So I persuaded Karleen to give it a try. She agreed, not for the shot, but because I asked. By this time a few customers had arrived, sitting at tables. Then the barmaid, with hair hanging loose below her waist, got up with her, and I took a few photos from Karleen’s phone.

Afterwards we were each given a shot in a tiny glass. One was green, the other pink, strange liqueurs I think, but we were to down them in one, so I never worked out what.

So here it is, a small part of my story and if I don’t tell it nobody else will. It’s not what I set out to write, but I let the moment dictate, as I do these days, like a Diceman, without bothering with dice †. That’s how we chose Swansea on impulse, and an apartment by the Marina, and everything else. That’s how this elderly couple entered that bar, designed to mimic faithfully the look and swagger of a raucous movie we’d never heard of. I say elderly, because she has just reached a significant age, twelve years after me. We are “seniors”, entitled to state pensions, free bus travel and so forth.

Here’s a Google review of the bar:

Horrendous. The music shuddered through me like my father’s ghost, and all the while I was tormented by women in the midst of a dream about it being acceptable in 2019 to dance on a bar surrounded by men with no muscular control of their bottom lips. A debacle. An ordeal. Don’t go.

And a response from the owner:

A man, haunted by the ghost of his own father, walks into a bar on a Saturday night and finds live music, party atmosphere, female empowerment and the freedom to dance, all this as being a debacle and an ordeal. Perhaps a cup of tea and a scone, in a countryside setting, would be less tormenting for you.

Haunted by the ghost of his own father! This struck a nerve with me, especially as the night before, we’d watched Swansea’s first showing of Rocketman, a musical about the life of Elton John, shy child prodigy who got no love or even encouragement from his father during his formative years. Luckier than Karleen and I who didn’t even know our fathers. The concept of father didn’t exist for us: of course it’s the same for countless others.

Everyone’s story is unique. I’m not ready to speak of mine. Much as I admire Isaac Bashevis Singer (now on a second reading of his sweet love story Shosha), it’s foolish to take that quote “it’s your duty to tell that story” as a friendly pointer directed to me, or indeed you, even if we might think so in the moment.

And when I’m “open to the moment like a small child seeing everything for the first time”, I must pay the price: trial and error. It’s wisdom I need most now, to avoid all these mistakes, false starts & throws of imaginary dice.

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* From this interview with Earl McKenzie
† Refers to The Diceman, a novel by Luke Rhinehart. “It tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice.” (wikipedia)