The Loneliness of a Weeknight Bar.

One of the things I had nearly forgotten about bars is just how lonely weekday patrons often are. There are not a lot of options for regular social interaction in our society, especially if you can't or don't go out on the weekends. I've never been a big fan of The Beatles, but I was moved by Eleanor Rigby. Actually, to be honest with you I never really listened to the words of that song until I heard Ray Charles sing it on a greatest hits CD. "All the lonely people... where do they all come from? Where do they all belong?" Apparently they belong on a high stool along a cold bar, with their elbows in a sticky residue of liquor.

Sure, I've noticed isolated individuals sitting by themselves in the smoking section of many all-nite greasy spoons. In those places it's possible to pick up the undertones of melancholy I am talking about here. But it's a bit different than in bars. At the diners and restaurants there is no reasonable expectation of meeting someone and falling into a conversation. It's just not a convention in this country to ask a stranger to join you at the table. You might exchange a few words with the waitress, but generally you enter prepared to spend a lot of time in silence. I'd have to assume that many folks who choose to eat with no company either can't (or don't like to cook). Perhaps they prefer savoring a specific meal alone with no distractions. I've also met at least a few people who prefer not to eat in front of anyone else. The difference between dining and drinking is that it is easy for anyone to drink at home.

So when I see those lone figures slumped along the bar I have an easier time expending my empathy for their choice of solace. The best place to see this phenomena is some sort of divey neighborhood joint on a Sunday or Monday. In the past week I was out with a friend on the sabbath and he pointed out an overweight, sullen, balding man sitting at the very end of the bar by the front window. Generally he spent his time staring ahead into nothing, sipping his beer at a slow but steady pace. My friend commented that the guy was probably just milking his opportunity to be around others until the time came for the bar to close- at which point he would go home to his sad little one-bedroom apartment and sit in the quiet of the night waiting for sleep to come.

It was a depressing thought certainly. But then the man rose from his stool and fed the jukebox. We were a bit surprised to hear Fleetwood Mac and REO Speedwagon play... although I'm not quite sure why. In some strange and subtle way, this was the lone figure's communication to the rest of the bar- his effort to share something with us that was meaningful to him. These were sentiments colored in the nostalgia and universal feeling of a pop song of a bygone era. Maybe they reminded him of a time of his life when he was happy It made the entire tableau that much more pathetic. Soon the fashionable punk rock regulars of the place started yelling for closing time, and we filed out into the dense humidity of night. We made our exit expediently, without looking back.

Last night we went to another typical drinking spot- this one featuring pool tables on an elevated level. There were a trio of us, and we were having a good time cutting up jackpots and shooting stick. Then we encountered another type of isolated barfly. This guy wanted to play billiards, but even moreso he wanted to impress us. He was the type that is always on automatic, with a continual flow of unlikely tales and braggadocio. Ordinary human feats were obviously below his interest, as he related a string of accomplishments- both absurd and crudely drawn. When one or another of us tried to distract him with a story of our own, he had trouble restraining whatever verbal torrent he was preparing to unleash. He was like a bad comedian desperately trying to keep the last stragglers of an audience from walking away from his performance. It was a type of loneliness that you can only appreciate from a distance.