2005-04-04 - 10:51 a.m.

What a terrific weekend.

Bear with me, I'm typing with hands bandaged and (slightly) bloody.

Spring has been roused and has begun the process of stretching, putting the coffee on, scratching its ass, etc...

Soon enough green will be everywhere and we'll be cursing the swealtering heat, wondering "Where's Fall?" only to shiver in the cold and whine, "When is Spring coming back?"

Saturday night felt like a treadmill prank. The kind where you're enjoying a light jog until someone runs by and flips the switch to full speed. Suddenly, you're faced with an interesting dilemna: Sprint like a motha fucka until the thing runs out of juice or give up and allow your body to be flung from the treads, slamming into the wall with a sickening, albeit it easy-way-out, thud.

If you know me, then you know there was no decision to make.

Thanks in part to a rodeo and the Kenney Chesney concert (I'll be honest, if I spelled his (her?) name correctly, it's pure chance. I'm not going to devote any effort to looking up the correct spelling for a medicore pop-country star. Although it prolly would have taken just as long to look it up as it did to write this aside. Bummer.) the bar was relatively empty for the first few hours of my shift.

Lazily stocking up the bar and shooting the shit with the customers, I joked about the impending influx of customers that would supposedly be flooding our doors come 11ish.

"Gonna be a busy one tonight Dave."

"Ya think so? Awww, c'mon, it ain't like I can't handle anything this bar can throw at me." (Author's note: At work I develop a pseudo country accent)

Ever seen that I Love Lucy episode where they're working at the chocolate factory? Ethel and Lucy are standing along a conveyer belt and choclates are slowly popping out, where upon lucy and ethel must package and bag them before they reach the end of the belt and fall to the floor. Things start out nice and slow, but the manager of the factory, noting the ladies efficient work, starts speeding up the belt. As you can guess, the speed continually increases and soon the two are stuffing chocolates in their pockets, mouths, vaginas, hats, etc... in the hopes of keeping up with the mad pace.

Aboot 10:45ish, the crowd was roughly 300 strong. A few people sporting faux cowboy hats and Kenny t-shirts began stumbling into the bar. They looked like the kind of people who prolly skipped the encore in the hopes of navigating the arena parking lot and making it to Cody's ahead of the rest of the crowd.

I applauded their effort and rewarded them with ice cold beers and whiskey flavored cokes. They slurred descriptions of the mass chaos that was the concert parking lot. They guffawed and snorted as they related tales of "Field of Dreams"-like lines of headlights all heading towards one destination.

"I hope them shoes are padded boy. You're gonna be running your ass off."

At this point the pace of drink serving began a slow steady uphill climb. Accustomed to busy nights, the "bartending rush" slid into my veins like quicksilver. It's that icy-cool rush, muscles going into auto-flex and quick twitch fibers straing while nerve endings fire with every move. The glasses and bottles begin flipping in a zero-gravity environment. I blink and it all goes into super slow-motion. As one glass is rotating in the air, I'm scanning the crowd picking out the order of who's to be served next, my left hand is sending a bottle of Jack spinning 3 feet above the bar, arching just under the glass, my right is scraping quarters off of the counter and launching them 3-point style into the jar. All of this is taking place in that wonderful Matrix-esque style. I enjoy what will be the last cogniscent memory of the night. Somewhere the first notes of Honkey Tonk Woman rip through the smokey air and like that, the world snaps back into regular time. The cup lands safely in my right hand right as I snag the bottle of Jack out of the air with my left like a pop fly in the ninth. The quarters rattle in the jar, and like Pavolov's dog, the drunks are fishing singles out of their wallet and bribing their spot in line with a couple of Washington's.

It clicks and suddenly the crowd is in the palm of my hand. I risk a glance at the door and witness an avalanche of cowboy hats and jordache jeans pressing through the double doors, mouths salivating as they stomp their boots in anticipation. It's a beautiful smorgosbord of old and young, rich and poor, college and working. There's farmer's daughters, sorostitutes, girl next doors...

And they all have to go through me eventually. By midnight the sweat is pouring down my back and every dip into the ice bin is a welcome respite from the heat of 1200 bodies. A quick look at my bar towel reveals a mixture of blood, whiskey and tequilla. The blood is mine, and it's seems to be coming from every finger. Nails are gone thanks to the pop tops of pineapple and cranberry juice cans, the inside of my thumb and index finger is sliced completely raw from bottle cap after bottle cap after bottle cap after bottle cap after bottle cap...

Long islands, Jack and Cokes, Fuzzy Navels, Kamikazes, Sex on the Beach, Scotch on the rocks, Red Bull and Vodka, Jagerblasters, Cherry Bombs, Gin and Tonics, Tom Collins, Amaretto Sours, Lakewaters, the list goes on and on. The recipe book in my brain is frayed and worn, but the dog-eared pages hold up long enough for me to scan the ingredients.

All cylinders are clicking and I look like a blur to the drunks leaning against the bar. They reach for me with greasy fingers, but I'm too quick. They shout, and yell, but I'm too good to get sucked down like that. If you give in to the first "Hey! I was next!" then they eat you alive like a pack of wolves pouncing on wounded prey. You can't show any signs of weakness, they love that shit. They will break you down and rip your heart out of your chest, they will stomp on your face and laugh while you struggle to get up. These people aren't customers. They're animals and you have to treat them as such. If they yell at you, you've gotta smirk and yell right back. If they neglect to tip, then you call their asses on it and embarass them in front of their peers. If you want to rule a pile of shit, then you've have to be able to stand atop the mound even if it means getting your new shoes dirty.

I feel like I've been bartending for days. A glance at my watch shows only 15 minutes have passed. The pace never slows. Even up to the point where the lights are switched on and the cattle are herded out the bar, I'm still sprinting around closing tabs, taking drinks, extingusihing potential conflicts...

The last pair of sneakers zig zags out the doors and I'm alone at last with my mess, my money, and my poor poor hands. Clean-up takes an hour. It's a painful, laborious process, but it also helps to bring me down from the high. Like an addict I have to preoccupy my mind with menial tasks or else risk a complete meltdown from the adrenaline rush that has overtaken every inch of my being.

The money is alot, but it's also justified for the work done. People comment on the amount I make, but they don't realize the work that goes into making it. This isn't Cheers, we don't sit around and have comedic interaction with each other. It's Motha Fuckin Cody's. Haha.

The drive home is a test of will. Trying to keep the car in the middle of the lanes, exhaustion, not drunkeness, threatens to steer the car into oncoming traffic. To a cop I prolly look like a DUI posterchild. Yet I've only had two, maybe 3 shots the entire night.

The shower does more damage then good at first. The hot water, the Irish Spring bar o' soap, both permeate the cuts on my hand introducing me to a whole new world of pain. The caked blood under my nails takes forever to extract. I can't ball my hands into fists without feeling an excrutiating stinging. Soon the sharp sting of the pain fades into a warm buzz that flows from my hands to my feet. My body has adjusted to the sensation and converted it from a painful feeling, to a more comforting one. It's become a small reminder of being alive, of tasting that rush that so few get to enjoy. It's the same rush I find of being on-stage, feeling the eyes...

As I sleep, we Spring forward an hour, but my body doesn't bend to the will of Daylight Savings Time. I sleep until noon. The sun works it's way through the cracks in my blinds and does its damndest to pry my eyelids open. I give in eventually, taking immediate note of the strained muscles in my legs, back, arms, etc.

Getting up requires me to brace my hands on the bed, which in turn lights up every open nerve in every cut, which forces me to rise to my feet a little quicker then expected, which results in that dizzying head rush as blood drains out of my face and down into my toes.

Finally I'm awake and the day beginsagain. Rob and I spend a good 3 or 4 hours doing the necessary yard tasks that accompany the first few days of spring. We rake the front yard, filling up 12 garbage cans worth of leaves, dead grass, etc...

Neil helps us move sticks and fallen branches, and slowly the landscape changes from a dead wasteland to a grassy, quaint, front yard. We hike up on the roof to (finally) take down the canvas of Christmas lights. We bask in the sun as we empty the gutters by hand, rewarding ourselves with blasts from the hose as we push the remaining debris down the drains. Blisters form on my hands and I find myself putting bandaids over band aids over cuts, just to try and keep up.

The work is completed as the sun begins it's leisurely descent into the Western sky. We reward ourselves with croquet (a new favorite!) pizza, and Almost Famous.

As I crawl back into bed I feel a sense of calm finally descend over my mind. The pain, the work, the laughing, the cursing, it's all a lovely reminder of being alive.

Connor, if you don't mind, I need to steal this one from you because it applies in so many ways... life, love, etc...

"I'd rather be working for a paycheck, then waiting to win the lottery."

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