Night Business
I used to intentionally piss off
the hot heads
Say things to the crazies only they could
hear so when they freaked out the whole
bar would be behind me for their going
off on me for no apparent reason
I used to throw guys out I didn’t like
the look of
jerk losers around just because I could
deny service to people before they could
even order a drink
lie to people for no good reason
It takes balls to do shit like that
or else you have to be crazy or completely
drunk
And it was easy to be completely drunk
in those days
I hated the whole world and everyone in it
myself worst of all
Most of all what I was
was damned lucky none of them ever
came back for me with a gun or a knife
the way they said they would
A couple called me on the public phone
and threatened my life but all I did was laugh,
said, “Say that to my face, pussy, like you mean it.”
I probably wouldn’t have known who they were
if they did
I guess that they remembered me at all was
bad enough
Now that I’m sober and walk the same streets
they do I often wonder, “Do they still remember me?
Do they still care?”
Alan Catlin worked for the better part of 34 years in his unchosen profession as a barman in and around the greater Albany, NY area. He has published dozens of chapbooks and full-length books focusing on his work and the people he met while laboring in the trenches of bar warfare. Alan is the editor at Misfit Magazine.
