The yellow-toothed guy at Lenny’s Tap
who speaks of someday like it’s an actual date
insists on telling me his life story.
Normally I would shut him up
with some cantankerous comment,
but since he bought the last couple rounds
I feel compelled to listen
with that manufactured compassion
only strangers can show each other.
First he recalls his ex-wife with drunken clarity,
a plain waitress in a powder blue uniform,
her name in script over her left breast.
He remembers the years wasted
pacing the floor of her restless heart,
and before he can stamp out those memories
like stray sparks from a fire,
he thinks of the last words
she spoke before leaving,
complaining he was the one
who had changed.
Next he pictures his father
and the dreams he must've deferred
to put food on the table and pay the mortgage,
and how embarrassed his old man would be
to know his only son can’t hold a job
and squanders time drinking at this dive,
searching for confidence at the bottom of bottles.
Consolation is limited,
despite the understanding of an empathetic soul
sitting on a barstool beside him.
But for the fair price of two light beers,
this man is taking an opportunity to confess
all the desperate moments of anarchy he secretly cherishes,
as the bartender grabs the night’s empties
and the jukebox croons its slow, tired song.