Space Bar
It’s not easy being a bartender when you are far away from home- light years away. The hyper space jumps curdle your pinacoladas. Zero gravity blips upset the muddle in the mojito. You get to meet all sorts in a regular bar –mostly the usual drunks. A bartender in space meets the same drunks in all sorts of colors. It’s a job and there can be worse ones.
I am a super luxury five star rated bar tender. I got this job through a wager. I serve drinks all day or night, depending on how you define time here, to some twenty really lonely people- regular blue collar types- up on a star ship dock. It’s a harbor ship- a floating waterfront- that’s hanging somewhere between two planetary collectives in the milky way. At times, I think I am dreaming all this up. I might have had two pills too many –some old bugger passing it to me as a tip and I go ballistic-space diving sky rocketing ballistic.
Space travel is way back in vogue. There are all kinds landing up at the bar suddenly and ours is the top of the tops-rated highest on barsofthegalaxy.com. Vague life forms hanging on as arm candy-reptilian, ovoid, vaporous and intelligent blue. They all want screwdrivers and long islands. They get hammered and tip lavishly with gadgets, pills, advice and occasionally, money. They love me.
I play my part behind the bar, serving up drinks, listening to chatter and nodding my head, dancing with mixers and shakers and glorious rock and roll.
The characters of this story-the main ones- are as follows. You might encounter the occasional sauntering in of one or more distraught souls in need of the comfort of alcohol, but they are props, bystanders, collateral.
First there's this girl- I call her Lucy. She claims to be dating this crazy money loaded blasphemous amoral gangster back on earth. She flaunts the diamonds here in the sky to prove her point. She is loaded by gangster and the almighty in ways that command awe from any man with a sense of duty to the human race... you know...the one about being fruitful and multiplying. She is dangerous, vaguely depressed and acts like she has nothing to lose. She tips well. She wears them stones on the soles of her space shoes. Pink Margarita –cranberry or strawberry – is what she gets hammered on.
Character B is a bizarre man- I don’t know his name. He is the chief engineer here. He looks forty something and acts like he just turned twenty three. He drinks shots- tequila mostly– and looks around to see if anyone is impressed. People were impressed twenty months back. Now he is another drunk, who has a lousy temper. He is mad because Lucy does not care for him. Lucy is in the administrative department and really doesn’t give two swings of Thor’s hammer for him. It drives him crazy. When he gets crazy he boasts of his on-board sexual exploits. Mostly false and almost inaccurate.The drinking is getting to him and he is getting fat around the middle and the face. He never tips.
Finally there'sa decrepit white pygmy shrew called Benjy, who with his evil red eyes has made his way up into the ship and the story through inexplicable circumstances. He’s a bystander-collateral etc and he’s the protagonist. The catalyst. Something or the other. He eats up lime I keep for the mojitos and the Cuba Libres.
Other characters can be safely ignored.
When Lucy walks in, there's already Jim, sitting at the bar table, discussing the state of affairs back home with Jo and Jnan. Jo is feeling up Jnan’s thighs below the table, because she is bored and doesn’t want to hear about earth anymore. Jim’s features make him look Korean but he claims some African descent. Anything’s possible these days. They are technicians who help lubricate the systems on docking ships. They are not going anywhere. They will chatter on, while Jo ignores them and drifts in her mind with me at a distance, observing and being observed observing. I serve them up whiskey on the rocks with a smile and my trademark click of the shoes.
So, Lucy walks in. She takes brisk steps full of purposeful intent. She is in Star Trek in her mind. She dresses in red jumpsuit that’s tight as a rubber wrap. No man will complain about that. She shakes her black hair loose and kicks her diamond studded shoes away as she glides into the barstool on the other end-far away from the three Jakes from Chinatown. Strawberry Margarita for the pretty lady I ask. She nods with a smile she reserves for me. I do the ritual. I shake the ice and strain, dancing like Bowie on gasoline.
When I serve it up for her with a slice of lime carved like a crescent of Jupiter, she asks if the stories one hears of the Gods are true. I lean in closer, leaning across the white starch white bar table, making like I cannot hear her, but I just want to smell her once more. I lean in close to her ears.
Will there really be a God making rendezvous one day she asks. I smile and look pleasantly dumb. That's what I do best. She lifts one eyebrow and looks away without a pause. No man can bear to see her that way. I break the third barrier and I tell her that I believe we are as much gods to these strange beings, we meet so often these days, as they are to us.
May be we look perfect to them or sound perfect to them, I tell her.Maybe they are yet to discover the magic of alcohol and the sublime art of making a drink. Maybe they have never known how to love a woman. Maybe they don’t know what a woman is.
Benjy squeaks from behind. He crawls up the display shelves and noses at the Imperial and the Martini bottles. He claws at the Barrel Reserve Cuban rum and dances around it, turning head around tail thrice. He stares fixedly at Lucy with those red eyes. I give him a slice of lime. He takes it in his paws and gets busy.
Lucy lights a cigarette and blows pensive smoke rings staring back at Benjy. Jo taps at her glass with the index finger. I pour her the Irish till she says stop. The other two Js are forced to drink their glasses up, looking at what she was fixed. I pour them their drinks. The oldest trick in the bartender’s manual and it always works- even ten thousand miles up high. Get the woman drunk and the men will follow twice as high.
The engineer walks in looking per-occupied. We are playing some synth pop rock tonight. He looks that way no matter what plays or who is in the bar. He thinks it makes him look serious. To me he always looks like he has lost a penny in a stack of seaweed. He takes the stool next to Lucy, pretending not to notice that she was there. It’s a sham. He is made that way. Some people are. He looks at Jo instead and nods a casual superior nod. The poor girl is too drunk to pretend delight and gives a pale imitation of sweetness. Lucy keeps blowing her smoke circles.
A shot of vodka he says. I take out a shot glass, pour him a forty five and I wait. He downs it in one go and slams the shot glass down. I pour thirty. He downs, slams and does his looking around. He has no one to look around at but Lucy, Benjy, three drunk Js and I, none of whom look impressed. Benjy lets the slice of lime drop loudly on to a steel ice bucket.
We will meet someone today, he says. He might be a sod, but he is still a customer so I ask if it’s an earth ship that he is expecting. No he tells me and tries to give a look of significance aimed at Lucy. He is waiting to make new contact, he says. Lucy feigns disinterest but is listening intently. We make contact in T plus twenty one earth hours he says with deep gravity in his voice. Even the three Js are listening, but they figure this might be information that they might get hauled up for knowing later. So they ask for the bill frantically which I stream into their systems and they accept gratefully and leave. They don’t leave too well and upset a few stools in anxiety but it’s not an unmanageable mess. I excuse myself from behind the bar to go set the stools right.
He leans towards Lucy who stiffens a bit. He looks a little terrified. This time the contact has been different, he says-There are stories floating in the ether channels. There are stories of Sea creatures in five planets that are giving birth to human babies. There’s a miracle maker flying around dropping his divine seed and he chooses to dock here, he says in a whisper. He looks around for me. Says he will have the Blaster please.
I have made that just once in this bar and it almost killed him. I look at him once to see if he is sure. He is. My Blaster is thirty of Beefeater, five of Drambuie, five of a bitter and ten of my own little sauce made from fermented blue pepper fruit, orange peel, lime and pickle juice. It can kill if needed. Benjy is hanging around the Beefeater again. I feed him another slice of lime and make the drink. I mix it up in an ice shaker and strain it into two shot glasses. One for the lady I smile. Smarmy sweet talking slimy old me. Lucy shrugs and takes it up. She signals cheers to us and raises her chin up as if she has to get the shot go straight down.
He forgets to slam his glass down. Lucy gasps a bit, moans. The engineer has his head in his hands and says it's beautiful three times. He flings himself at Lucy’s breasts. She swats his hand away and he loses balance, but does not fall. He has tears in his eyes and sobs how afraid he is. He lays his head on the bar table and passes out. Benjy is scurrying next to him with evil flaring red eyes. Lucy looks transfixed at the two of them. The engineer froths just a little at the corner of the mouth and ceases to breathe. Benjy makes his way back to the Barrel Reserve and is never seen again, at least by me.
The synth rock gets louder thanks to the auto loops. It’s time for at least five more people to drop in. Lucy looks absent, less self assured. She seems to shiver. She is looking in silence at the bottle Benjy disappeared behind. After five minutes of silent shivering, she makes to get up and leave. The Blaster is getting to her. She tells me she will be around later. She emphasizes the word in this hushed up tone. I nod and thank her for picking up the engineer's tab. She glides out as two girls walk in asking for karaoke. She walks streaming blue and green diamond light.
I serve drinks, wipe the table and clean up the bar. They take the engineer away. They will try to resurrect him. They know I am not to blame. Lucy can be a suspect. I am not sure if I have anything to defend her with if it came to it. It’s not my business and I really can’t explain anything anyways.
Lucy keeps her word. She comes back twenty hours later, when the bar is finally quiet. She doesn’t speak. She takes the Cuban Barrel Reserve and pours golden rum into the suction basin. She mutters a rhyme in a language I know but seem to have forgotten. She does it with an air of austerity, like she is pouring sand into a good old fashioned grave. There are no diamonds on her any more. She turns to me and kisses me like her life depended on it and I oblige. As we make that strange creature with two humps the ship makes its final contact. I am wide awake.
It’s not easy being a bartender when you are far away from home- light years away. The hyper space jumps curdle your pinacoladas. Zero gravity blips upset the muddle in the mojito. You get to meet all sorts in a regular bar –mostly the usual drunks. A bartender in space meets the same drunks in all sorts of colors. It’s a job and there can be worse ones.
I am a super luxury five star rated bar tender. I got this job through a wager. I serve drinks all day or night, depending on how you define time here, to some twenty really lonely people- regular blue collar types- up on a star ship dock. It’s a harbor ship- a floating waterfront- that’s hanging somewhere between two planetary collectives in the milky way. At times, I think I am dreaming all this up. I might have had two pills too many –some old bugger passing it to me as a tip and I go ballistic-space diving sky rocketing ballistic.
Space travel is way back in vogue. There are all kinds landing up at the bar suddenly and ours is the top of the tops-rated highest on barsofthegalaxy.com. Vague life forms hanging on as arm candy-reptilian, ovoid, vaporous and intelligent blue. They all want screwdrivers and long islands. They get hammered and tip lavishly with gadgets, pills, advice and occasionally, money. They love me.
I play my part behind the bar, serving up drinks, listening to chatter and nodding my head, dancing with mixers and shakers and glorious rock and roll.
The characters of this story-the main ones- are as follows. You might encounter the occasional sauntering in of one or more distraught souls in need of the comfort of alcohol, but they are props, bystanders, collateral.
First there's this girl- I call her Lucy. She claims to be dating this crazy money loaded blasphemous amoral gangster back on earth. She flaunts the diamonds here in the sky to prove her point. She is loaded by gangster and the almighty in ways that command awe from any man with a sense of duty to the human race... you know...the one about being fruitful and multiplying. She is dangerous, vaguely depressed and acts like she has nothing to lose. She tips well. She wears them stones on the soles of her space shoes. Pink Margarita –cranberry or strawberry – is what she gets hammered on.
Character B is a bizarre man- I don’t know his name. He is the chief engineer here. He looks forty something and acts like he just turned twenty three. He drinks shots- tequila mostly– and looks around to see if anyone is impressed. People were impressed twenty months back. Now he is another drunk, who has a lousy temper. He is mad because Lucy does not care for him. Lucy is in the administrative department and really doesn’t give two swings of Thor’s hammer for him. It drives him crazy. When he gets crazy he boasts of his on-board sexual exploits. Mostly false and almost inaccurate.The drinking is getting to him and he is getting fat around the middle and the face. He never tips.
Finally there'sa decrepit white pygmy shrew called Benjy, who with his evil red eyes has made his way up into the ship and the story through inexplicable circumstances. He’s a bystander-collateral etc and he’s the protagonist. The catalyst. Something or the other. He eats up lime I keep for the mojitos and the Cuba Libres.
Other characters can be safely ignored.
When Lucy walks in, there's already Jim, sitting at the bar table, discussing the state of affairs back home with Jo and Jnan. Jo is feeling up Jnan’s thighs below the table, because she is bored and doesn’t want to hear about earth anymore. Jim’s features make him look Korean but he claims some African descent. Anything’s possible these days. They are technicians who help lubricate the systems on docking ships. They are not going anywhere. They will chatter on, while Jo ignores them and drifts in her mind with me at a distance, observing and being observed observing. I serve them up whiskey on the rocks with a smile and my trademark click of the shoes.
So, Lucy walks in. She takes brisk steps full of purposeful intent. She is in Star Trek in her mind. She dresses in red jumpsuit that’s tight as a rubber wrap. No man will complain about that. She shakes her black hair loose and kicks her diamond studded shoes away as she glides into the barstool on the other end-far away from the three Jakes from Chinatown. Strawberry Margarita for the pretty lady I ask. She nods with a smile she reserves for me. I do the ritual. I shake the ice and strain, dancing like Bowie on gasoline.
When I serve it up for her with a slice of lime carved like a crescent of Jupiter, she asks if the stories one hears of the Gods are true. I lean in closer, leaning across the white starch white bar table, making like I cannot hear her, but I just want to smell her once more. I lean in close to her ears.
Will there really be a God making rendezvous one day she asks. I smile and look pleasantly dumb. That's what I do best. She lifts one eyebrow and looks away without a pause. No man can bear to see her that way. I break the third barrier and I tell her that I believe we are as much gods to these strange beings, we meet so often these days, as they are to us.
May be we look perfect to them or sound perfect to them, I tell her.Maybe they are yet to discover the magic of alcohol and the sublime art of making a drink. Maybe they have never known how to love a woman. Maybe they don’t know what a woman is.
Benjy squeaks from behind. He crawls up the display shelves and noses at the Imperial and the Martini bottles. He claws at the Barrel Reserve Cuban rum and dances around it, turning head around tail thrice. He stares fixedly at Lucy with those red eyes. I give him a slice of lime. He takes it in his paws and gets busy.
Lucy lights a cigarette and blows pensive smoke rings staring back at Benjy. Jo taps at her glass with the index finger. I pour her the Irish till she says stop. The other two Js are forced to drink their glasses up, looking at what she was fixed. I pour them their drinks. The oldest trick in the bartender’s manual and it always works- even ten thousand miles up high. Get the woman drunk and the men will follow twice as high.
The engineer walks in looking per-occupied. We are playing some synth pop rock tonight. He looks that way no matter what plays or who is in the bar. He thinks it makes him look serious. To me he always looks like he has lost a penny in a stack of seaweed. He takes the stool next to Lucy, pretending not to notice that she was there. It’s a sham. He is made that way. Some people are. He looks at Jo instead and nods a casual superior nod. The poor girl is too drunk to pretend delight and gives a pale imitation of sweetness. Lucy keeps blowing her smoke circles.
A shot of vodka he says. I take out a shot glass, pour him a forty five and I wait. He downs it in one go and slams the shot glass down. I pour thirty. He downs, slams and does his looking around. He has no one to look around at but Lucy, Benjy, three drunk Js and I, none of whom look impressed. Benjy lets the slice of lime drop loudly on to a steel ice bucket.
We will meet someone today, he says. He might be a sod, but he is still a customer so I ask if it’s an earth ship that he is expecting. No he tells me and tries to give a look of significance aimed at Lucy. He is waiting to make new contact, he says. Lucy feigns disinterest but is listening intently. We make contact in T plus twenty one earth hours he says with deep gravity in his voice. Even the three Js are listening, but they figure this might be information that they might get hauled up for knowing later. So they ask for the bill frantically which I stream into their systems and they accept gratefully and leave. They don’t leave too well and upset a few stools in anxiety but it’s not an unmanageable mess. I excuse myself from behind the bar to go set the stools right.
He leans towards Lucy who stiffens a bit. He looks a little terrified. This time the contact has been different, he says-There are stories floating in the ether channels. There are stories of Sea creatures in five planets that are giving birth to human babies. There’s a miracle maker flying around dropping his divine seed and he chooses to dock here, he says in a whisper. He looks around for me. Says he will have the Blaster please.
I have made that just once in this bar and it almost killed him. I look at him once to see if he is sure. He is. My Blaster is thirty of Beefeater, five of Drambuie, five of a bitter and ten of my own little sauce made from fermented blue pepper fruit, orange peel, lime and pickle juice. It can kill if needed. Benjy is hanging around the Beefeater again. I feed him another slice of lime and make the drink. I mix it up in an ice shaker and strain it into two shot glasses. One for the lady I smile. Smarmy sweet talking slimy old me. Lucy shrugs and takes it up. She signals cheers to us and raises her chin up as if she has to get the shot go straight down.
He forgets to slam his glass down. Lucy gasps a bit, moans. The engineer has his head in his hands and says it's beautiful three times. He flings himself at Lucy’s breasts. She swats his hand away and he loses balance, but does not fall. He has tears in his eyes and sobs how afraid he is. He lays his head on the bar table and passes out. Benjy is scurrying next to him with evil flaring red eyes. Lucy looks transfixed at the two of them. The engineer froths just a little at the corner of the mouth and ceases to breathe. Benjy makes his way back to the Barrel Reserve and is never seen again, at least by me.
The synth rock gets louder thanks to the auto loops. It’s time for at least five more people to drop in. Lucy looks absent, less self assured. She seems to shiver. She is looking in silence at the bottle Benjy disappeared behind. After five minutes of silent shivering, she makes to get up and leave. The Blaster is getting to her. She tells me she will be around later. She emphasizes the word in this hushed up tone. I nod and thank her for picking up the engineer's tab. She glides out as two girls walk in asking for karaoke. She walks streaming blue and green diamond light.
I serve drinks, wipe the table and clean up the bar. They take the engineer away. They will try to resurrect him. They know I am not to blame. Lucy can be a suspect. I am not sure if I have anything to defend her with if it came to it. It’s not my business and I really can’t explain anything anyways.
Lucy keeps her word. She comes back twenty hours later, when the bar is finally quiet. She doesn’t speak. She takes the Cuban Barrel Reserve and pours golden rum into the suction basin. She mutters a rhyme in a language I know but seem to have forgotten. She does it with an air of austerity, like she is pouring sand into a good old fashioned grave. There are no diamonds on her any more. She turns to me and kisses me like her life depended on it and I oblige. As we make that strange creature with two humps the ship makes its final contact. I am wide awake.
