Episode 04: You All Look Like Whiskey People To Me

“I.D.’s”

That was all you’d ever get out of James. No small talk about weather or sports or how things are going at the bar. He’s singularly focused on his job, though it’s tough to tell if that’s bred from indifference or devotion. He may be so concerned with keeping the kids out that he doesn’t want to waste time chatting or he may just be too dumb to make small talk.
Or maybe he was just high. You never could tell

Every night he’d sit at his little stool by the door, rockin’ a flannel jacket, black stocking cap, and Chuck Taylors. He was taller than you’d expect. Never clean shaven, but never slovenly either. Always polite but firm. He never gave away anything.

The only time you could ever get a read on him was by looking at his eyes. He’s one of those guys that seemed to have pure black pupils. I don’t know if it was the lights in the bar or light coming in off the street, but his eyes were almost always lit up. It was the only way you could tell his mood. I came by once and I noticed that his eyes didn’t seem lit up.

“I.D.”

So I went over and asked Birdy, “Hey, what’s up with James?”

“His old man died.”

And that was that. If you hadn’t seen him a hundred times before you wouldn’t have even noticed. Like I said, he never gave anything away.

James had a partner. A black dude named Nick. Nick gave everything away.

“How you guys doing tonight?”

“Cold out there, huh?”

“You got your I.D.’s?

“Roseville? You’re a long way from home!”

Nick looked like everyone in Minneapolis. Black jacket, black hat, blue jean, tattoos, glasses. He stood a little shorter than James with a layer of Midwestern baby fat.

People alternately loved and despised Nick. I know he got around Minneapolis a little bit. Just about every regular at the CC Club has a story about, “the one time I went out with Nick.”

Nick & James complemented each other well. They would both turn up about 6:00 and flip a coin to see which of them would watch the door first. In the winter, whoever won the toss got the door while the loser went out to keep an eye on the smoking patio. In the summer, it was reversed. They’d switch up every hour on the hour.

They kept a pitcher of Premium out on that smoking patio and they’d each put down a couple of pints and a couple of cigarettes each hour. Obviously, Nick would engage the other smokers, usually pulling two or three of them over to his table to chat them up. He rarely left the bar without a girl by his side.

Again, obviously, James was just the opposite. He’d sit at that table chaining Marlboro’s and sipping Premium, always keeping an eye on who was coming and going, but never going out of his way to speak to anyone.

These two have been working at this bar for as long as I’ve been coming here. I don’t know if they knew each other before they got this job or if it was just one of those things that fate shakes out. I do know one thing, though: You do not fuck with them.