$3 Makers

Three stools down, to my right, is John.

He won’t drink it if it’s not Absolute, he informs me.

Next to John is a nameless man, hands stained with paint,

who came in with him.

He’s on the phone apologizing for a septic tank that’s backed up.

He’d installed it last month.

 

To my left is another John, white and beardless

and old and leathered.

He’s driven a truck the last twelve years.

Half the time while drunk, he says,

but he’s never had a ticket, he says,

and that’s the trick, he says,

but he never says to what.

 

I’m in the middle but not in between, and

that’s  important. They’ve got the radio

on: Koko Taylor, and I’m halfway through a second beer.

The bartender’s eyes are sagged from marijuana.

Last weekend he said he jumped off a bridge

for no reason except that it was there.

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