tavern writing

Oregon Tavern Age: Tiny’s Tavern and the Legend of Evelyn Part 1

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age , , , , , , ,

A woman leaned against the facade of Tiny’s Tavern in North Bend.

She wore her blonde hair in a ponytail. She also wore black cat-eye gasses, pink pajama bottoms, a gray hoodie and UGG boots. A cigarette dangled from her lips. A nose ring sparkled in the sunlight. There were hushed OTA whispers in the lines of her face.

“Are you my bartender?” I said.

“I’m your bartender,” she said.

She snuffed out the cigarette with her fingers, shoved it into a pajama pocket, and we went into the tavern together. It was 11:45 on a weekday morning and I’d never had a bartender wearing pajama bottoms serve me a drink before.

Steve Miller’s “Jungle Love” played on the digital jukebox. I was the only customer. I sat down at the bar and ordered a local session beer. I listened to Steve sing: Everything’s better when wet.

The session materialized in record time. Must have been the pajamas.

I looked around Tiny’s. It was tiny and had carpeted walls, something I’d never seen before.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Point Blank” came on. I hadn’t heard it in 25 years and never before in a bar.

I was gonna be your Romeo you were gonna be my Juliet
These days you don’t wait on Romeo’s you wait on that welfare check
and on all the pretty things that you can’t ever have and on all the promises
That always end up point blank, shot between the eyes

The bartender chose this semi-obscure song, perhaps the bleakest in Bruce’s catalog? I started liking her. I started thinking of a short story about her in the “Point Blank” tradition and wondered what Bruce would have made lyrically from a pink pajama-wearing bartender before noon who had walked to work in a dead mill town because no one would give her a ride.

I looked to my right, to the marquee menu over the deep fryer and grill. It had movable type and was surely the last movable type menu in America.

A menu item caught my eye: gizzards, $3.

I asked the bartender if anyone ever ordered the gizzards.

“One woman. Yes. I’ve got a regular who calls in for three takeout orders,” she said.

Takeout Gizzards—great rock band name.

“How old is she?” I was expecting someone elderly, OTA to the stone greasy core.

“In her 20s.”

“What’s she drink?”

“Coronas. She slams a couple before leaving.”

“Hang Fire” by the Rolling Stones came on.

In the sweet old country where I come from
Nobody ever works
Yeah nothing gets done
We hang fire, we hang fire

Three women entered the joint—all OTA.

“Lunch time!” one of them said. “Shot of whiskey.”

The bartender went to the Jack Daniels Fire.

There is word for the convergence of fire like that. I’ll let a wordsmith figure it out.

“Jesus I’m winded!” she continued. “Three blocks is a long way to walk!” She laughed.

She wore black lycra shorts and a black lycra top. No coat. In November. She weighed well over 250 pounds and was about the happiest person I’d seen in years. A lot happier than me.

The bartender handed her the shot of Jack Fire.

“I’m here to defeat the Ninja!” she yelled, referring to video slot machine that featured a Ninja holding a sword. She made Ninja-like sword movements with the shot and then pounded it.

A new bartender appeared and the pajama lady left. I never got her name as she sashayed out the door.

I sipped the session and watched the new bartender punch in juke box selections. A Billy Joel song from the 70s came on that I didn’t recognize.

A framed photograph of an old woman above the back bar intrigued me. You never see this sort of decoration in brew pubs—but they are legion in OTA country. They are landmarks in OTA country.

“Who’s that woman?” I said to the bartender.

“That’s Evelyn.”

The music stopped. The digital goblins were mucking up the works.

And then the bartender launched into Evelyn’s OTA story and I hadn’t even solicited it.

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Oregon Tavern Age: Cowbell

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An OTA man dressed in tan Carhartts and a blue flannel shirt drank white wine at a table, somewhere in remote OTA country, nearly off the grid, so off the grid that the precise location no longer registers with me. The room was dark and an OTA man played guitar in a corner and crooned a decent version of David Bowie’s “Heroes.”

I sat a table away and drank an ale. There were five other people in the room.

The wine vanished. The bartender appeared and the man ordered a bloody mary. She placed a menu on the table. He picked up the menu and looked at it in the most curious way. I couldn’t fathom the reason.

Bowie drifted into Springsteen’s “Glory Days.” The bloody mary materialized and he downed most of it with a single gulp. He went back to the menu and I still couldn’t comprehend his reading method and I used to be a reading comprehension teacher.

It hit me: he couldn’t read. He was sort of pretending to read the menu. I’d never seen an illiterate adult trying to read, or faking it, let alone in a bar, but I was sure he couldn’t read. It was the way his eyes moved and his fingers traced the menu. I’d seen it before.

The bartender came over. The man handed her the menu.

“Why don’t you order me something you like?” he said.

“Oh sure, no problem. How about the club sandwich?” she said.

“Fine. I’d like fries with that and another glass of wine and another bloody mary.”

The singer launched into Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”

A few minutes later, another OTA man joined the man at the table. He was carrying a small black pouch. He ordered a beer from the bartender and then extracted a cowbell from the pouch.

I did a double take. I’ve seen a lot in OTA country over the years but the illiterate man drinking white wine had thrown me a bit. Now, I had someone who was going to sit in with a cowbell. How many classic rock songs would lend themselves to that treatment? Perhaps there was a whole set with cowbell as the featured instrument! Perhaps a 30-minute version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper!”

My beer was gone. I got up to leave and then immediately sat down. I was suddenly giddy to hear the cowbell and I also felt incredible empathy for the man who couldn’t read. It was a weird contrast of feelings, but contrasts create friction and friction fires interesting stories. I sat five feet away from one that was about to ratchet up, way up.

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.)