Ramshackle

*1000 words, since I missed yesterday
*this was a pretty fun write, took about an hour
*I won't even look through this before publishing, I'm thinking about maybe spending a day a week or more out from when I first write to go through and edit old posts that I want to.

Ramshackle is a zero stop light town.  It does have two taverns, though.  Ramsey’s is on the west side of main street, and the Owl & Thistle is on the east side of main street, a few hundred feet south of Ramsey’s.  The Owl & Thistle is a fine establishment, classy bar stools, a nice felt pool table and a juke box with a wide assortment of music for the patrons listening pleasure.  This story takes place at Ramsey’s.  It isn’t a nice establishment.

First time I walked into Ramsey’s was on the night of my first day in Ramshackle.  I jumped at the offer of staying in Montana for a summer, lending an extra hand doing work on my uncle’s farm the summer after my senior year in college at the University of Washington.  I wasn’t getting paid, but I didn’t have to pay rent and most meals were provided by Aunt Clara.  “What’s another mouth to feed?” she said unchallenged, with three kids, herself and big Uncle Reggie to feed already.

It had taken 15 solid hours to drive out from Seattle in the middle of June.  On my trip I got to see the blue of Lake Washington, the rich green of the Snoqualmie forest, the white cap of Alpental, and the remaining 500 miles of brown in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana.  When I pulled up to the farm around 8pm in my 93’ Toyota Corolla, my uncle was on his way out.  He gave me a big bear hug, introduced me to his family who I had only seen in Christmas cards, and invited me out with him to meet up with a few of his buddies in town.  I was tired enough to decline, but I had told myself during the UW commencement speech that I would try to be more outgoing.  That, and a cold beer sounded amazing.  In hindsight, I really should have just crashed—I could have saved myself a lot of money.

He drove his pickup truck the five miles into town, giving me some quick information about the town and his two buddies we were heading to meet: Rusty and Pat.  I remember my uncle telling me how Rusty was a wise-ass, and Pat was quiet, but someone you wanted in your corner when things got rough.  It didn’t occur to me at the time that things would get rough, but now I understand why Uncle Reggie chose to mention that little factoid about Pat.

We rolled into town just as the sun was setting, and looking back west towards the setting sun, I couldn’t help think of Seattle and how my girlfriend was doing.  She would be leaving on a year-long fellowship to study the cultures in well-known lake-monster towns all across the world.  I shit you not.  She won a $30,000 fellowship to travel the world and go swim with Loch Ness.  She was sad to see me go the night before, as I was sad to leave her, but we both knew our travels were what we wanted to do right now.  The last night with her for a year was memorable: I made dinner for us at my place, and then we spent the next 12 hours in my bedroom.  I was surprisingly well rested for the drive the next morning, but by Spokane I realized that most of my awakeness earlier in the day was excitement for the unknowns of my summer, and less due to good sleep.

Uncle Reggie didn’t help by parking directly in front of the Owl & Thistle.  I began walking into the tavern when my uncle yelled, “No, kid! We’re meeting down at Ramsey’s. This bar is for pussies.”

The three gentlemen with leather jackets, smoking just outside the tavern doors didn’t appreciate my uncle Reggie saying those words, nor the stare Reggie gave them while saying it.  The three bikers didn’t do anything, at least not right then.  We walked a few minutes north to Ramsey’s and I would have missed it, because all I saw was “amy’s” in neon lights, with a little gap between the “am” and the “y”.  In Seattle, there are dive bars, but they wouldn’t have a word for the type of place this was.

The entrance dropped down a flight of stairs into a basement, and the entrance steps were all at varying degrees of slant, which Reggie floated down with ease and I stumbled on like I was wearing flippers.  Even though it was getting dark outside, it was so dark in Ramsey’s that I could barely make out the bar—I just followed my uncle.  He high-fived a few guys, kissed a few women on the cheek, and waved his hand at the bartender as he passed by.  I’m not sure how the wave translated to “Three pitchers of MGD and six shots of vodka”, but it seemed to without much trouble.

Having that much booze in front of the two of us at a circular table in the middle of an otherwise sparse crowd, seemed like overkill.  I asked my uncle why we had six shots, thinking there were only Rusty and Pat joining us.

“We’ve got to catch up, they’ve been drinking since 5pm.” He said as he handed me two shots.

My uncle grabbed two shots himself, clinked them with mine, then clinked his own shots together and said, “One for the dick, two for the tits!” and promptly pounded back one shot after the other.

I sat with two shots in my hands while he slammed his empty glasses on the table and picked up his last glass and yelled to the entire bar: “And three for the…” at once, with a noise that reverberated through the entire tavern, everyone else in the bar shouted, “Holes!!!”

“Did they just say holes?” I asked, two shots still in my hands.

“You get it?  Chicks have three holes you can…” he hinted at.

Before I could respond, someone came up from behind me and grabbed both shots out of my hands and pounded them both, and then gave me the loudest, spit-projectile laugh in my life.

“Hah!!  The name’s Rusty, you must be… oh Goddarnit…”

“Ma” I began.

“Matt!  I knew your Goddamn name, don’t rush me!  Good to meet you!” Rusty said as he shifted the shot glass from his right hand to double up in his left, and extended his right hand to me.

“Good to meet you, too.” I said.

“Whoa there, sonny, you better watch your drink.” Rusty said.

“I suppose I should have!” I said with a laugh.

“No, I mean right now.”

I turned around in my seat to find my third shot being slammed back down onto the table by a short, balding man to my left.  Reggie and Rusty laughed.

“You must be Pat.” I said.  He gave me a nod.