בס"ד
It was
Saturday night, and I was tired. Aaron, one of my best friends, had gotten
married a few days prior to my late shift. A lot of time that had been set
aside for school work had been relocated for the various preparations we had
taken upon ourselves for his wedding. This in turn had resulted in losing an
incredible amount of time that had been relegated for sleep. Since Thursday
morning, the (in)famous DZ and NZ and myself had been hanging out with each
other and Aaron in various combinations. Good food, better spirits, and a great
time were had by all, but by the time the Motzei Shabbat late shift
rolled around, my eyelids were being held open by Olympian will and my liver
was still processing the large, high-quality quantities of Thursday’s nuptial
cheer.
Which is
why at 2:30 in the morning, when I found myself completing the liter of beer I
had started two glasses ago, I had to cock an eyebrow at myself. But it was
late, and if I was going to be hanging out alone with the taps for another hour
and a half, I was going to make the most out of it. For a brief second it had
crossed my mind that drinking alone is the first sign of alcoholism, but hey, I’m
a professional.
Relative
for a Saturday night, business had hit a hard lull- especially considering the
perfect jacket weather outside. An hour so before, DZ and NZ had returned for a
wedding after-party (sans bride and groom), but since their departure the Slow
had really begun to live up to its name. A few other friends of mine had stopped
in and then decided it was too late to drink, leaving five minutes after
arriving, and taking the last of the customers with them.
Candles
from the empty tables cast small flickering shadows on the red walls, and the
chairs stood silently, empty skeletons aglow in the permanent dusk of the quiet
pub. Moshe forbids us to close before the official closing time (4am weekend,
3am regular days), but I try to leave as soon as the display blinks with the
appropriate time, so I began to do whatever I could to hasten the end of the
shift. While wiping down the assortment of mismatched café tables, dreaming of
cute girls from the wedding and trying to gauge bothmy feelings and chances, my
100 strong “bar appropriate” playlist continued its lengthy shuffle.
Soon, Sublime
attacked the stereo with “What I Got”. I shoot a glance around the bar and out
onto the street. Empty. The soft acoustic beginning rolled into the song’s famous
reggae-rap, and my body, sore and well-worn from the celebration of new love
and new life, began to move of its own accord. Nobody was around to interfere,
to be stepped on or bumped into. I pranced around the larger area of the bar,
in the large aisle that separates tables 9, 10, 11, 12 (whose placement on the
computer screen changes every night), breaking moves and popping with the beat.
Legs crossed with knees bent, propelling my body with a quick jump. Front leg,
back leg, an Irish jig of a shuffle moving me from one end of the small room to
the other.
The bar became
my ball room, the canvas for my redefinition of movement. With a kick and push,
I challenged the wall’s dancing shadows with my creativity. Alone in the Slow,
the complex emotions of the week released themselves through my legs for five
minutes before I forced myself to stop- I preferred not to sweat into the pints
I might have had to pour with the entrance of a last minute customer. But Good
Lord in Heaven, I had never danced so well.
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