great wall 1

 This one is not as long as Catfish, but is set in the same place.

It was four blocks through white and wind and sneaker-soaking drifts with a Loch Ness monster scotch hangover to The Great Wall, but today was Leon’s birthday and I had to show up for that.  I pulled the door open and it banged shut behind me with a blast of blizzard.

Annette ran down from the head of the stairs to see who was coming in and she was a little disappointed that it was just me, the bartender, and not the new girl, just hired yesterday afternoon, who lived clear across town, and was already late.  And if she didn’t show then who would wait tables?

“It’s not going to be me, I’ll tell you that.” she assured me, though of course it would be.  She had climbed her way up from waitress to head waitress to managing the waitresses, and her tray toting days were over thank you very much.

I shrugged, tried to give her a sympathetic look, as if I gave a shit, and brushed on past her to the side room to punch in and hang up my coat.  Against a wall were the tea urns already fired up warm and moist and inviting after the white and wind as I poured myself a cup.  But maybe they were steaming a little too much.  The room was filling with fog so maybe something needed to be turned down.  I wandered back towards the cash register to tell Annette.

And just then the front door slammed open and shut again and Annette squealed like a schoolgirl.  Dawn, the new girl had arrived, and Annette’s dignity was saved.  Through my steam-fogged glasses I could barely make out two figures looming towards me from the dark dining room.  Annette had Dawn by the elbow and was guiding her back to the side room because Dawn had walked clear across town in the blizzard to get here and now her eyes were frozen shut.

“All the way from Vine Street,” Annette was saying, “Walked clear here in the storm with her eyes frozen shut” and she led her past me into the side room. By the time I got back Dawn’s dark hair was a nest of snowflakes, ice crystals glistened in her eyelashes, melted in the steam from the tea urns, damped her rosy cheeks, and allowed her to open her now unfrozen eyes.  Shrugging off her coat shyly, revealing her red Great Wall waitress uniform with the gold Chinese characters down the side, she looked like the heroine in one of those old Red China propaganda posters, The Peasant Girl Who Saved Her Village.  

I was just the bartender and I would be serving no food to the hungry villagers and I was no hero. I left the giggling Annette and the smiling modestly shrugging heroine, and went to my province, the bar, with its thick layer of detritus, the scene of the crime last night, the wages of sin.

Leon’s younger brother, Sam, had flown in last night for Leon’s birthday.  He had a restaurant in San Francisco and was worldlier than Leon, here in Decatur Illinois.  He’d strutted in waving a cigar like a baton while Leon had sat punching filter-tipped cigarettes out in a plastic ashtray. 

Leon had put a smile on his face and brought out this dark bottle of scotch made especially for the King of Scotland or something, the main point being it was incredibly expensive.  He poured Sam and himself a generous portion, and then because I was standing there, and the high cost of this scotch meant nothing to a man such as Leon, he poured me a generous portion also.   Normally I get in enough trouble just drinking beer, but I knew I was going to have to drink this one for Leon.

And the one that followed, and the one that followed that.  Then there were the fat black cigars, the steaks, the pricey wines, and then there was another bottle of The King’s Own Nectar.  I didn’t understand a word that was said, but the three of us had a great time.  From the looks of the bar, the good times had continued after I’d left early, decapitated by the King of Scotland.