Irish Lies
Monday, April 20th, 2009
Nothing says Irish pub more than country music and teller windows.
It was late on Sunday afternoon and the shops in the Zona Rosa shopping district were closed when I came to a stop light. I’d never been in O’Dowd’s, but I was driving by looking for help wanted signs and the music was blaring out into the streets. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it from what I’d heard, it seemed like there must be a party going on inside. No signs were in the windows. There weren’t any windows. Still, I decided it was worth a try, and turned onto a side-street to the nearest parking lot.
The spring winds had picked up and it flopped my hair to the opposite side and blew my collar up. I felt like James Dean in the iconic photo taken in New York, his hands shoved in his pockets and half-shrugging in the rain. I followed the music sound to the doors.
A guy was smoking outside. He wore khakis and a short-sleeved button up and looked like he should be a bible study, light a candle for everyone to sing around and tending to his sexless marriage. I took him for a dad, an unhappy one who’d settled for self-gratification a couple years into the marriage and had been praying for some ball slapping or something a little more unusual by their 10th anniversary.
The music was clearer and the furthest thing from Irish folk music that I’d expected. This was an Americanized Irish pub, complete with a Trace Adkins soundtrack and, I had a feeling, polite servers. I stepped up on the sidewalk and followed him in. He’d finished his cigarette abruptly, tossed into the street and let the door close on me. I went in after him.
The place was smaller on the inside than I guessed. The ceiling was low. Everything was covered in wood. The mahogany bar edge was just inside the door. All the tables were empty. At the bar sat an unlikely couple, a bald guy in Saran Wrap jeans and a nipple T-shirt. He had his hand I’m his girlfriend’s lap. Her back was turned to me but it was shapely and nice. She had her heels out from the high-heeled shoes resting on the stool.
The married virgin was gone. In the empty bar, he’d disappeared. I was disappointed. I wanted to see Mrs. Sexual Frustration.
Another group that I’d missed had apparently gone in before me. They’d stopped a few steps in from the door and were cajoling with the hostess. They’d asked her all of the usual questions. Is this a nice place?
Is the food any good? Why is it such a hot spot on Friday and Saturday night?
I don’t know what they expected her to say. That it was good enough bar but the food sucked. And that actually, it wasn’t that great of a bar, but you were just paying for the ambiance of the Irish Pub. Real Irish pubs didn’t look like banks. I’ve never been to Ireland, but I didn’t need to figure out the lie. To get people to drop nine bucks on beer in Missouri, it takes escapism, and a fantasy that you are getting wasted in another country relieves the sting from the final tab.
Finally, their fears subsided, they finished talking to her and stepped to the bar rail.
“Can I help you sir?”
The girl was half my height and not quite Hispanic. She had a perfect round mole on her right cheek forward from where her dimple would be if she we smiling, genuinely. She was smiling, but not genuinely. She’d actually enjoyed the previous conversation, and could sense I’d been irritated that she’d taken so much time with them. She was good at her job.
“I am actually not here to drink,” I said. I was wondering if you guys are hiring.” I kept looking around for metal bars that would be pulled across a teller window, like this was the old west and Jesse James might walk in to make history with his first daylight bank robbery.
“We are always accepting applications.”
She’d be trained to say that rather than saying no.
“I don’t know what positions they are hiring for, but you can stop back hereon Monday to Friday from 2 to 4 to talk to a manager.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Outside, it seemed darker but I’d only been inside a minute or two. I felt like I might have a shot at finding some part-time work, just not here. I’m sure that I could make up stories about the people I served drinks to all night. And that might be the biggest tragedy. So much good humor, wasted as carelessly as slopped-over beer.
