Midnight in the Birthright Bar and Grill...
						  Date: 07 Jan 98 23:52:02

The Birthright Bar and Grill doesn't truly exist anywhere. It is an amalgam
of The Coach House Bar and Grill, the Mayfly Bar and a few other
down-at-the- heels taverns in Spokane that I have visited, at one time or
another. Before anyone jumps to the assumption that I have broke the family
cookie jar to finance a drinking habit prone to Budweiser, you can relax. In
each of these places, I join with a small, stately group of gray-heads who
spend their time nursing cups of coffee, rather than liquor of any flavor.

Of the Birthright it has been said that if you sit on one of their crooked
bar stools with cracked red and white plastic covers long enough, eventually
you will see everyone you ever wanted to meet excepting Neil Diamond. I'll
never forget the night when Diamond was here performing his magic in
Spokane, and his giant neon-sign touring coach came softly drifting to a
halt in front of the Birthright. No, Mr. Diamond wasn't out cruising on the
skimpy side of First Avenue for a quick drink. The errant bus driver,
obviously not from our fair city, had managed to get himself thoroughly
confused by our one-way streets, and had stopped for directions.

Mary, the ham-fisted bartender, hushed an epithet in mid-sentence: she was
about to describe the lineage of one of her least-likeable customers in full
and satisfactory detail, I believe, and promptly set the white-faced bus
driver on his way back to the freeway, with the politeness and courtesy one
would expect of a grand matron of the High Temple. However, thirty seconds
after the driver's patent-leather shoes hit the curb outside, she deftly
slid her nemesis's beer far out of his reach, and blistered the air for
thirty seconds over his head before throwing him back out the doorway.

Mr. Diamond wasn't even on the bus, as it pulled away, in fact. After
singing before the Spokane crowd, he wisely hopped in a Lear jet parked at
the airport and was back in Los Angeles before the Birthright closed that
night. He never knew what he missed. About one-thirty that morning, shortly
before Mary started driving patrons away from their beers with a swagger
stick, a woman freshly-arrived from the Colville Indian Reservation climbed
on a table much to everyone's general amusement and began a fumbling
rendition of a strip tease. Of course, Mary made short work of stuffing the
errant creature's dangling parts back where they belonged, and sent both her
and her newly-acquired boyfriend packing in under thirty seconds.

No one knows where Mary comes from, much less how she came to be the night
bartender at The Birthright. Some say she was appointed to her task by the
only person capable of keeping the peace in this sleazy bar, the Almighty
Deity of Deities. Some clever old codgers who attempt to foist themselves
off on newcomers to the bar as philosophers insist that is why the name of
the Deity is so often invoked by various aggravated patrons.

Still others insist Bernie, the bar owner, found Mary asleep one morning
beneath the pool table in back and, taking pity on her, since she is clearly
not a lovely creature to behold, hired her on the spot to work as the night
bartender. To some, it appeared that this was his way of punishing the odd
ball collection of malcontents, retired Beatniks from the 50's, washed-out
farmers and various other people living on the short end of the economic
stick that forever come into the bar to begin with.

No matter which version you choose to believe, Mary has been an icon in this
roustabout's headquarters for over a decade, ruling the roost with an iron
fist and a tongue laced with every swear word in the sailor's Bible. That,
of course, is only if she LIKES you. She has invented new swear words to
augment what ten generations of sailors, marines and army plebes could not.
She has ways to describe your family tree that blister paint at twenty
paces. Most horrible of all, she can do these things while smiling sweetly
at you.

It's that crooked little smile, that hint of larceny and murder with poorly-
fitted false teeth, that makes you think she is only tinkering with you as
she blisters the air over your head. I'll concede there are times when it
becomes difficult to tell whether Mary is truly angry with someone, or
whether she is simply in a bad mood because her bunions are kicking up. The
only way to tell, based upon my observation, is when she sweeps your beer
from beneath your nose and, without breaking her venomous stride of
obscenities, gestures toward the front door. That means it's over, Bud. Time
to go.

That isn't to say that Mary has no heart. Far from it! Each night as she is
closing down the bar, the last to leave are a select group of rheumy old men
who nearly always sit closest to the television set overhead, the better to
hear. She lets them sit with their coffee cups as she cleans the bar, sweeps
the floor and washes beer glasses until everyone else has drifted on down
the avenue for the night.

Then, once the coast is clear, she goes with these old derelicts out the
door and sees to it that each of them get safely back to whatever old hotel
they live in. To date, not one of these elderly voyagers in the night have
been assaulted or molested in any way in this, their nightly ritual.

Of course, if you are dumb enough to ask Mary if she cares, she'll deny
every word of it. In fact, if you ask too many personal questions, one
minute you'll be sitting there nursing a beer and taking notes, and the next
you'll be flying out the door, having just endured the most thorough
tongue-lashing you could ever ask for.

The Birthright Bar and Grill is that kind of place, at night. No quarter
given, no questions asked and no respect for anyone.

NOTE: This piece originally appeared on Fidonet, through the auspices of the
Fidonet-Internet Gateway once maintained by Circuit.com's Rocky Seelbach.
That long-lived appliance has since disappeared, only to be replaced by The
Used Kharma Lot and kharma.net. However, the memories still persevere.

| Fidonet:  Dave Laird 1:346/11
| Internet: Dave.Laird@phoenix.circuit.com

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