[Editor's note] I kept this message, which was posted on The Phoenix BBS
shortly after its return to operations. It was one of a few stories about
the Clayton Tavern, but one of which still bore the actual by-line of the
BBS that operated from within the tavern for over a year.]

Hello Everyone!

Now that the cacophony of moving and establishing a perch from which to
observe has ebbed, I am still somewhat surprised to finding myself still in
the land of many characters known as Stevens County. The boxes and endless
cartons of my life have, more or less, found a transient place of residence,
my days more or less falling into a pattern of regimentation, I feel
compelled to speak further of this place called the Clayton Tavern and its
owner, Joe Sixpack.

In all deference, I must note that were it not for Joe Sixpack and his
relationship to the Springdale Indian drinking team, I might have been
terribly inconvenienced by being homeless. Some say Joe Sixpack, his
enigmatic eyes always on the alert for an opportunity to increase his
personal wealth, smelled the fecal reek of money on my breath when I first
asked about the vacant apartment behind the tavern. Joe does bring new depth
of meaning to the word frugal.

So much so that, after my first week in residence, he sent the senior member
of the Father-Son drinking team to beat on my apartment door. To his frugal
way of thinking, I was using too much water taking my shower, and he wanted
me to hurry it up. Without further ado, may I introduce the next character
in the irregular cast of the Clayton Tavern:

                          Tales From Stevens County
                           Joe Sixpack, Bartender
                     
It is said, both by employees and customers alike, that Joe can easily hear
the sound of an empty beer glass hitting the bar from outside the tavern, so
attuned is he to the hint of money. Little wonder, then, that in his normal
place, pacing back and forth like a trapped bulldog behind the bar, his pipe
jammed into the corner of his mouth at a jaunty angle, the millisecond that
a customer sips the very last dregs of beer from a glass, Joe materializes
in front of the miscreant, long before the glass hits the counter, to
promote the sale of another frosty glass of ale.
 
Joe is the Welcome Wagon with suds, and he nearly giggles with glee when
insensible drunks reel in the door, so long as none of them are particularly
violent. For he had disdain for those who, in the heat of an old-fashioned
donnybrook, would mar or otherwise destroy any of his beloved bar. Keeping a
sharp eye out for liquor inspectors or other unwanted strangers, so long as
a patron is sitting on a barstool and capable of tipping a glass, Joe will
pace back and forth, back and forth, always alert for the sound of a beer
glass going dry or the "THUNK" when a patron sets a empty beer can down on
the old wooden bar.

His star never shines brighter, however, than when one of the patrons pulls
out a good-sized bill, say a twenty, and wants to gamble on the pull tabs.

He has a litany of pull-tab chants, recited so seamlessly that no one seems
to notice him calculating inside his head. "Pull tabs? All of the twenty?
No? How the hell do you think you're going to get rich unless you spend some
money?" "It hasn't paid off, although there's about fifty bucks paid in
already. Should I pull the game now and cut my losses? Oh damn, there's a
twenty pay out. That lucky louse. Well, I guess I'll have to let it ride
awhile...recoup my damned losses..." Then, back at the bar, the litany
continues all evening: "Pull tabs? All of the tenspot? You'll get rich quick
playing this game tonight, yessir. It just paid this guy over hear a twenty
dollar bill, so it's hot..."

The members of the Senile Brigade, who arrive faithfully, rain or shine,
each day between 10 and 11 in the morning, perhaps know Joe better than
anyone else. Shuffling into their places at the bar for a few glasses of
beer after reading their mail, to a man they all know what no one dares to
say. Joe Sixpack is tight with a buck. Well they should know.

Harley, the de facto leader of the Senile Brigade, has been known to mutter
upon more than one occasion, about a former Brigade member who passed away
without repaying the matter of fifty cents, borrowed for a third glass of
beer. To the Brigade Members, it is a matter of respect that Joe is frugal,
for you never know when you might need an extra nickel or two. You always
pay a bill on time and you never welch on a debt. In the eyes of his
patrons, Joe is a man of the masses, one of them. No brand new chrome and
red pickup truck for him, nossir. He drives an old Chevy that vies with
everyone else's as being the most battered, tattered, dogeared and abused
truck in all of Clayton. Although nearly everyone suspects, or thinks they
know that he could easily buy three new chrome and gadget-laden pickup
trucks out of pocket change, such trappings would not befit a man of his
humble stature as chief bartender and gatekeeper of the Clayton Tavern.

The StoryMaster is fading fast away. For he has imbibed a few too many, but
as his head slowly starts to recline on the bar, next to a pile of useless
pull tabs and an empty beer can, he smiles briefly for everyone and yet no
one but himself. "They were all so...so happy to see me drunk. For only then
had I passed the test, and become one of them..." Dave<<

 * Origin: The Phoenix *-From behind the Clayton Tavern-*  (1:346/11)