In the Groove

To her, the little bartender, I was just someone who was old, really old, and rarely is someone who is really old a good thing to have in your bar late at night.

“Sorry?” I said, cupping my ear. I was smiling, but she wasn't.

“Thirty-seven-seventy-five,” she said again, this time enunciating with the utmost care.

"What's your name?" I asked her. She told me it was Jenny.

“Well, Jenny," I slapped the bar for emphasis, "three-seventy-five, it is!” I was tickled pink we had that settled and I turned to my new found friends. They lifted their fresh, cold beers to me and said thank you, thank you, cheers and God bless and most obliged, and you’re a fine fellow! We all drank and wiped our mouths and for a few moments it was quiet in the little room, and no one looked at anyone else.

“That’ll be Thirty-Seven dollars not countin’ the seventy-five cents,” the bartender named Jenny said.

I said, “Darlin’, don’t be silly, count the fuckin’ seventy-five cents!”

A wonderful guffaw weaved down the bar and I saw them all watching me again.

She stood before me in silent boredom. Her eyes told the bar, and me especially, that she was far from amused. Jenny was tired. She wanted to go home.

She was kind of a cute little thing. Pudgy-cute. Five foot nothing. Probably she was a nice person, maybe even a real sweet-heart, which is a good thing to be when you're a female bartender; the regulars will stand up for you if you need their help dealing with ass-holes like me. She had long fake eyelashes. She probably batted those lashes at a lot of men, but she wasn't batting them at me. If we had been friends she would be someone I would want to give a big juicy raspberry-kiss on the neck to, make her giggle and watch her face color. I would bet she would turn nine shades of red, then punch me in the arm a good one.

“Thirty. Seven. Seventy. Fiiiiiive!” Her voice shot up three octaves with the final word and her hands shot to her hips and became fists.

“I’ll shake ya for it,” I said and did a shimmy on the bar-stool which made the barroom laugh again. It was an old joke, but no one in there ever saw me do it before. They'd never seen me before.

“Thirty-seven-seventy-five” Jenny exhaled the words in one long sigh and clearly far beyond simply un-amused. The room stared at me silently the way she did. I tried another shimmy to lighten things up, but no laughter followed this time. I was back to the realm of being another old and unknown drunk up past his bedtime. The bar felt sorry for Jenny.

“Come on!” I said. I raised my beer and looked down the wood and they all looked away.

I saw now that the jig, as we used to say, was up. I pulled out three twenties and set them down on the bar. “Keep it,” I said, “But, do me one favor... one last favor? You just gotta dance one time with me. I’ll leave if you do…”

"You'll leave if I do?

"Yes!

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

"You really promise?"

She really was a sweet girl, little Jenny. "I promise," I said.

I went to the jukebox and someone helped me with it, and then someone else helped him. We found Elvis and my dollar went in after three or four tries and came back out, but finally stayed and Jailhouse Rock came on loud and clear and the little lights on the box began flashing up and down and around, and Jenny and me got right into it, and began to swing. We weren't bad, maybe pretty good, and the barroom started off laughing at us, but then it quieted and everyone began to smile, and even Jenny began to smile. We pulled off some snap spins, some quick catch and releases. I mixed in my patented "Robot" which never failed to astound, and Jenny, giving a little extra ass-wiggle to the delight of all, brought the barroom alive with surprised delight, which can happen in bars late at night, every so often.

After the song ended I kept my promise. They said good night. They said, "Good night, Kenny! See ya, Kenny! Have a good one, Ken."

Outside it was a little on the cool side, but not too bad. I was pretty sure I was walking the right way. My hotel was going to be either up the street and one block over to the left, or it was back the other way and one block over to the right. As I walked I was thinking about the bar and what they all were saying about me now. They were probably saying that I was a kick in the ass. "That Kenny, he sure was a kick in the ass!" And they'd be right, too. I really was a kick in the ass, and I still am.

-835 Words-