My belated St Patricks day story

My friend Louie called this evening and invited me to join him and his son Skip at the Elgin Public House. We haven't socialized much of late, and I was agreeable, and Janett gave her permission so I accepted the invitation. Janett "offered" to drop me off there so I wouldn't have to drive home, and gave me some cash and told me not to use my plastic money. She's been very careful in her oversight of me lately, especially about whether I've turned off the burner on the stove after preparing something, but I don't take offense.

Louie, as is the custom, was running a little late and so I was into my second Harps before he arrived, enjoying Monday night bar quiet, and a congenial lady bartender. Once they arrived Skip and I talked about the Oregon (his alma mater) Duck quarterback arrested for burglary who it appeared had been suspended for spring practice but would still be working out with the team, and possibly reinstated in the fall. Louie and I talked about business and how he was looking at a busy spring, thank goodness. Later we talked about his recent trip to Biloxi, Ms with Habitat for Humanity. and the gulf five years after.
Meanwhile, a working man sort of guy came in and sat down one seat away from me. He was the kind of fellow I always am interested in talking too and often enjoy. His soft southern accent and age identified him to me as one the Kentucky coal miners who'd migrated north in the sixties, and I asked him about possible mutual acquaintances, and sure enough he was acquainted with a few gents I'd known. But he was pretty drunk. so we didn't spend a lot of time talking, although when the conversation turned to Rye whiskey, an occasional interest of Louie's, I was thinking of standing a round for the four of us, but fortunately asked the waitress what a shot of rye went for. "Do you really want to know," she asked, "or should I just ring it up?" Turns out it was $8.65 each, so forbidden to use my plastic I had to demure, unembarrassed, since that was a stiff price in this neck of the woods.
Another fellow had occupied the seat between me and Tommy by then, a high school teacher named Tim who was wearing a nice peaked cap and a green tee shirt emblazoned with a Paddy day wish for the world. Tommy and I went out for a couple smoke breaks and compared our histories at local bars. but he was more seriously drunk each time.

So the third time we went out, after Skip had ordered a sandwich to go and we'd soon be leaving Tommy announced he'd better start walking towards home. I asked where he lived and he said by St Joe's. The church or the hospital? The hospital. Well, that's close to five miles. Maybe you should think of calling a cab. I would he said, but I'm $3 dollars short for the fare. I checked my ready cash and found a couple singles and a couple fives, so I had to give him a five. Then Tim walks out the door and asks are you ready? Tom stepping backward and falling to be seated in a big flower pot, says he is, and it becomes apparent Tim has committed to giving Tommy a lift home. So you won't be needing cab fare, I ask. "No" says Tommy, "but I have to stop and get a six pack on the way."

I went back into the bar and confessed how I'd been shorn, and Louie and Skip and the congenial bar tender and I all laughed. But I momentarily wondered if I should have given the drunk in the flower pot a bloody lip. Better not, I decided, and to chalk it up as a lesson in life and cheap at the price.
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