Charlie's Bar - Pocatello, Idaho: Dave

I met Dave last Wednesday night sitting on a stool in Charlie's Bar, the only gay bar in Pocatello, Idaho.  He had a draft beer in one hand and a shot of something stronger in the other and had thus occupied himself since noon on this day.  Yes, he was quite drunk, but it was the kind of drunk that massive drinkers get, which is rarely sloppy.  Dave was quite lucid. 

Although he was clean and did not smell bad, he had that gaunt, tight skinned look that comes with too much booze, not enough money and a life lived on the seedier side.

'You're not supposed to be doing that, 'said the large round lesbian who sidled in next to him on the other side.  She was pointing at the cigarette he was holding to his lips.  'You're not supposed to be doing that, either,' indicating the beer and the shot before him. 

'I know, I know,' he replied. 

I wondered why he was not supposed to and why he went ahead anyway.  But mostly I wondered how I came to pick such a high rent section of the bar.  I mean, true:  This was a sad and down-tumble place with a handful of awkward 20 somethings milling about, but Dave was old and shakey and crummy looking -- and I chose the seat next to him.  I swiveled my chair back in his direction and faced the small group on my other side, eavesdropping when I could on their tales of drama and injustice.

But about 30 minutes later, I overheard Dave talking about his age.  He was boasting to the round lesbian that he was 54.  I swiveled around.

'I'm 54, too,' I said, thinking how much better I looked than he. 

'No, shit?' He responded. 'When were you born?'

'October 25, 1950.'

'October 26th, 1950' he replied tapping his chest with a fist.  'Pleased to meet you.' 

It was an instant of blinding realization.  I was sitting with my shadow self, the side of me that wants to crawl around in the gutter.  Dave was looking at me with eyes that could have been my own had I taken a sharper turn or two in my own life. 

'So why aren't you supposed to smoke or drink?' I asked.

'Had a heart-attack a couple of months ago,' he took a sip from the shot glass.  'They did an angioplasty and told me to go forth and sin no more.'

'Really?  The doctors told you not to drink and smoke?'

'Yup.'

'So, why are you doing it?' 

'Hell.' he responded then paused. 'I'm already a dead man;  this isn't going to change anything.' 

'You look pretty alive to me.'

'Oh, sure, I'm alive; but I know I'm going and it won't be long.'  He was looking me square in the eye as he said this with a half grin on his face.  'It's ok;  I'm ready.' 

He spent the next coupled of hours telling me bits and pieces of his story and I, all the while had the feeling I was being given some kind of message from those spirits and entities that guide me from beyond. 

Dave drives a cab in Pocatello.  It's his latest in a long string of low level jobs he's scratched his way through trying to make ends meet.  He lives across the street from the bar in a room above a furniture store.  He is a heavy drinker and smoker, and as I learned, his day long dive into the bottle was not a rare occurrence.  It's what he did several times a week.  I asked if he ever drank and drove his cab and he was shocked that I'd even ask. 

.'What's the strangest thing that's every happened to you driving your cab?' I asked.

'Oh, I've had a lot of strange things . . . I guess . . . well, I've been jacked off by riders of both genders on several occasions.' 

'You're kidding?'

'No, it's not that unusual.  People just want to feel close and a cabbie seems safe, I guess.' 

'Hmm,' I mused. 'Do you get a good tip?'

'Always.' 

Cabbing was something fairly new to him.  For eight years prior to that he had been a cook in the Waffle House in Greenville, South Carolina.  And he was one of their best.  He was being paid more than any other cook in the region at the time he left. 

'Why did you leave?' I asked.

'I just snapped.'

'What d'ya mean, 'snapped?''

'You know; I just kinda lost it one night.' 

'Tell me . . .'

'Me and this waitress,' he began, 'we worked the graveyard shift all the time 'cause we could joke around and nobody gave a hit.  At 3 O'clock in the morning most every one at the waffle house is trying to sober up before going home, you know?' 

'Yeah,' I said, 'I'm from Atlanta;  I know the Waffle House. . . best eggs in the South.' 

'That's right.  Well this waitress and me, we dropped acid together one night about 1 in the morning.'

'Acid?!' croaked in disbelief.

'Yean, acid.' he replied looking up at me.  'We did all kinds of shit on that graveyard shift.'  He paused to take a draw on this cigarette. 

'Anyway, around 3, I was flying pretty high and these two South Carolina State Troopers came in and sat at a booth.'

'Uh-Oh.'

'Yeah, it was pretty bad.  We couldn't stop laughing.  She'd laugh down at the end of the counter and I'd laugh by the grill and then she'd go over to the register and laugh again.  Pretty soon they were watching us close.'

'Oh, No . . . '

'About that time . . . that's when I snapped,' and Dave snapped the fingers of his left hand under my nose for emphasis.  I jerked back in surprise.   

'What do you mean,  you snapped?' I asked.

'Suddenly nothing made sense.  I couldn't remember anything.  The waitress called me the order and I turned around to start cooking it and had to turn back because I couldn't remember what she said . . . I asked her what the order was about seven times . . . and then I couldn't remember how to fry an egg;  I couldn't remember whether you did that in the pan or in the waffle iron.'

'Oh, my god . . '

'Uh-huh.  And then it got even more intense.  I couldn't remember where I was and I finally took off my apron and dropped it to the floor and walked out of that place, right then and there, and never came back.'  Dave paused, maybe for effect, or just to take another deep drag on his cigarette.

'I come to four days later in the psych ward of the county hospital.  They'd found me on the street and I had no memory of anything that happened after I left the Waffle House.'

That wasn't the only time Dave had 'snapped.'  He went on to tell me about two other incidents where he lost consciousness and control, where he experienced large gaps in his memory that ended up with him in jail or the hospital.  I kept remembering Edward Norton in Primal Fear stuttering about how he 'looses time,' and how chilling that whole scenario was.

As we sat talking, the bar was setting up for Karaoke.  I'd periodically get a glance around behind Dave at the stage area where a fringed Mylar curtain was put in place and a pudgy DJ organized his tunes. 

'So what brought you to Idaho?' I asked.

'God Damn State of South Carolina.'  I raised an eyebrow.  'They wouldn't give me a drivers license.  They caught me DWI and discovered I'd had a few of those in Florida in the past and they wouldn't give me my drivers license.  I don't know if you've ever had yours pulled?  But if you don't got a drivers license, you don't got nothing.  You can't go nowheres or do anything.  So I just come out here and they didn't check that good and that's how I come to drive a cab.' 

I learned all kinds of things about David.   l learned that his scrotum got him out of Vietnam.  He'd enlisted with his best friend, a Phillipino with whom he played music and had formed a couple of bands.  They were both on the verge of being drafted and enlisted in the Navy instead.  In basic, David kept getting epididimeitus -- a painful hardening of the scrotum and testes -- and they finally just gave him a medical discharge.  His pal went on to SouthEast Asia and was killed in Cambodia. 

I learned that he'd been married for a year.  His wife was in remission from a brain cancer when he met her and shortly after they married, she relapsed and died a year later.  I also learned that he'd always considered himself bisexual -- that he had had sex with both genders many times.  It's strange to be sitting with a guy who looks like somebody's old uncle talking about this.  I know, we were the same age, but he just looked much older and rougher around the edges, too. 

'You ever have you a Black man?'  he asked. 

'Depends on what you mean by the word, 'have,'  I said, mimmicking Bill Clinton.  I don't think he got it.  'No,' I clarified.

'I met this guy right after I got discharged from the Navy.  Ran into him on the sidewalk and invited him up to my place to party.  We got very drunk and next thing you know we were going at it.  His dick was this long,' he said marking out a foot with his two hands on the bar, ' I swear to god.  And he stuffed that whole thing up in me and had me shrieking like a little girl.'

I was trying to imagine.

'But the next day, while I was asleep, he let his white friend in my place and he stole my wallet and about $175.  When I woke up and realized what happened I threw him out.  He came back wanted to fool around some more but I wouldn't let him.  Fuckin theif.' 

'Hey,' he said, nodding over his right shoulder, 'See that girl?'  My gaze went over to the stage where a square Lesbian who looked a lot like Bobby Sherman was groaning her way through some unknown country song. 

'Yeah?' 

'She almost died here a few months back.'

'Oh?' 

'She and her girlfriend had this suicide pact.  They tried to kill themselves . . . took a buncha pills.  The girlfriend died, but she just got fucked up and went to the hospital.  Now she's with that one over there,' he indicated another woman sitting by herself at a cafe table. 

'How do you know all this shit?' I asked.

'Oh, here everybody knows everything.  There are no secrets in Idaho.' 

I started talking about leaving and Dave was very concerned that I not get stopped by the police outside the bar.  'They stake this place out.  I swear to god they do.  They sit over there in that alley across the street and when they see you come outa here, they follow you  and pull you over and you get a DUI.'  I considered it.  I'd had about three beers and would probably fail a breath test.  And I've never had such an experience. 

'Guess I better take a cab.' I said.  Then as he walked by, I called to the bartender: 'Hey, my old pal Dave here tells me I probably ought not drive, that the cops will surely get me.  Is that true?'

'Where do you have to go?'

'Just up the freeway one exit, to the Red Lion Hotel.' 

'Well, I've never had a problem, ' the bartender answered.  But he was also fairly non-committal. 

The debate raged for a few minutes and ended when I got up, and bid all a good night.  I took Dave's shaky hand and thanked him for the conversation.  He smiled and nodded as if to acknowledge the good time we'd had talking.  And I turned and walked out the door. 

I drove back to the hotel and saw no police anywhere along the way.  Dave was in my head, his story, his spent life.  He will die soon.  He's right about that.  Maybe he's right about only making it one more month.  He might have two or even three.  But I'm sure it won't be long.  His life has been mostly about stagnation and decay anyway.  And early death will just be the appropriate ending to his story.  And what haunts me is how much alike we are.

No, I'm not the town drunk.  I'm not pissed off at authority (much), I have worked to build something for myself.  But strip all of that shit away and leave the basic man -- and Dave and I are quite similar.  I imagined that I'd been sitting there talking with an aspect of my own soul at the bar.  There but for the grace . . . you know the rest.

But then I saw him as a visitor, a kind of angel sent down to show me something.  I've been exercising this fascination I have with the seamier side of life and here before me was . . . me, committed to that life.  Perhaps Dave was a kind of signpost for me, a warning of what could become of me if I continued down my boozy path. 

Whatever the significance, I felt myself slightly chilled as I pulled into the parking lot of my hotel.  And I feel chilled today, writing this.  I keep picturing him like you'd picture the big actor who is post-humously honored at the Oscars, in black and white; and I wonder if he's still alive.  Somehow, I doubt it.  I just got that feeling.