We don't have to be at the bar for very long before we decide that we hate it. The building is downtown and showing its age. It looks like it used to be an important bank or event hall, though I find out later that it was just a five and dime built in 1930 by a company known for having impressive architecture. In any case, it's got beautiful high ceilings and torched lighting. Then thirty feet below, where we are, is a bunch of crappy tiki furniture. It's heartbreaking how they've destroyed the natural beauty of this room, obscuring the patterns on the ceiling with inflatable promotional beer bottles and signs about the Friday night "Luau Party," a term that seems redundant to me. Perhaps on Thursdays, they can throw a Fete Fest or a Shindig Soiree.
So we hate the bar but know we're stuck here, because they're paying Josh's band money to be here. We spend the time making fun of the building, which is what we do best. After a while, even we run out of jokes, so we have to start in on the patrons of this fine establishment, the people who come here willingly. Clearly, they see nothing wrong with a luau party.
It's about this time that I notice there's a handicapped guy. That's kind of unusual. The wheelchair crowd and the bar-hopping crowd don't overlap much in my experience. But there he is, and I'm a grown-up, so I don't stare. I do wonder what happened, whether he was crippled from birth, whether he's accepted it or if he's really bitter, if he gets drink discounts. It's actually about the same sort of thinking I do about the girl with the precarious cleavage, except that I know she gets drink discounts.
Then I see the bird.
The handicapped guy has a pet sitting on his shoulder, and suddenly, I forget all the rules about not staring at people in wheelchairs. Now I'm insanely curious about the guy, and I wonder if he's able to get away with this obvious health code violation because people pity him. Maybe being able to go into bars with cockatiels on your shoulder is one of the unsung silver linings to not being able to walk. Blind people get a similar benefit with their dogs.
The guy is hanging out on one side of the bar, talking to the bartender. I decide he must be a regular and think that he's probably pretty well-adjusted. If he's got the guts to go out to a bar with other people his age on a regular basis, then good for him. I bet he cleans up at playing limbo at the luau parties.
The band starts playing and I switch my focus to the stage, where I check out my own boyfriend. I'm sitting at a bar of sorts, basically just a wooden plank with high stools and the occasional Miller Lite umbrella. Perhaps the bar owners do not trust the old building to be able to keep the rain off their patrons, thus the need for umbrellas indoors. Sometime during the second set, someone comes up right next to me. I take a quick glance, and there sitting next to me, is a guy in a wheelchair with a bird on his shoulder. He smiles brightly at me, and I think, well, this is a first. I've been hit on by guys at auto parts stores and guys in computer labs and once upon a time, that guy playing bass on stage right now, but this is my first experience with a disabled pet owner. No, no, that's not fair, he might not be hitting on me. True, there are a bunch of other places along this same fake bar that he could have parked, but maybe this one has the best view of the band. Maybe he wants to check out my boyfriend. Just smile back.
I turn back to the music and after a minute or two, the bird and his owner leave my side to go back to the bar. I am relieved. Awkward social situation succesfully avoided!
Until he comes back and resumes his position next to me. We exchange smiles again and he says something that I cannot hear over the music. I lean in to get him to repeat himself.
"W-w-would you l-like a Y-y-yuengling-ing?"
He has a stutter. If he weren't already perched in a rolling chair, I would wonder if he was just nervous. I suddenly feel incredibly sorry for this guy and hope that he did not have to go through public school like this. I also notice that somehow, he knows what I've been drinking. I am definitely being pursued by a handicapped guy with a pet bird. I realize what a great blog entry this story could be, provided I'm careful with the wheelchair jokes.
"No, thanks. I've got to drive home sometime tonight."
I am proud of myself. This is a reasonable excuse to turn down a drink from a guy.
"Oh, well, c-c-can I g-get you something else? A C-c-coke?"
Okay, now I just don't freaking know what to do. Turning down something as innocuous as a Coke (which could mean a Pepsi, this being the South) seems just cruel. I really, really want to be nice to this guy without encouraging him, but I missed out on a lot of valuable social experience by reading books in my youth, and so I don't know how. I could ask him about the bird, but then he might offer to let my hold it, which is not something I want to do, but if I just turn him down and then don't say anything, he's going to think I'm a jerk, but if I try to talk to him, I won't be able to hear him much over the music and he'll think it's about his stutter, and HOLY CRAP, WHY CAN'T I JUST TALK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?
In the end, I turn down the Coke and don't say anything more, and he wheels himself away after a minute. I am terrified that he counts me as another person being dismissive towards him because of his disability. Or maybe he doesn't think that at all. Maybe he thinks it's just as well that I wasn't responsive to his advances, since I didn't seem to be much of a bird person. Whatever he's feeling, I feel like a rotten human being. I consider calling my social anxiety crippling, but in this context, that would be pretty offensive. Get over yourself, Sandra.
The ironic thing was, after all that, I could've really used a beer.
*Note: I apologize for my poor representation of this dude's stutter. Writing in dialect (is stuttering a dialect?) is harder than you think.
No comments:
Post a Comment