Drinks at a hotel bar

Most of you friends know that I enjoy wandering around downtown and soaking in its urban energy.

That's what I ended up doing last night since I wanted to get out of the house after a few hours of much-needed rest. So after being disappointed again at the pathetic level of activity at about 9PM on the streets of America's 5th largest city, I wandered into a hotel bar/restaurant and sat down in an empty chair.

Let me stop ya for a sec so you know right here that if I go out to any kind of nightlife activity, it's almost always to a gay bar - so that's the scene I'm familiar with.

So, there are several hotels around here, and I like going into their bars. Not necessarily for a (really expensive) drink, but just because some are quite swanky, and I'm an elegance whore like that.

One person I know who travels extensively for work told me that she had quite the experience in hotel bars - mostly with men surreptitiously pulling rings off their right hand fingers as they're sliding into the seats next to her. I have to say that the curiously sinister part of me wants to watch a lot of these interactions . . . maybe like watching monkeys in the zoo.

Last night was certainly an opportune time to experience some of these things. I sat down at the bar, ordered some food and some soda, and began to absent-mindedly watch soccer (what's the point of that sport anyway?) on the TVs in there.

Gradually, I became aware of the cast of characters surrounding me. To my immediate right was an older gentleman with white hair and neatly trimmed beard wearing a nondistinctive baseball cap. I didn't really notice him much, until I realized he was drinking Budwiser after Budwiser. He was already sitting down when I had arrived with a half-empty bottle in front of him, and he drank at least 4 more bottles while I was there. He didn't say much, but when I looked into his glazed and teary eyes, I couldn't help but feel sad for him - whatever his circumstances were.

On my near right were a couple from somewhere in a colder climate, who had flown down here to see some type of sporting event, having gotten Southwest airlines tickets. They were mostly talking about fare prices on airlines and commenting on how amazed they were at the fact that Phoenix was a "ghost town" of a city.

On the far left of the bar sat a friendly Native American fellow with another woman, who I assumed was his girlfriend. Later, after he became more and more inebriated as she sat mostly sober, I found out that she was his mother. (After telling this to a friend of mine today, he said, at least it's good that he's not drinking alone.)

After the chatty out of town couple left, a young girl come in and sat next to me. She was one of those fascinating characters that you watch on newer, trendy movies. Full of personality, a sarcastic wit, and keen observation, all wrapped up in a slightly granola, liberal bohemian package. When she sat down, I could tell that she'd already enjoyed quite a bit of the juice before she arrived, and proceeded to order Wild Turkey bourbon - straight.

The friendly drunk fellow with his mother was surprised that she was drinking something like this, and I wondered about it too, especially since, with wide-eyed innocence, she told me she was from Iowa, but had lived here for a little over a year.

As she became increasingly inebriated, she told me a lot of juicy details - most of which came after I moved into the seat next to her to hear here better as I said that "my boat doesn't float in your direction . . . if you know what I mean." (She was very interested in whether I liked the brown-haired one or the blond one in Dukes of Hazzard, so I think she got it, but I don't remember that show well enough to tell for sure . . . I think I said something about not liking yokels.)

She'd been a teacher and a nurse in other cities, but gave this up for a wild and free life of moving around from city to city with few possessions, and moving from one low-level job to another. So, she said she lived in an apartment complex just up the street from the bar. She didn't know it when she moved in, but found out later - because of the women outside leaning into car windows - that the apartments were basically flop-houses for prostitutes. (I then remembered that I'd seen several scantily-clad women walking around in front of there, showing men into their places.) She worked somewhere in the mental health industry, and was familiar with the Magellan psychosis intake center just a few blocks from where I work.

Aside from some of her self-deprecating mumblings, the most fascinating part of the whole encounter was watching some of the interactions between her and the green-eyed, black haired, tall, dark, and handsomely hot bartender.

Keep in mind that I don't even understand the subtleties of gay flirting, let alone what happens with straight people.

It was late, and they were getting ready to close up the bar, I became very concerned about her - since she just looked like a complete lush at that point. I told her that I would walk her home, but she said that she was going to "stumble over to Seamus McCaffrey's" (an Irish pub several blocks away) or "jump on somebody's Harley".

My eyebrows must've gone up, because I said to her (with all of my wondrously suave and thoroughly honed skills with women), "Oh, so you're going to trick it."

I wasn't sure that means the same thing in straight culture as it does in gay culture, but I asked two of my brunch friends this morning about whether or not she would have gotten it. The answer was something about that being a prostitute's terms for her johns.

She didn't seem to react at all to the question, so I'm not sure what that means.

No matter - I have a good spin on it: I came *this* close to taking a hooker home!