Last Call

   The familiar drag of the bar stool announces to no one in particular that I’m here. Again. The bartender has already poured my well vodka soda with lime and holds his hand out expectantly for my card; he knows to keep my tab open. The first sip tastes like communion, I breathe a sigh of relief, settle back in my chair and I am at home, this is church to me. I grew up in church but never felt quite as comfortable in the pews of bright-eyed parishioners dressed in their Sunday best seeking God, as I do in the neon-lit booths of dive bars crammed with mascara stained and sweaty bodies seeking something.



   I glance around the bar to see who will play a character in tonight’s story. That’s what I love about bars, nearly all good stories start with, “So (someone and someone else) walk into a bar”- punchline and antics ensue. I realize too late my black dress has slipped up too high on my thigh and my self-harm scars are showing. My face flushes and I jerkily pull it to my knee, keeping my head down for a full minute trying to convince myself no one saw or cares. I remember all those times in church growing up that someone saw and called me attention seeking, or reminded me that I was God’s creation and it was a personal affront to him that I could hate myself so much, and I should not be working so hard to destroy his most treasured possession. A minute passes and the clamor in my head subsides as the familiar din of small talk and clinking glasses come back to me, and I remember the drunk girl in the bathroom who took my arm and traced my fresh cuts, I think she was black out drunk, but she kissed them. I remember this one guy I met at bar closing; I walked with him on a beach for hours and we sat on a rock watching the waves, he showed me his own scars and told me about his time in a mental hospital and the shock therapy he got.

   Are most of us here because we’re lonely? I think we’re not sure how to combat that feeling; friendship is shallow, sex is fleeting, God is far. Bars are almost this alternative reality. In real life, people let us down, there are expectations, obligations, and most glaringly, disappointment. But in a bar, every new relationship expires with the sunrise so there is no possibility of ruining it. There’s a strange intimacy between strangers, they seek to discover each other and to be discovered. I’ve confessed secrets, thoughts, desires, and fears to strangers in bars I would never dream of sharing with a friend. There is magic in transient relationships and that magic is easy intimacy.

   We’re all so damned afraid of each other, of showing our scars and letting them be touched by others. It’s easy in a bar because we’re all there seeking it, or at least the pros, those of us who aren’t just there on weekends, but weekdays and holidays and pretty much every available opportunity. We’re there because we’re dying for intimacy and we’re not finding it in our daily lives, it is most accessible in a bar, which sucks because I would like to find a less expensive method of not feeling so alone. I think that is what church was supposed to be. A community of people to lean on as we try to figure out what the hell we’re doing here, people who commit to really seeing you, and kissing your scars as you see and kiss theirs.

   But for now, this is my church. The sticky bar tops, surly bouncers, pool tables, juke boxes, live music, and infuriatingly long lines for bathroom stalls, they keep me sane.

Author Amber Blank