“In the box that you're sitting on top of are all of my belts from martial arts. That's why I was just standing there letting him yell at me. I wish he would take a swing.” This is two hours and several drinks after all hell breaks loose outside as I'm flipping stools. When you kick the drunks out, they just take all their newly unleashed stupidity along with them. Watching them go at it through the floor-to-ceiling windows is like seeing some awful episode of cops on a big-screen. There's the belief that people have regarding fights that the more people there are standing around to stop it, the more likely it is to stop before anyone gets hurt. There is also a belief that the person “holding back” one of the two fighting parties is actually holding back one of the two fighting parties. The words, “let me attem” or “ooh, I'm' so mad” always occur to me. The reality is that the more people involved in the whole scuffle actually count simply as more people standing in a circle just outside of harm's way and trying to shape their faces into an expression of concern and of being prepared at any time to intervene, but only if necessary. It's sad in theory that this kind of shit-flinging is happening between two adults, 27 and 29 years old. Only in theory, tho. I'm flipping all the stools upward for the night. I'm wondering if I can pour out the last of these drinks. I'm thinking this cooler is leaking and should probably be checked out. And that this is not my bar.
Sitting on a stool (so as to be higher than everyone else) is a tubby “chef.” Around him sit a circle of people whom he fears secretly, but who (as part of their jobs) suck his member and do so with varying degrees of fervor and success. They're talking about wine, a few of them, as everyone tastes a new Red. “Erin came up with a good word to describe this,” says our sommelier. “Yeah, I think this one tastes leathery.” “Ooh, that's good,” says her co-worker and boyfriend. There's no way of knowing how far you can roll your eyes back into your skull (and make sure no one sees it) until you're confronted with someone who says this wine tastes leathery, or that this wine has a real “bass note,” or until you hear someone who claims to have ever drank the stuff describe Moscatto as being “like Peach Schnapps, but not.” I want to be there on the last day of sommelier training when they tell you that the big secret you'll take with you and will enable you to blow countless plumes of smoky bullshit up countless restaurant owners' sphincters is that it's all a word game, and the drippier and more abstract the better. If ever I assemble a list of wines, it will be progressive with respect to alcoholic content, rounding out with my highly recommended “Fortified” assortment.
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