My Open Road

by Skrubly

"Me, I'm part of the machine.
The bottom rung of the company.
The only time I start to worry,
Is when the machine becomes part of me."

        -Bottom Rung, J Church



        Julie wore a leather jacket and smoked.  We'd been inside the place
for only an hour or so and she'd already been through half a pack of some
hideous unfiltered cigarettes.  I don't smoke, so I don't pay attention to
what kind they are.  Sure, I have my little Rat Pack fetish, but it only
extends as far as nice plain looking zippo lighters.

        We were drinking Corona, which I didn't really like, and I kind of
wondered why we were here in the first place.  This place wasn't my kind of
scene.

Going out with coworkers after work for a drink had become a habit in our
office lately, and John had disappeared after he'd gotten his beer and
spotted this redhead across the room, leaving Julie and I with smoke in the
air and awkward silence.

I made friends easily at the office when I started working there, but I still
wanted John around sometimes because he was the one I knew the best.  Which
is to say not very well, I guess, because I didn't know any of them on
anything more than a coworker level and certainly not Julie who seemed to be
almost standoffish.  She was so, well, rough, and even though I'm a big guy
and all, she still intimidated me in a way.  I mean, that's just the way I
am.  So we sat for a minute in silence, and then she asked if I wanted
another beer and I said ok.  So she went off to get them.

The other people looked pretty bored.  Bars can be that way some of the time;
the bartender was a young guy who was shoving beer across the bar at least
eighty percent of the time and spending the rest of it looking kind of
sullen.  I mean, everyone ordered beer here even though there was a full bar
with a mirror and everything.  The actual bar portion I liked, bottles lined
up against the wall looking sharp even though they hadn't been dusted in
awhile.  The most that anyone would order would be a gin and tonic
and most of that involved one of those bar guns to dispense it.  There was
an old guy that worked some weekends, and he always looked tired.  I'd be
tired too, if all I got were requests for beer and the occasional shooter.
That's no way to live a life tending bar.

But who am I to judge?  I'm a typesetting monkey.  I sit in front of a
computer all day.  So I guess I get depressed at the lack of romantacism
when it comes to the bar.  What happened to the silver shakers and the
smell of gin and the cocktail glasses?  It all seems to be gone.  Makes
me yearn for an era I was never around for.  Of course, I tend to put on
the rose-colored glasses when looking back on stuff like that.

What is it about work that makes real social contact impossible?  Maybe it's
because we're all there for our different reasons, and at some point it
involves money which makes us feel dirty.  So maybe I can't strictly call
John my friend anymore.  Maybe Julie will never be a friend.  Sometimes I
think I try too hard and at other times I think I don't try at all.  

And the crack of someone shooting pool brought me back, and Julie sat down
and handed me a fresh Corona.  She lit another cigarette, and we managed to
make small talk for half an hour or so, until John came back and said that
he was leaving.  We all gathered our stuff, and as we were walking out I
looked at the bartender pull off another pint and wipe his hands on his
towel, and I kind of wondered if I'd be back to that bar again.

I went back the next week and ordered a Manhattan from the old guy.  And, for
the first time in a long time, I made a new friend, a real friend.  His name
is Paul, and he drives a truck.  We play golf when the weather is nice.  He
makes a great Old Fashioned, too.

And the people at work are still there, but I keep to myself a little more.

No one seems to notice.  And that doesn't bother me anymore.