My privileged white ass

I am a lucky woman, I understand that. I'm an over-educated prep school dropout and I have a pretty good job. There is really no material thing that I want very badly that I absolutely could not ever hope to get. Sure, my desires are pretty tame and my actual needs are modest, but truly I am overwhelmed sometimes by the volume of stuff that is mine. And I can go pretty much wherever I want to go and buy whatever damn kind of beer I want. I'd have to make some changes if, say, I wanted to travel a lot, but if it were terribly important I could find a way to make it happen.

Yeah I'd go broke pretty quickly if it was cocaine I wanted or a huge quantity of consumer goods. I'm lucky not to want that shit.

But I was caught up short the other night when I went downtown and the show I wanted to see was sold out. I watched it through the window for a while but I got kind of tired of crouching down and kneeling in gravel, so I went across the street to have a beer & wait for folks to leave at intermission. I didn't go to the tiny martini bar I usually go to; there was a new place open that I hadn't been to before, so I wandered in. The bartender was pretty busy, so I didn't really talk to him at all, I just ordered a diet Corona (not my favorite, but I've been on sort of a diet beer kick lately - plus it tastes pretty good in the hot weather) and he served me immediately as I settled in to watch the jazzy little combo on stage. They were pretty good. Sort of a bongo drum/saxophone/acoustic guitar trio with interesting lyrics and a sweet young thing playing guitar & singing.

As I sat there, this homeless guy wandered in and stood near me to listen to the band. During a pause he turned to me and said "Wow, I can't believe it's only three guys -- I heard them from outside & thought it was a bigger combo." I said yeah they're pretty good, etc., and we talked a little about what other bands were playing around town and about the show across the street that I was missing, and about some other music. I figured he was some kind of musician, or at least a fellow music geek, so I offered him a chair.

Oops.

The bartender came over and asked the guy if he was a member. The liquor license laws hereabouts are kind of strange to me. Places that serve liquor and no food are generally members-only establishments. "Memberships" are generally a matter of signing a mailing list type thingy and paying a dollar or so.

And not being a homeless black guy, even if you've got a dollar.

Anyway, this guy just got up to leave. The bartender said, "Sorry man, the owner just got here & he's gonna get all freaked out if there are non-members in here on a busy night."

The guy just calmly walked out, no hassle. I got the impression he was used to this, and he could, after all, hear just fine from outside the door.

Somehow it just irked me. Maybe because I was sitting there alone and had actually spoken with the guy, but still. The bartender never asked me if I was a member. And the fact is, I'd never been there before and I'm not a member either.

So I left my beer on the bar and walked out.

Now, I'm not totally clueless. I know that this sort of thing happens all the damn time, and in fact it's not the first time I've seen it happen, although most places I go to they'd only do it if the non-member patron were hassling others or acting nutty. And I'm sort of sympathetic to business owners who don't want to have space taken up on busy nights by non-paying customers who maybe look kind of grungy and freak out the nice white folks. And I know that there is a homeless shelter right around the corner from this place and sometimes people come right in and ask customers for money & generally make pests of themselves by being drunk & disorderly and/or crazy.

I'm all for throwing people out when they're drunk & disorderly, whether they're homeless or club members or whatever.

The guy was standing just outside the door, still listening to the music. He said, "You didn't finish that whole beer already did you?" I said no but that I wasn't a member either. He said, "No way, he did not throw you out." I laughed and said that he hadn't but I didn't like his attitude. "Just doing his job," the guy said. "My name's Richard, by the way" he said, and I shook his hand & we chatted a bit. He was from Buffalo, and we talked about being in the South & I told him my name was Nora and I was from Minneapolis, and we talked about the Stanley Cup games & more about music, and finally I said "I want to go across the street. I'm a member there, and I can't get into the show for another half an hour or so. Will you join me for a beer? I'm buying."

He accepted my invitation, so we walked in. I don't usually go there on Saturday nights so I didn't know the bartender. When they started to ask Richard about his membership, I said he was with me and I was a member. The guy actually started to look me up, but half the people at the bar were friends of mine and greeted me, and he gave up.

I've so totally never seen them do that. Not to me. I am so fucking clueless.

I got us beers & we went out on the patio and immediately met some folks from Ithaca and Syracuse and we had a great time talking about weather and politics and hockey and the relative merits of NASCAR vs IndyCar racing. Or whatever the hell it's called.

I do know enough about hockey to talk about it, and we did just win the Stanley fucking Cup & all, but car racing is a little beyond me.

We did not discuss membership policies or homelessness.

But then I could see it was intermission across the street & I was finished with my beer. Richard and I left, and he thanked me. He wasn't hitting on me, and he certainly wasn't trying to scam me with some dumbass story, or asking for spare change or acting nutty or anything that scary homeless guys are known for. He wasn't my dream date, to be sure, but he was a nice enough human being and I enjoyed talking with him for half an hour.

But goddamn, what a way to live. And what a thing to have to live with.

The show I went to see, by the way, was highly excellent, even if I only got to see the last half.

[update: more on this topic here.]