The Bar
Posted on July 19, 2011 with 0 comments
A dyke walks into a bar and says, "Ouch, what the hell is THAT doing in my basement?" Her wife comes running down the stairs and says, "Oh, honey, I thought we needed to be more social, so I had it installed today while you were at work. We're opening up for business in two hours. Do you think you can learn how to make Sex on the Beach in time?" The wife, a modern day Maureen Stapleton, hurries up the staircase, her plaid apron swishing back and forth.
"What the?" wonders Johnna. She stood for a moment and when she realized there was no punch line coming, she pulls out one of the bar stools, plops down onto it and lets her head rest on her hand. "What is she talking about? More social?" she muses outloud while staring off after Dot.
Dot. Not Dottie. Not Dorothy, took her moniker when she refused as a little girl to answer to Dorothy or Dottie. It was 1980 and little girls just weren't called "Dot," but Dot announced that she wanted to be called Dot, giving the reasoning, at nine years old, that she was but a mere dot in the vast universe of time, and her father, being a philosopher and her mother, being a fatalist, were convinced that "Dot" would be acceptable. Thus, she was forever to be called Dot.
"What could Dot be thinking?" Johnna continues to muse in shock. Dot had never done anything like this before. Was this Dot's version of a mid-life crisis? Was it a sign that she was dissatisfied with their fifteen-year marriage? She never even goes out to bars, and now there was one in their house?
As Johnna muses, trying to piece together this puzzle, she starts sizing up the bar itself. Nice wood, cedar, she thinks. An arc, easy access to the bartender and to the drinkers. Nice finish, shiny, but not plastic-looking. No mirror to the liquor shelves: she liked that. Makes people pay attention to the people they're talking to instead of flirting with people they catch at an angle out of the corner of their eye.
Johnna hates flirting. She's always hated it. When she met Dot at their mutual friend's birthday party - held at Park on the LES, she shook her hand and yelled (over the thunderous crowd), "You know what? You seem like a great lady, I'd like to take you out for dinner. How's Tuesday night?" Fortunately, Dot was a bit dim when it came to social interactions, so Johnna's approach worked just fine for her.
Their first date was strange, even they'll admit that. Johnna suggested, really more like instructed, that they meet at the H.E.R.E. cafe and then take in a show. When Tuesday rolled around, 6:00 pm came and went. 6:30...6:45 pm... Johnna called Dot's cell, she got her voicemail message which played, "Hi there. If you want to connect. with. Dot. leave a message." Followed by Dot's little giggle, which, over the years, Johnna would delight in more and more. At about 7:03, Dot came hurdling through the doors at H.E.R.E. screaming, "I'm so sorry! I didn't know you meant here! I thought you meant, "here" I mean "there" you know, where we were last week, of course and when you weren't there I waited and then I thought to ask if I could just get to the part of the bar where we were last week - you know 'here' and they looked at me like I was crazy. "I'm looking for here" I kept saying, trying to get to that part of the bar, which was closed off, because it was just 6:00 pm and then one of the waitstaff said, "H.E.R.E.? That's on the lower east side." And then my cell rang and it was you and I was so embarrassed, so I just jumped in a cab and HERE I am! ...At H.E.R.E." Giggle. Johnna was surprised by how delighted she felt at Dot's explanation. She'd never experienced someone so lively over something as rude as being 63 minutes late for a date. Dot's explanation put a sparkle in Johnna's eye. And the rest of the evening went off ---
"Have you learned Sex on the Beach yet?" Dot asks at her usually mach pace while barreling down the stairs to the basement? "People will be here in 90 minutes!" She drops off what seemed like 1000 drink napkins and 12 boxes of drink stirrers. "The glasses are late! They were supposed to be here at 3:00, but if they don't come, I've got plastic we can use...not classy, but it'll work. OH! And we need to put in speakers here for music, could you do that after the Sex on the Beach?" She's panting, about a foot away from Johnna's face, waiting for an answer.
Johnna knew this play like the back of her hand. Dot gets worked up over something and makes a huge circus out of it and without explaining any of it, ropes her into it and when Johnna doesn't respond immediately with positive affirmation and action, Dot starts crying. The aftermath of which is hard to determine: 50% of the time they end up having a really intense and meaningful talk that brings them closer together and 50% of the time, Dot shuts down for days until she gives up, starts interacting again and the 'real issue' is goes unaddressed.
Time was ticking. Johnna had to make a move. Go with it and get the speakers and see where all this leads...or confront Dot about this nutball situation she'd created...
"Sure. Should I use the speakers from the livingroom or the studio?" Johnna shot back, right under the buzzer. A huge smile emerges from Dot's face as she races up the stairs, "From the studio!" she calls out over her shoulder.
After 15 years, Johnna had learned that happiness, even at the cost of comfort, was most important. And when Dot was happy, Johnna was happy.
Glad she made the decision to go along for the ride, Johnna gets the stereo equipment from the studio (it's an Art Studio, Dot paints) and installs it around the bar. Easy enough. Then she takes out her iPhone and googles "Sex on the Beach," while it loads, she notices: There's no liquor on the bar.
"Dot!" Johnna calls up the stairs, thinking Dot's in the kitchen. When she gets no answer, she starts up the stairs. Google loads with choices for "Sex on the Beach," Johnna picks one. More loading. She continues up the stairs. As she gets up to the top of the stairs, she can hear a thudding sound. It seems to be coming from the front steps.
"Dot?" Johnna called out, picking up her pace a bit - walking through the kitchen, passed the dark leather decorated study. The sound of the thudding was replaced with a crashing. Through the living room, Johnna could hear Dot's voice screaming with the crashing. Now she was moving swiftly toward the front door. She ran into the door knob, slipping on the marble floor beneath her. Turning the knob, she flung open the heavy oak door.
CRASH! A solid object whizzed by her head and slammed the door behind her. Prickles rained down on her shoulders and legs. Johnna looked up into the deep green eyes of Dot who was poised with a glass tumbler, poised to shoot it at Johnna's head.
"DOT! WAIT!" cried Johnna. CRASH! The glass came hurdling towards her, missing her right hand by centimeters. Dot was never a very good pitcher.
"DOT! What are you DOING?"
"They did this, Johnna, they did this to US, they did it on purpose. These were supposed to be here hours ago. HOURS ago. And NOW WHAT? HOW can we open? How can we have sex on the beach? I don't understand why those mother fuckers couldn't just get these here on TIME. What is WRONG with them? They're all out to get me. They did this on PURPOSE. They WANT me to fail. They want to stop me. They want me to look stupid in front of you so that you'll leave me. You're part of this, aren't you? You are, aren't you?" Dot's head cocks a little to the left, and her squint gets tighter.
Johnna stands waiting for the next glass to come hurtling toward her. It'd been so long since Dot had broken down like this. Johnna thinks about how she should have known when she saw the bar: "How much bigger a clue do you need, shithead?" Dot had acute paranoia and anxiety combined with homicidal ideation and aggression. She was on medication, had been from the time she was a kid. Over their fifteen years together, Dot had had two major breaks. Both times, she had gone off her medication without telling anyone. She'd talk about how she felt like less of a person, having to take all those pills every day. Every day swallowing the proof that she was broken and needed constant fixing. She couldn't take it, she'd say. And she'd say, "But this time, I thought I could do it on my own."
But she hadn't been able to. Anywhere from three weeks to two months after the cessation of the medication, Dot would end up in some kind of trouble. One time, she was careening through the Holland Tunnel at 90 mph, thank goodness she didn't hit anyone, and was stopped by the police. She said she was trying to get away from the mail. The police thought she meant "male" and brought in detectives to find out who was pursuing her. It wasn't 'til Johnna got to the hospital that she was able to talk everyone down and explain that Dot was afraid of the mail, the postal service, in general, freaked her out. Staring at Dot, knocked out on Seroquel, in the hospital bed at the Psychiatric Institute of Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital, Johnna renewed her vows silently. She would never leave Dot, no matter how bad it got.
"AREN'T YOU???!??? YOU'RE PART OF THIS!" Dot screams and hurls a glass at Johnna, hitting her in the shoulder. Johnna carefully considers her options. Her cell is still in her right hand, she could easily dial 911 without Dot noticing. She knows she's risking physical harm to both herself and to Dot if she doesn't call, but maybe she could talk her down herself.
"Dot." Johnna says quietly.
Dot stands, staring Johnna down, she's the enemy.
"Dot. It's Johnna. I'm here."
"What?" Dot looks confused.
"Dot. It's Johnna. I'm Johnna. Remember? Your wife."
"You did this to me. You ruined my dream," tears start welling up in Dot's eyes, her cheeks getting red.
Johnna considers. "I'm sorry. I did. You're right. I was wrong to do that."
CRASH! A glass hits Johnna right between her eyes and cracks all over her face. Blood streams down her cheeks from her forehead. She falls down on the door jamb. Dizzy. Blurry. Dot running toward her.
"Johnna? Johnna?" Dot's voice is desperate. "Oh. Johnna. I - " she breaks down crying, huddling into a ball in the glass on the steps, grinding her hands into the glass shards. Red droplets begin to appear on the brick steps. Johnna manages to bring her iPhone up within sight. She dials 9. 1. 1. and puts the phone on speaker. She can barely hear the emergency operator over Dot's howling.
"911, What's your emergency?"
"My wife." Johnna yells over Dot's cries, "She's having a - psychotic episode. She's hurting herself. Please. Help her. I can't. I can't."
Johnna blacks out.
"What the?" wonders Johnna. She stood for a moment and when she realized there was no punch line coming, she pulls out one of the bar stools, plops down onto it and lets her head rest on her hand. "What is she talking about? More social?" she muses outloud while staring off after Dot.
Dot. Not Dottie. Not Dorothy, took her moniker when she refused as a little girl to answer to Dorothy or Dottie. It was 1980 and little girls just weren't called "Dot," but Dot announced that she wanted to be called Dot, giving the reasoning, at nine years old, that she was but a mere dot in the vast universe of time, and her father, being a philosopher and her mother, being a fatalist, were convinced that "Dot" would be acceptable. Thus, she was forever to be called Dot.
"What could Dot be thinking?" Johnna continues to muse in shock. Dot had never done anything like this before. Was this Dot's version of a mid-life crisis? Was it a sign that she was dissatisfied with their fifteen-year marriage? She never even goes out to bars, and now there was one in their house?
As Johnna muses, trying to piece together this puzzle, she starts sizing up the bar itself. Nice wood, cedar, she thinks. An arc, easy access to the bartender and to the drinkers. Nice finish, shiny, but not plastic-looking. No mirror to the liquor shelves: she liked that. Makes people pay attention to the people they're talking to instead of flirting with people they catch at an angle out of the corner of their eye.
Johnna hates flirting. She's always hated it. When she met Dot at their mutual friend's birthday party - held at Park on the LES, she shook her hand and yelled (over the thunderous crowd), "You know what? You seem like a great lady, I'd like to take you out for dinner. How's Tuesday night?" Fortunately, Dot was a bit dim when it came to social interactions, so Johnna's approach worked just fine for her.
Their first date was strange, even they'll admit that. Johnna suggested, really more like instructed, that they meet at the H.E.R.E. cafe and then take in a show. When Tuesday rolled around, 6:00 pm came and went. 6:30...6:45 pm... Johnna called Dot's cell, she got her voicemail message which played, "Hi there. If you want to connect. with. Dot. leave a message." Followed by Dot's little giggle, which, over the years, Johnna would delight in more and more. At about 7:03, Dot came hurdling through the doors at H.E.R.E. screaming, "I'm so sorry! I didn't know you meant here! I thought you meant, "here" I mean "there" you know, where we were last week, of course and when you weren't there I waited and then I thought to ask if I could just get to the part of the bar where we were last week - you know 'here' and they looked at me like I was crazy. "I'm looking for here" I kept saying, trying to get to that part of the bar, which was closed off, because it was just 6:00 pm and then one of the waitstaff said, "H.E.R.E.? That's on the lower east side." And then my cell rang and it was you and I was so embarrassed, so I just jumped in a cab and HERE I am! ...At H.E.R.E." Giggle. Johnna was surprised by how delighted she felt at Dot's explanation. She'd never experienced someone so lively over something as rude as being 63 minutes late for a date. Dot's explanation put a sparkle in Johnna's eye. And the rest of the evening went off ---
"Have you learned Sex on the Beach yet?" Dot asks at her usually mach pace while barreling down the stairs to the basement? "People will be here in 90 minutes!" She drops off what seemed like 1000 drink napkins and 12 boxes of drink stirrers. "The glasses are late! They were supposed to be here at 3:00, but if they don't come, I've got plastic we can use...not classy, but it'll work. OH! And we need to put in speakers here for music, could you do that after the Sex on the Beach?" She's panting, about a foot away from Johnna's face, waiting for an answer.
Johnna knew this play like the back of her hand. Dot gets worked up over something and makes a huge circus out of it and without explaining any of it, ropes her into it and when Johnna doesn't respond immediately with positive affirmation and action, Dot starts crying. The aftermath of which is hard to determine: 50% of the time they end up having a really intense and meaningful talk that brings them closer together and 50% of the time, Dot shuts down for days until she gives up, starts interacting again and the 'real issue' is goes unaddressed.
Time was ticking. Johnna had to make a move. Go with it and get the speakers and see where all this leads...or confront Dot about this nutball situation she'd created...
"Sure. Should I use the speakers from the livingroom or the studio?" Johnna shot back, right under the buzzer. A huge smile emerges from Dot's face as she races up the stairs, "From the studio!" she calls out over her shoulder.
After 15 years, Johnna had learned that happiness, even at the cost of comfort, was most important. And when Dot was happy, Johnna was happy.
Glad she made the decision to go along for the ride, Johnna gets the stereo equipment from the studio (it's an Art Studio, Dot paints) and installs it around the bar. Easy enough. Then she takes out her iPhone and googles "Sex on the Beach," while it loads, she notices: There's no liquor on the bar.
"Dot!" Johnna calls up the stairs, thinking Dot's in the kitchen. When she gets no answer, she starts up the stairs. Google loads with choices for "Sex on the Beach," Johnna picks one. More loading. She continues up the stairs. As she gets up to the top of the stairs, she can hear a thudding sound. It seems to be coming from the front steps.
"Dot?" Johnna called out, picking up her pace a bit - walking through the kitchen, passed the dark leather decorated study. The sound of the thudding was replaced with a crashing. Through the living room, Johnna could hear Dot's voice screaming with the crashing. Now she was moving swiftly toward the front door. She ran into the door knob, slipping on the marble floor beneath her. Turning the knob, she flung open the heavy oak door.
CRASH! A solid object whizzed by her head and slammed the door behind her. Prickles rained down on her shoulders and legs. Johnna looked up into the deep green eyes of Dot who was poised with a glass tumbler, poised to shoot it at Johnna's head.
"DOT! WAIT!" cried Johnna. CRASH! The glass came hurdling towards her, missing her right hand by centimeters. Dot was never a very good pitcher.
"DOT! What are you DOING?"
"They did this, Johnna, they did this to US, they did it on purpose. These were supposed to be here hours ago. HOURS ago. And NOW WHAT? HOW can we open? How can we have sex on the beach? I don't understand why those mother fuckers couldn't just get these here on TIME. What is WRONG with them? They're all out to get me. They did this on PURPOSE. They WANT me to fail. They want to stop me. They want me to look stupid in front of you so that you'll leave me. You're part of this, aren't you? You are, aren't you?" Dot's head cocks a little to the left, and her squint gets tighter.
Johnna stands waiting for the next glass to come hurtling toward her. It'd been so long since Dot had broken down like this. Johnna thinks about how she should have known when she saw the bar: "How much bigger a clue do you need, shithead?" Dot had acute paranoia and anxiety combined with homicidal ideation and aggression. She was on medication, had been from the time she was a kid. Over their fifteen years together, Dot had had two major breaks. Both times, she had gone off her medication without telling anyone. She'd talk about how she felt like less of a person, having to take all those pills every day. Every day swallowing the proof that she was broken and needed constant fixing. She couldn't take it, she'd say. And she'd say, "But this time, I thought I could do it on my own."
But she hadn't been able to. Anywhere from three weeks to two months after the cessation of the medication, Dot would end up in some kind of trouble. One time, she was careening through the Holland Tunnel at 90 mph, thank goodness she didn't hit anyone, and was stopped by the police. She said she was trying to get away from the mail. The police thought she meant "male" and brought in detectives to find out who was pursuing her. It wasn't 'til Johnna got to the hospital that she was able to talk everyone down and explain that Dot was afraid of the mail, the postal service, in general, freaked her out. Staring at Dot, knocked out on Seroquel, in the hospital bed at the Psychiatric Institute of Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital, Johnna renewed her vows silently. She would never leave Dot, no matter how bad it got.
"AREN'T YOU???!??? YOU'RE PART OF THIS!" Dot screams and hurls a glass at Johnna, hitting her in the shoulder. Johnna carefully considers her options. Her cell is still in her right hand, she could easily dial 911 without Dot noticing. She knows she's risking physical harm to both herself and to Dot if she doesn't call, but maybe she could talk her down herself.
"Dot." Johnna says quietly.
Dot stands, staring Johnna down, she's the enemy.
"Dot. It's Johnna. I'm here."
"What?" Dot looks confused.
"Dot. It's Johnna. I'm Johnna. Remember? Your wife."
"You did this to me. You ruined my dream," tears start welling up in Dot's eyes, her cheeks getting red.
Johnna considers. "I'm sorry. I did. You're right. I was wrong to do that."
CRASH! A glass hits Johnna right between her eyes and cracks all over her face. Blood streams down her cheeks from her forehead. She falls down on the door jamb. Dizzy. Blurry. Dot running toward her.
"Johnna? Johnna?" Dot's voice is desperate. "Oh. Johnna. I - " she breaks down crying, huddling into a ball in the glass on the steps, grinding her hands into the glass shards. Red droplets begin to appear on the brick steps. Johnna manages to bring her iPhone up within sight. She dials 9. 1. 1. and puts the phone on speaker. She can barely hear the emergency operator over Dot's howling.
"911, What's your emergency?"
"My wife." Johnna yells over Dot's cries, "She's having a - psychotic episode. She's hurting herself. Please. Help her. I can't. I can't."
Johnna blacks out.