The Incident at a Long Ago Tavern

I fell hard when I met her. It was at a long ago tavern that she sat at my side. Our eyes met and it just about broke my heart.

Then I made the mistake of getting up to introduce my self and got my feet tangled in the bar stool. In a very surreal slow-motion moment we found ourselves face to face. Had someone taken a snapshot at just the right moment we would have appeared to be lovers going in for a long tender kiss.

Had someone videotaped the moment they would have seen the colliding heads, the blood flow from a broken nose, hers, the scream of ‘You fucking idiot!' reverberating off the tavern walls. The ensuing silence as the crowd turned to take in the moment. The bartender calling for an ambulance.

Play it in slow motion and we appear to be making love in some insanely comic pornographic movie. Her mini-skirted legs wrapped around my hips. Legs flailing with excitement. Two lovers in mid-flight before our bodies are slammed to the ground, heads colliding. My face momentarily nestled in the soft nook of her lovely neck.

I had a sudden urge to kiss her there. But the timing seemed off. Better wait till her screams subside and I’m at her bedside at the hospital offering comfort like the boyfriend I should have been had we met sooner and I was not so drunk that I’d actually tumble clumsily from my own barstool.

“Go with me to the hospital?” she said sweetly. “Are you fucking nuts! You moron! You almost killed me! Get out of my fucking face!”

My requests for a reconciliation went unrequited.

So I sit at my favorite barstool and wait. Making sure not to wrap my feet around the stools legs like a toddler doing a time-out in his bad boy corner. I plant them firmly at the bar and wait for her returns.

“Didn’t I tell you never to come back here?” said the bartender.

I’d forgotten. He actually did say that. I’ll have to start writing this stuff down.