J.C. Geiger

Since my twenty-first birthday, I'd always wanted to be a regular: the guy everyone stops mid-drink to greet, seated at the first open table, comped countless beers. With women, I've always been a serial monogamist, and I think the idea of having an intimate and rewarding relationship with a bar came naturally to me. In love, they say you never get over your first--and I never did. Its name was Benedict's, and we met on the corner of Lincoln and Larchmont.

From my first quiet pint on a drizzling February afternoon, I was infatuated. To the rolling eyes of barhopping friends, I decried Benedict's virtues. It complimented its patrons rather than overwhelmed them. The eclectic jukebox was just loud enough; no oversized televisions sucking conversation into the nearest game. From a rainbow of rare taps, the wait for the perfect pint was only however long it took to pour. I didn't want to see any other bars.

I'd found The One.

If friends wanted to go somewhere else, Benedict's and I went out alone, and my dream of becoming a regular materialized. The bartenders learned my name and my favorite drink. Even on a low salary, I tipped well, knowing I was in it for the long haul. As weeks stretched on, I slowly blurred the line between patron and barroom fixture. I shared this enviable status with others. Of note: Mitch was the classic Businessman With a Problem. Always well-dressed, he'd shift around in his stool, grumbling into a rocks glass about Chicago politics. He drank Glenmorangie or Laphroaig. Pete, to my left, was a salesman with a fresh face and drooping ex-footballer's frame--a Bud guy. Cherie bounced from seat to seat, letting guys bid vodka tonics for the spotlight of her attention.

There were more, each uniquely interesting, but Walt was my favorite.

A line cook from an Uptown corner diner, Walt always stalked in with a bang and jangle of the door, shouting his order to the bar, unable to wait the fifteen long paces to a stool. Like any hard-working cook, Walt lived with a healthy contempt for an unforgivably hungry public. Dark hair exploding beneath his Sox hat, he'd slam into a barstool and immediately growl about whatever order had detained him that night. It was always some variation of: "So this prick waltzes in and orders a chicken sandwich at 9:30--you know? Oh, please sir, it's nine-thirty on a Tuesday, could I please order myself a god damn chicken sandwich?!" Walt mocked the absurdity of every late-night request, as if the customer had walked into an appliance shop and demanded to be sold an elephant.

Walt's rants were brilliant icebreakers. When the cursing subsided, we'd hear Mitch's daughter had gone Republican, and he couldn't imagine why. Cherie had an audition at an old West Side theater; Pete got a new job selling cars. The conversations spooled into the evening where they'd hit a wall of bright lights at 2am, or more often, peter out to small talk and goodbyes.

My old friends wondered why I spent so much time there. In retrospect, it's clear. These were people who, outside of Benedict's, I never would've talked to. The bar catered to a neighborhood, not a personality type, and the resulting conversations were raw, rarely dulled by patrons' identical experiences and backgrounds. Also, I knew I'd finally done it. People stopped drinking to say "hi." I never waited for a table. I drank for free.

Then about six months after my first day, on a Saturday afternoon, everything changed. Though it wasn't much on the surface--glances in the kitchen, new creases on the bartenders' faces, a sudden awareness of open seats--it was obvious enough. There's a uniquely dim, deflated feeling that haunts a public place once the plug's been pulled. We could feel it: Benedict's was going to close.

In typical Chicago fashion, there was no public announcement--it just happened. Taps dried up, then disappeared, like pickets being removed from a fence. Framed art, once tightly jigsawed over the walls, was taken down, leaving sharp silhouettes of red paint where the sun had traced their outlines. In general, we all drank more and talked less. The regulars were pulling back--getting ready for the break.

I've never broken up gracefully, and this was no exception. I kept going in every night, giving it my all. I tipped bigger and ordered more; I sparked interesting conversations, trying to make things work. One Wednesday night, we all drank our way out of denial. Everyone was there: Walt, Cherie, Mitch, Pete. We had the talk. Some of us exchanged numbers--we wanted to stay friends. Even Walt bought a round, which he'd never done.

The next Tuesday, the doors were shut.

Walking home from work, I watched Benedict's skeleton being picked clean through dark windows. When the boards went up, I started calling old friends again. They gave me a hard time, then everything drifted back to normal: the same conversations, the endless search for the hot new place. It was official. I'd returned to the seedy life of a barhopper.

I still saw the Benedict's crowd around the neighborhood. I'd see Mitch parking his Lexus, or Cherie in line at Jewel. I saw Walt once on a smoke break outside the diner. During our limited interactions, it was painfully obvious whatever tentative thread Benedict's had connected us with was gone. The lights always seemed too bright, and conversations felt awkward, like we shared some sordid past we were all trying to forget. Before long, they all blended back into the neighborhood's quiet walls.

I know within Chicago's neon constellation of nightspots, tucked in an alley or anchoring the corner of a brownstone block is a perfect neighborhood bar--but I'm not ready for that kind of commitment. I'm the guy who sees an ex's ghost for years afterward: in busy intersections and on barstools, between the pages of a restaurant's menu. These days, moping with my bottle of Miller Lite, I'll often look past the glazed faces of my friends to the nearest plasma-screen TV and ask, "Anyone remember Benedict's?"

(2006-11-14)

Also by J.C. Geiger

The Golden Goose
Since the first night Greg Hall stole a Stroh´s from his father's fridge, he's always wanted more
(2006-05-16)

Singular Sensation
It's unlike anything you've ever seen, heard or tasted before
(2005-05-10)

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