A Humorous Happy Hour Scene in DC
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental.
Adams Morgan. The 18th Street strip.
It was a slow summer Friday night in Adams Morgan. Washington, DC was in that part of August nestled between when the interns left, Congress was on recess, and the beginning of the fall semester. Moisture from the previous night’s storm under a full moon hung around like an unwanted stray dog.
Folks who ventured out were either looking for something 18th Street couldn’t guarantee or were obliged to do so. They marched on through the humidity, swatting away the mosquitos, sweat glistening on their brows and starting to show along their butt cracks.
The impending sunset was doing nothing to provide a respite. A few degrees cooler, maybe, but the humidity almost always cancels that out. Inside the White Ferret were two patrons slowly sipping their craft IPAs. Their gaze hovered just over the taps and their pints. The Nats were losing again; no one was surprised and no one cared. They were both from somewhere else and cheered for different teams anyway.
Bradley, the bartender, knew they were lingering because they didn’t want to go outside. The AC was some of the best on the strip. They didn’t leave the doors ajar like other spots up and down the street in some foolish desire to let potential patrons know they were open for business. The light in their front window and a peak down into the basement bar through its bay window was sufficient to let folks know the taps were flowing.
From his vantage point, he could see the bar owner perched on his stool out on the patio. To call it that was an exaggeration. The space was just to the left of the stairs leading up to the main bar and to the right of the steps down to the basement bar where Bradley held court. It had a single table and was almost always occupied by the owner. Old and crinkly looking from years of chain smoking the worst kind of cigarettes and pounding Pabst tall boys, Dick Riddle was still a decade younger than Bradley’s parents, who looked half his age.
Bradley was dressed in all black, as Dick and his wife Betty Fletcher required. They thought of themselves as restauranteurs, the best in the biz. And while their place classed up the street by serving craft beer at $8 to $10 per pint, pricing out the undergrads and fresh-off-the-boat young professionals, they definitely weren’t viewed as a fine dining establishment by pretty much anyone. Besides, craft beer snobs tended to care more about what they drank and less about how the bartender looked. In fact, they would have preferred he wore a t-shirt from a local brewery and a pair of shorts instead of dressing like he was going to a funeral.
He scanned back from the window painted with the bar’s name and looked down the twenty-seater bar. He liked it down in the basement. The setting was a bit more intimate–lower ceilings, no tables, and if the seats were full, just enough room for a single row of standing patrons. Maximum 50 people, enough to keep him busy without needing help.
He rubbed his hands across his face, more out of boredom than anything else. He was sporting a five o’clock shadow, but his blonde facial hair was essentially transparent. Any longer, though, and the bosses would be on his ass about shaving. He was getting a trim tomorrow–his hair was starting to touch his ears. Maybe he’d have the barber hit his face with a razor, too.
Bob and Joe were both busy watching a game they didn’t care about. Mumbling to each other about shit no one understood, both of them having different conversations, both of them believing the other was listening. Bradley filled their second rounds in less time than it took for him to plan what he’d do in the morning. Nights like these were the pits. But Dick was well on his way to finishing off a sixer of Pabst tall boys. And that’s the sort of thing that made slow nights worth it.
The music was the bartender’s curated Pandora station based loosely on a mix of classic rock and new alternative groups like Vampire Weekend and MGMT. He kept it a volume that let folks actually have a conversation. It had been a long-running battle he had with Betty, who thought the best way to converse was to scream over the top of your beer.
It was a near-nightly conflict. After finishing up processing the previous night’s business and before leaving to run errands, she set the music volume as Bradley opened the bar. Happy Hour patrons would arrive and request the volume to be turned down. She would return from whatever she was doing and turn it back up, comment to Bradley about keeping the volume where she set it, and then leave again.
Of course, Bradley would turn it down immediately after she left. This routine lasted six months until Betty finally took a stand and made a scene in front of customers, which was a no-no in the industry.
“God damn it, Bradley! Do you have a problem with my authority? Are you trying to show me up? You don’t respect me because I’m a woman? Keep the fucking volume where I set it,” Betty said sternly. It was loud and distracting enough to stop patrons mid-conversation.
“I don’t have a problem with any of those things, Betty. You know that. If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”
“What, are you going to quit now?” That was a thing she and Dick openly worried about. They had this weird obsession with their employees quitting, especially the good ones as if they knew they were assholes and were preparing for the inevitable.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to quit.” He wasn’t, had no intention to.
“So, I’m ridiculous now? Huh? Because I’m a woman.” Betty often played the woman card to off-balance whomever she argued with, especially when she knew she was wrong. Better to go on the offensive than to sit back and have your weaknesses exposed.
“Would ya chill out, Betty? Okay? Bradley turned the volume down because I asked him to. It's the same thing every week. I walk in, the music is too damn loud; I ask him to turn it down, he obliges. It’s too damn loud to think,” Stu, one of the regulars, said between sips of beer, pissed off that the boss was haranguing his favorite bartender.
“Why didn’t you just say so, Bradley?”
“I tried to tell you, but you never let me explain. You tell me to keep it up and then leave before I can tell you what was happening.”
“Oh.”
And that was all she said. No apologies. No recognition or admission that she’d gotten it wrong. She grabbed her things and left.
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Pat, the third of a regular happy hour troika, came bounding down the steps. Sweat was dripping down the side of his face and had soaked through his blue button-up.
“I’d shake your hand, but Jesus Christ, you should probably towel off first,” Bob said after he took one look at Pat.
Despite not listening to a word each other said, Bob, Joe, and Pat always showed up on the same nights at generally the same times. They were an incongruent melange of DC transplants. Bob was from Vermont and worked as an economist at some government agency downtown. He was tall, lanky, and had a mop of strawberry blonde hair. He got stuck in the weeds on the particulars of finance. Joe was a stocky farm boy who grew up in Western Kentucky, not Bowling Green, he would inevitably have to explain, but in a tiny little town close to the Mississippi River. His drawl started to fade but came out when he had enough IPAs. His job title impressed folks back home, but all he did was file reports on how much sorghum was grown and harvested in Ethiopia and Sudan. Pat was Cali born and bred. Northern Cali. In wine, country. Medium build, medium height, and had the dark features of his Hispanic ancestors who had settled the land centuries ago. He was the most laid back of the three, but with a job that was just secretive enough that he could only speak of it in euphemisms. Every once in a while, without warning, he’d be gone for a few weeks and arrive for happy hour without a word otherwise. No one called him on it, either. It was just the way it was.
Nothing like a cold beer on a hot summer’s day.
“It’s a tough slog up 18th Street,” he sighed as he pulled his bar stool out. Bob, space, Joe, space, Pat. The same way it always was.
“You walked?” Joe said, glancing in Pat’s direction.
“Well, I wasn’t going to Uber; it’s surging, and it would have taken me the same amount of time.”
“They should just close DC down in August. Nobody wants this shit,” Bob said. Everyone nodded in agreement, knowing it would never happen, even if it sounded like a good idea.
“Anyway, Pat, glad you could make it. What can I get you?” Bradley asked.
“I’ll take an Optimal Wit.”
“Comin’ right up.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Uh Brad, is Dick doin’ okay? He’s got a table full of empties, and when I walked up, I asked him how he was doing, and I’m pretty sure he told me to go fuck myself,” Pat said, raising his eyebrows and palms out.
The other three erupted in laughter. Everybody knew the score. Dick was five deep and about to down his sixth any minute now. And you weren’t a regular until he grumbled a few curse words in your direction. They all knew they’d be in for a show if they stayed long enough. But Pat asked anyway because that’s what everyone did.
As if on cue, Dick came sauntering down the steps, nearly missed the last one, and crashed into the door frame before regaining his balance. He growled at Bradley and the other three, not in a menacing way, but more of a hello that didn’t quite make it because he was five deep and was looking for a sixth. The bartender chuckled to himself because it confirmed everyone’s suspicions. Dick was well on his way to finishing off a sixer of those tall boys and causing a scene.
The boss’s movements on these nights were the same every time. He’d walk in, growl, walk past the bathrooms, to the other end of the bar, and try to reach over the bar to grab a 16 oz. can of Pabst as if no one could see him. Whether sober or drunk, he could never do that and almost always forgot which cooler had the beer he wanted. His efforts were loud enough to be heard over the music. Grunts, growls, cursing under his breath–so much for stealth. By the time he was searching for his fourth, Bradley usually had to step in and provide assistance. It only got worse the closer he got to six.
“For fucks sake,” stifled burp, “Bradley, where the fuck,” another stifled burp, “did you put my beer?”
It’s important to note here that Dick usually did the stocking and put the beer in the same place every time. And it was on the menu for customers, but Dick considered it his beer because he was the only one who drank it. On the rare occasions that a handful of frat boys showed up, it’d come flying out of the cooler. Everyone else came for the extensive craft beer menu.
“Let me get it for you, Dick,” Bradley responded.
Bob, Joe, and Pat just shook their heads. All three considered ordering dinner because whatever happened next would be a must-see.
“Plech, yeah, oka-ph, dju move these things?”
“Nah, Dick, they’re right where they always are.”
Unsure if Bradley was being a smart ass, he scowled back. And grumbled some gravelly thank you that sounded like he was clearing his throat. Then he cracked it open and chugged half of it as he weaved past the bathrooms and Bob, Joe, and Pat.
This time though, instead of marching up the stairs, Dick stopped, took a long pull, and grunted. Then, he turned toward the bar, put both hands down to brace himself, and groaned. He followed that up with a shimmy, a loud exhale, and tossed his head back with his eyes closed. There was another grunt that could have also been a gargle.
At that point, the three patrons and the bartender were wholly focused on what Dick was doing at the end of the bar. Usually, he’d knock over a few stools or spill someone’s beer. He was even known to feel up his wife. But this was new.
Whatever caused Dick to pause on his way back up to his perch in the heat and humidity had dissipated enough for him to think he could continue. But a half step in, and he turned back.
“Ackkhhh,” he screamed. Then he grumbled again. This time visibly clinching his ass cheeks together, shifting his weight closer to the bar as he tried to get more leverage for the clinch.
It didn’t work. The gas that had accumulated after pounding five and a half beers fought through his attempts to stop it. Usually, there wouldn’t be a need for much fighting, but with his bad diet and lack of exercise, he could never put too much trust in a bit of flatulence. He knew that, even after polishing off five tall boys.
Fraap. Braap. Sploot.
Dick grunted, clinched, and willed it all back in. It was too late. Because with the farts came a quick burst of fecal liquid.
He collected himself the best way he could. Stood ramrod straight and turned back toward the end of the bar where the bathrooms were. Bradley and the three patrons quickly busied themselves as if they had neither seen nor heard a thing. The stench had already worked its way back to them. It took a lot of work to stay composed.
“Bradley, call Betty and tell her to bring me a change of clothing. Jesus Christ,” Dick said as he waddled down toward the bathrooms.
“Can I get you anything? Ginger ale, some water?” Bradley asked as he tried to stifle his laughter.
“What the fuck do you think?”
“Aight, Dick, I’ll let Betty know.”
“Tell her a keg exploded or something,” Dick said, hoping that excuse would work as he entered the bathroom.
Stifled giggles filled the space around the three patrons and Bradley. He texted Betty, who didn’t buy the explanation because Dick never changed kegs.
“Oh, GAWD,” Dick shouted to no one from the bathroom as the extent of the disaster came into full relief.
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The patrons grew quiet and had to busy themselves watching the baseball game they didn’t care about. Otherwise, the disaster that was playing out behind them in the tiny basement bar bathroom risked occupying a space none of them wanted, especially while the main protagonist was still around.
Ten minutes passed, and Dick remained planted in the washroom. Dick yelled out a few times, asking Bradley if he had texted Betty and if he knew how much longer would she be. Even with the great AC, those bathrooms can get hot. And after pounding five and a half tall boys followed by some gastro distress, it was damn near unbearable. But he couldn’t pull his drawers back on and wait at the bar.
Bradley saw Betty’s shadow as she passed the front window and then heard her open the basement bar door. She entered and looked around. Her gaze hit the front of the bar where Dick had placed his sixth and final tall boy. Then it shifted down the rest of the bar, her mental count registering that Dick was nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, she took a deep breath through her nose.
“Jesus Christ, who shi…,” she started, but stopped as she realized what had happened.
“For fucks sake, Dick,” she continued. “Where is he?”
“Ah, the second bathroom,” Bradley responded, pointing toward the second bathroom with his left hand.
Embarrassed, more for herself than her husband, Betty shook her head and sighed deeply. She knocked on the door. Everyone could hear Dick as he shuffled around the bathroom, unlocked the door, opened it, and reached a hand out for a fresh pair of clothing. Betty started to say something, but Dick waved her off.
He emerged, ego-damaged, from the bathroom in a fresh set of clothing. The old shit-stained pair of pants and underwear, along with the ratty t-shirt he had been wearing, were wrapped tightly in the bag Betty brought with his change of clothing. Sober was a good night’s sleep away, but he was cognizant enough to know that he couldn’t look anyone in the eye as he walked out of the place. No one better say a goddamned word, even those fucking patrons.
As he passed the half-empty can of Pabst on his way out, he motioned for it. Complete the mission, he told himself. That sixer needs finishing.
“Absolutely not, Dick, we’re taking you home for a shower and an early bedtime,” Betty said.
Dick dismissively waved her off but knew any fight was futile. No grown man can publicly shit himself and start dictating terms to the person who saved him further embarrassment. Still drunk, he barely made the first step out of the place. Betty held him once again, keeping him upright and avoiding further humiliation. They reached the top steps and moved out of sight. Bradley followed behind to make sure they were headed home.
He scanned up and down the strip as he got to the top of the steps, covering his tracks by picking up the five empty cans on the patio table. Betty was helping Dick into the passenger seat a block north of the bar. When she shut the door, she walked to the nearest trash can and dumped the bag full of dirty clothing. There was no point in saving that shit.
Bradley walked back down the steps, five beer cans in hand, ready to be dumped in the recycling bin as he re-entered the bar. The cans clinked as they tumbled down to the bottom. Bob, Joe, and Pat simultaneously looked up and made eye contact with their bartender. Each of them bursting out into laughter so vigorous Bradley had to brace himself in the same spot Dick had shit himself. Causing them to laugh even harder.
“Jesus Christ, I’m going to remember that till my dying day,” Bob said between fits of laughter. “I’m telling that story every damn chance I get.”
Their loud laughter forced the upstairs bartender, Jackie, to rush down and ask what the hell was going on.
“You’re never going to believe what happened,” Bradley said as he tried to catch his breath.
