Kipworld

I always felt left out when people would bring out their bar stories. It’s not that I don’t go to bars, just that when I do go with my friends, we just sit around a table and talk. It’s nice, but it’s not the wild times Jason and Rick would talk about. They had much more experience, since they were in frats and were older than me and so had a much greater well of experience to draw from. Crazy stories of shots being downed, and upped later. Loose women dancing on bars. Midgets. You know.

But one night in Wrigleyville, I got my first story, which still remains my favorite. It was the night I met the shif.

Jason, Rick and I went out to Irish Oak. I’d never been there before, as like I said, I didn’t go out much if I wasn’t with them. We also took Jenny Handel, our roommate to be and two of her friends. We actually managed to find parking, a feat in itself, and then entered the bar.

It was dark and smoky. Amazingly enough, there was an open booth right in front, so our party quickly snapped it up. Ordered a round of beer, which I was slowly, very slowly beginning to appreciate. I didn’t know Jenny’s friends that well, and how well can you really get to know someone at a bar? With the jukebox going and the white noise of a hundred other people yelling introductions and ordering drinks. I did my wallflower thing.

The second round started and I realized that skipping dinner had been a mistake. I’m such a lightweight. I got up to order french fries for the table. To do so, I had to wind my way to the back bar, which was packed with people listening to a guitarist.

The bartender was a blur of energy getting from customer to customer, rattling off drink specials to one guy while counting another’s change, an impressive multitasker, to say the least. I poked my bony shoulder in between two guys on the edge of the bar and waited for her to notice me.

“Fries!” “Five bucks, five minutes!” she yelled back. One of the guys I was elbowing around piped up, “Where’re you from then?”

“West Ireland,” she answered as she ran to the other edge of the bar to clean up a mess.

“West Ireland? I’m from East Ireland…” he said, but she was not there to talk. I had five minutes to kill, and he seemed lonely so I asked him what he was doing in the States, visiting or what.

“Nay, I moved here. To work.”

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a shif.”

“A shif?”

“Yeah, a shif. I cook food.”

“Oh… a chef.”

“That’s what I said!”

The shif was a small guy, not much bigger than me. He had close cropped hair, light enough to look bald. With the initial exchange established, I started to ask him about the employment opportunities for shifs. Just then, a blond with a sour face pulled the same elbow move, right between me and the shif.

“Are you drinkin’?” she lolled at me.

“No, i’m waiting on food.”

“Then clear away for people who’re drinkin’!”

I was about to retreat, when the shif piped up. “Hey now, don’t talk like that to my cousin Vinnie.” His eyes twinkled at me. “Play along,” they said.

“You guys are cousins?” the blond said.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Lessee here, I think it was my mother’s sister who married…”

“My father!” I said. I should’ve said my dad’s brother to make the blood thing work out, but hey, I was drunk. I really wasn’t expecting to have to play a farce in the middle of the bar. More than that, I knew that I’d had a connection. A joke played. A moment shared.

“You guys… are cousins.” The blond bleared at us. The shif gave me a cousinly pat on the shoulder.

“The best,” he said. “Oh yeah,” I added.

“Well, you guys may be fucking with me, but I’ll tell you, I got a black cousin. No fooling.”

Just then my fries came. I picked up the platter and headed back to my table. “Seeya, shif,” I yelled.

“Bye Vinny.”

The blond realized we’d been screwing with her and stormed away, back to her seat.

I felt really good as I made my way back through the crowded bar. This guy had just spoken up to defend a kid he’d just meant. Maybe this was how you met people in bars.

When I got back to my table, Jason and Rick started eating the fries and telling me about the best bar story I’d just missed. Turns out the bouncer, who they were calling the leprechaun man, had sat down with them and chatted and wow, what a character. Why’d I always miss everything? they wondered.

I smiled, leaned back, and told them about brand new bar story, the one about the shif.