i n

F

BIGGER

SMALLER

COURIER

GEORGIA

TIMES

VERDANA

COMIC

l

RECENT

POPULAR

e

u

 ^{(it's beta!)}

i patiently waited for his response, no longer concerned that he wouldn't look me in the eye. jamie had been coming in for weeks now, always alone, but he usually met someone to go home with around his second or third scotch. he was one of those arty types, short black hair, tight jeans and a thrift store sweater. he told me that he was a writer, he told everyone that he was a writer, but he would never give you a title of something he'd written. and he'd never look you in the eye.

it didn't bother me too much anymore, but I came from an old family, hard-workers all of them. my grandfather had always told me, "look me in the eye son, men talk with their eyes, not their mouths." he told me so many things like that, mostly on hot summer days when we'd sit at his bar. he'd drink gin and tonic while I drank sherry temples as fast as he'd make them. my mother could smell the grenadine on my breath when she came to pick me up; she was always fuming mad on the way home, but couldn't wait to send me back to finn's tavern again next week. when i told her, two years ago today, that i was going to be opening a bar of my own, she just smiled sadly, "grandpa finn would be proud," she sighed from the other end of the telephone line; i could see her expression so clearly in my mind, and i knew she was staring at the old porch swing that my grandpa built for her and my father so many years ago.

that was a major difference between jamie and i, he couldn't appreciate a good porch swing. i started to warm up to the boy recently, and i asked him about his childhood. he said his father had been a director, his mother a model, but he had never met his grandparents. no one had ever built a porch swing for his mother, he wasn't even sure what i was talking about the first time. twenty-four years old and the boy's never sat out on the porch late at night, watching the stars or getting close to his girl. i had my first kiss on that swing, felt my first tit too, but jamie was more into 'artistic integrity' than fond old memories. he talked at length about things that i really didn't understand; i can't claim to have kept up with modern art and i still think hemingway to be the greatest writer of all time. but i asked him, quietly, why he wasn't down at one of those trendy city bars, chatting up models and movie stars. he didn't answer, but just stared into his scotch for nearly twenty minutes before standing up and tipping his glass straight back. he always left his glass empty, another of my grandpa's characteristics of manhood.

"bruce, a man's always got to finish his drink, be it 7-up and grenadine or the roughest gin on the planet," he told me this every time i left as he drained the final fourth of his glass, "also," he added with a wink, "you can't let the ice melt."

jaime stood up and walked to the door. halfway out into the cold he turned, looked me straight in the eye and spoke his first words since, 'the usual'.

"you and me bruce. . . we're the same you know. we can't change how we were raised, not one bit. we can't change whether we want to or not."