Happy Hour in the Neighborhood

Happy Hour in the Neighborhood

I’m now a prowler in a place I once pranced, held court, received homage,

buzzing in under the radar for a visit –

lundin* with my daughter at a table I’m supposed to have had an assignation,

one I examine for scratches, initials, stains, fingerprints, memories, tangibility –

all for naught.

Not a surprise: it never happened.

Once familiar haunts deemed quite “the” places,

cornerstones of a solid neighborhood, are now 

mostly tired and worn in spite of fresh flowers and menus,

six flat screen televisions each with its own cable box, game or music video

and a kitchen with an “A” rating from the Department of Health.

The joint is as jaded as its late afternoon patrons, who sit and stare,

don’t really talk to one another, make believe they’re doing work;

the aged waitress, no longer cute, a holdover from an earlier iteration of the place,

is totally played out as are the newer younger ones in tight black T’s and stretch pants

their boobs and butts scrunched and popped,

surely cute and lacking attitude but clearly the second string compared

to the crew at the Italian place across the street where it’s attitude central;

the wannabes inhale cigarettes and Starbucks outside at the corner on their break

scan the street, check out the guys exiting the pizza shop,

hope the guy with a Vette or Porsche or even a Chevy will stop

open the door, nod and like Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman,

take them away, anywhere, from all this.

They know they can text their mothers from the road to the Shore,

that their mothers won’t tell their fathers and

tomorrow, they can call in sick to work.

I’m only half way through my first 2 dollar happy hour draft pint.

The evening’s young, my pen’s full and my notebook and bladder are empty, even as

the dinner crowd’s just coming in the door.

*lundin:  the late afternoon equivalent of Brunch: a combination of lunch and dinner