by Sarah Frankfurth

Never trust the alphabet people.

Ah, sage words of advice muttered by the puffy, bloodshot, alcoholic, toothless, old bartender at the Ha-Ra last night.

He was, of course, talking about OSHA and the IRS and the FBI, CIA, DEA, INS....

But mostly about OSHA because he was smoking in the bar and being that this is the police state of California, that is a big fat no-no. But he did come and sit down next to me in order to smoke since it's a bigger fine for him to get caught behind the bar with a cigarette than it is for him to get caught in front of it.

I wonder how big of a fine it would have been for the other bartender who works there who once told me that he was doing so many shots at work that he threw up on the bar. That doesn't seem right.

Well, actually it does seem right for the Ha-Ra, glorious Tenderloin dump that it is, but somehow I think that the alphabet people would frown on it. 

The insiduous alphabet people.

Can't be trusted if they can't even speak their own name...

But the bartender last night, he wasn't scared. He's connected. An old hustler from Jersey who's got people who owe him scattered about our fair land and they pay up. Yes they do. Super Bowl tickets (he's been to 14), free parking in the city (quite a coup, I must say), free food and fun and whatever this sad slurring man wants. Or so he says. But I looked at the folds of his sallow skin and breathed in the moldy dank air that he consumes day in and day out and day in and day out in this dark cave that he's made his own (even though it's not his and he just works there) and I thought, how sad. He's connected but what has that gotten him? The love of a handful of hopeless drunks whose time here is slipping away. They disappear to die or end up in jail, old and broken with tears that smell like the cheap booze they've soaked themselves in.

He casts a scornful glance on a staggering patron who leans out the half-opened door to have his cigarette, too drunk to notice that everyone else in the bar is smoking inside.  

"This guy" the bartender says, "I don't let him smoke in here. Look at him. Christ. He just doesn't get it. When he spends fifteen bucks I buy him a drink, ya' know. It's what I do. One of my rules, fifteen bucks and ya' get a free drink. So when I do it, I pick up the phone and pretend

like I got a call and then I go to him and say, 'Hey, the owner just called and told me to give ya' a free drink. ' Like that ya' know. Just my joke. But this guy, he doesn't fucking get it and so the next time the owner's in the bar he turns to him and says, 'I wanna' thank ya' for all the free drinks ya' been givin' me. 'Christ. And the owner says, 'You been giving away my liquor?' and I says

'Yeah. ' Like that ya' know 'cuz me i'm ok, I can do what I want 'cuz I'm connected ya' know. " I watched the man, blind drunk and stumbling careen out of the doorway and into the pool table before clawing his way back to his bar stool.