Jumping the Gap
When Mary and I walk into a restaurant or tavern, I’m usually looking past the tables and straight at the bar. Two open stools? Perfect.
A standard square table feels different. You sit across from each other, menus in front of you, and the people at the next table might as well be in another room. You have your own little island in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
At a bar, everybody is lined up together. You’re elbow to elbow with somebody you’ve never met. The bartender is moving back and forth in front of you. You hear pieces of conversations. Somebody hears yours. You notice things.
That’s where I feel the energy.
I’ve said this before, but Best Intentions in Logan Square is our favorite Chicago bar. I’ve joked that when I die, forget the funeral home and have my celebration of life there. There’s someone we see there occasionally who will come in wearing a dress and wig, sit at the bar, open a book and read. They mostly keep to themselves and talk with the bartender.
Recently we got into a conversation. It turns out he travels the world finding top engineers for corporations. We talked about technology, travel, work and, somehow, the World Cup, which he knew a hell of a lot more about than I did.
I like that. You can sit five feet from somebody and make all kinds of assumptions about who they are. Then you start talking and find out you had no idea. You learn something.
Recently Mary, my daughters and their friend, my brother, our friend Greg and I went to see Cabaret Voltaire at Metro. I’ve listened to them since the early days of industrial music but had never seen them live. I was pretty excited about it, partly because of that and partly because my daughters were actually willing to humor me and see one of MY bands.
Before the show we went to G-Man Tavern. I always get a chuckle out of the place because my brother and I were forced to go there as kids to see my dad perform while he was studying improv at The Second City. I remember sitting there watching him and not really understanding what the hell was going on. It was way over my head. Watching your dad, who was also a minister, perform in an R-rated improv show added another layer of discomfort.
Even now, I’ve never felt completely comfortable at G-Man. It always feels crowded and I never quite know where to sit. Seven of us at the bar wasn't going to happen, but fortunately we found a table in the back. My brother and I took everybody’s drink orders and squeezed our way up to the bar.
While we were waiting, a woman sitting there noticed my cochlear implant. She asked how it worked, whether I could actually hear with it and what it sounded like. I’ve gotten used to people being curious about the little round thing stuck to the side of my head, so we started talking.
She had worked with kids and sign-language education, and within a few minutes we were talking about something much bigger than my implant. She told me about people who were born deaf who have no interest in cochlear implants. Deafness isn't necessarily something they believe needs to be fixed. Sign language is their language, and there is an entire culture around it.
My experience is completely different. I heard normally before I lost the hearing in my left ear. For me, the implant was an attempt to get something back that I had lost.
I don’t know how long we talked. I remember looking over my shoulder and seeing my group sitting together in the back and thinking I really should get these drinks and myself over there. But I also didn't want to cut this woman off. I was interested. A few minutes earlier I didn't know she existed. Now we're standing at a bar talking about something that is pretty personal to both of us.
Being a nerd, it made me think of a Jacob’s ladder.
You’ve probably seen one even if you don’t know what it’s called. Two metal rods stand next to each other in a V, almost touching at the bottom and getting farther apart toward the top. Turn on the power and you can hear the electricity crackling. Then suddenly a bright arc jumps the small gap at the bottom and starts climbing the rods.
The rods never actually touch. There’s air between them. But give them enough electrical potential and get them close enough together, and the air that was keeping them apart suddenly becomes the path between them. Snap. The spark jumps the gap and starts climbing.
A bar feels a little like that to me. Everybody comes in carrying their own energy. Some people walk in completely amped up. Others sit quietly with a book and a drink. Somebody is laughing too loudly three stools down. Glasses are hitting the bar. The bartender is moving back and forth between all of you. You catch half a sentence from the guy next to you. Somebody notices the thing attached to the side of your head. A question gets asked.
There’s all this energy sitting a few feet apart, with nothing but air between it.
Then something arcs across. That arc can get bigger or it just abruptly stops.
I was also recently talking to Mary about the old Ponderosa Steakhouses. Going there in the ’60s and ’70s was a big deal for a kid. We didn't go out to restaurants very often. At Ponderosa, you picked your steak by number from the big menu behind the counter, told them how you wanted it cooked and, of course, got the baked potato. Then you took your tray into that big dining room.
And there they were. The long benches.
Your family sat down and another family you had never met could be sitting right next to you. There wasn't much choice in the matter. You were going to eat your steak with strangers a few feet away. Little did I know that high school cafeterias were coming for me later.
My mom and dad could start a conversation with anybody. I couldn't understand it. I remember feeling awkward while they talked to people we didn't know. I wanted to eat my dinner, not meet the family sitting next to us. I was much more concerned about when my food was coming and whether I was going to get the corn on the cob that didn't have that weird shade of brown on it.
I feel like today restaurants spend a lot of effort doing exactly the opposite. We get our own table. Our own booth. Our own little private area where we talk to the people we came with. The people six feet away are having their dinner and we're having ours.
Ponderosa put everybody together. Good or bad, I remember the closeness. Those other families weren't across the restaurant. They were right there.
I find it interesting that the thing that made me uncomfortable as a kid is something I actually look for now.
A bar does essentially the same thing those long Ponderosa benches did. It takes people who didn't arrive together and puts them next to each other. Except nobody is making me sit there anymore. Mary and I choose it.
Maybe that's what we have enjoyed about sitting at a bar these last few years. Of course I like having a drink. I like watching a good bartender work. I like people-watching. And Mary and I have had some of our best and most relaxed conversations sitting next to each other at a bar. There is something about being out in all that noise and activity that somehow makes it easier for the two of us to talk.
But I think there's something else I like too. I like being in the middle of that energy. I like being close enough to hear something I wasn't supposed to hear, have somebody ask me a question I wasn't expecting or find out that the person sitting next to me has a life I never would have guessed from looking at them.
Most of the time when we are out, nothing happens. Mary and I have a couple drinks and something to eat, talk to each other and go home. That's perfectly fine.
But sometimes the person next to you notices your cochlear implant. Sometimes the quiet person reading a book turns out to travel the world. Sometimes you have a conversation with somebody whose name you may never even learn, and you think about them the next day.
I guess I've become a little more like my parents than I thought.
They would have loved the bar.
About Greenland Sharks
Greenland Sharks is a Chicago men's group who value friendship, experiences, and the long swim. Just a crew that shows up. No speeches. No name tags. No nonsense.
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