I've only been half-joking when I tell people that I seem to have reawakened my kavorka in the past year or so. Never was that more true than Saturday night. I found myself in one of those bars in the back of a liquor store on the northwest side, only this one was built out into a spacious sports bar and kept clean. This wasn't those old Armanetti's like the one on Division where my mom and stepdad were engaged thirty years ago over amaretto sours, 7-and-7's and Slim Jims.
I was with my old friend Chris Hyatt, who invited a bunch of people out to the Bank of America cinema at Six Corners to see a Roger Corman movie starring Ray Milland and Don Rickles that was totally worth the five bucks admission. We were reminiscning on the Vicodin-and-gin days of the Unofficial Soup Kitchen when we noticed the bartender hanging on our every word. Or, shall I say, mine.
"I think she's into you, Chuck," Hyatt said.
It could have been the beer talking, but I gave her the once-over. She let her hair down after the third round Hyatt and I had and it was classic Northwest Side woman: a near-mullet. She was pulling back Jager Bombs with the best of them and singing along with every song on the Internet jukebox (ugh!). And that was when Hyatt and I decided to hit an IHOP to soak up all the krausened goodness of Old Style.
I managed to catch the train home and sent Hyatt the e-mail address of a photographer friend of mine who was looking for an assistant. He e-mailed back that he went back to the bar to see if the bartender was interested in him.
"Seemed possible," he replied.
