There’s a place in town, called Beer-bar. This is the place where everybody knows my name, and I know everybody by name. I enter and there’s always a place for me. I am more than welcome if I want to have a beer, get drunk as a newt, have a business-talk, or if I only want to meet a few long-time friends.
I know all the pretty barmaids and most of the guests. If I don’t know them, I will be introduced. Why? Because the saloon-keeper knows everybody, literally. And I know him. He is my best friend. That explains everything.
There’s a wide selection of all kinds of non- and alcoholic drinks. Any potable thing you desire, you’ll get it. Recently, some cocktails have been entered on the drink-list, which only Tom Cruise was able to fix a few years ago. If there is no place at the tables, you can sit at the bar, which is glittering brass, since it is always polished after closing time. Believe me, I saw it!
If you want to drink what Hemingway used to drink, you’ll get it. If you read about a curious drink in Playboy, they’ll make it for you. If you tell the recipe of your own drink, they’ll prepare it.
After a few drinks you’ll be brave enough to try your luck at the casino next door. You’ll definitely lose, but the adrenaline kick does you good, when you are waiting for your number to come up on the roulette wheel. But it never does. You listen to the advice of your friend who owns this place too, because you are positive about that he knows how this machine operates. But seemingly he wants your money more than your friendship. You lose.
And in the dark of the casino, broke and left behind by broken dreams and one friend less, you start to realise things. The cushion of the stool that you are sitting on is torn. The stuffing sticks out of the fabric, which is supposed to cover it. You are surrounded not by Monte Carlo high society, but by gypsies who want to cash in their welfare checks double or triple.
You go back to the bar to have a few more drinks to make you forget your bad luck. But as the beer tap is not handled properly, you get a few drops of foam in your face, and into your drink. If you order a fizzy drink, you may need a napkin to hold the glass since the personnel was not careful enough to wipe the overflowing drink off. Do it yourself!
Then you start a conversation with one of the bartenders or bouncers and you find out that you are happy not working here. You remember, the tavern-keeper is one of your buddies since the age of 10.
What you haven’t realized in the past 15 years will get clear in a single night.
László Jáncsó (2002)