There are dive bars in New York City, and I’ve been to them: Places where one can sit beside the quasi-homeless and quite literally homeless, guzzling rock-bottom-shelf liquor while bartenders hand out bowls of burnt popcorn and insults as cutting as they are profane. Places near the Port Authority Bus Terminal where bikini-clad women with visible C-section scars provide flat beer in grimy glassware and service without even the suggestion of a smile. Places where the walls couldn’t possibly talk, gagged such as they are with a thick patina of errant booze and abject neglect.
I miss them.
Even though I’ve left the mean streets of Hell’s Kitchen for the one-way streets of Santa Barbara, I find that my desire for depravity and the pursuit of passing acquaintances in low places endures. There are times when a man simply isn’t in the market for copper mugs and craft cocktails with names that evoke idyllic days at the beach. Now and again, a drinker needs a dark little den to match his dark little mood, where degradation is the prevailing aesthetic.