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There was, as it turned out, a method to such madness. The women went around selling raffle tickets that could win the holders a free drink or the lingerie they were wearing. The pantyhose created a barrier between their private parts and the soon-to-be-regifted panties.
As the night went on, a few more men arrived. Everyone was very respectful. There was a certain, well, flaccidity to the whole thing. I talked to a guy who said he knew a serial killer when he was a teenager. The Mm-hmm Boys swapped musings. Mm-hmm. Men peered out of the corners of their eyes at the models' derrieres. But something was missing. I could feel it.
"Bob used to buy the lingerie, then go upstairs and put it on with a wig and come down here and crack us up," Ed said with a sigh.
That was what was missing. A ringleader. Bob had apparently been the patriarch of this particular family (albeit, perhaps the cross-dressing dad you hope the neighbors won't see), and when he died, no one else had become head of the household. He needed his pals at Bonanza, and they needed him. Good ol' Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Unfortunately, Bob also needed a few pints of gin a day, and that killed him. But it's not just the regulars who depend on the bar; it's often the bar itself that depends on its regulars. It's a sort of butterfly effect — upset one element, and the whole thing gets thrown off course. Bonanza is still trying to redefine itself.
Fear not, though, gentle reader. Eventually, a new Bob will emerge at Bonanza. That is just how these things work — new alcoholics with great personalities are born every day. When Bob started coming to Bonanza, he was the young guy amid a sea of older regulars. Eventually he became the old regular, with a plaque with his name on it on the bar to prove it.
"You want to buy a ticket, honey?" a model asked me. She had stretch marks from where she had apparently had a child. At first I was going to say no, but then I thought about it. Bob was a gamblin' man, I told myself. He lived for the moment.
I gave her the money and took my ticket.
After all my Norm-hunting was over, I of course realized that it's not only bars that have regulars. Coffee shops, book stores, restaurants, and even buses have repeat customers who have relationships with the staff and other patrons. All over the city are people who want to be noticed and remembered. But there's something about a bar, and the intimacy of inebriation, that sets it apart. Whatever their vices and faults, bars are dens of manufactured family. The relationships in them are nonetheless real, though. Very real. And I'll drink to that.
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