Break Any Woman Down

Bars

bars You tell me: a woman in a bar, all alone. Hopping bars all alone. What you think about that? See? I knew you'd say that: what she looking for in a bar all by herself? You sound like my son Rasheed, or La Trice, my daughter, trying to tell me like you know so much. But what Fm telling you is yeah, that's right. I like bars. I like going to bars alone. And it ain't got to be all about me looking for something. If a man got a right to sit here on a stool, have a drink, talk to the bartender, why can't I do it? Ain't about looking for something. 105 My daughter alwaystrying to tell me what I should and shouldn't do. I feel like I got two mamas! "Mother," she says (and where "mother" come from when it been "mama" for I don't know how long?) "a woman going to a bar alone isdesperate." I don't know who she thought she was talking to, and I had to ask her who she was calling desperate. She rolled her eyes then, cause the child know she too old for me to whup her behind. But let me tell you something: that girl don't wear underwear! Trying to call me desperate! Be wearing dresses you can see right through and ain't got no draws on! She say she got a thong on sometimes. One time I said, "Let me see." She showed me, and honey. I said, "Them's stripper panties, ain't they?" I just didn't know what in the world. "Mother," she says again. And I just shut up about it cause she grown and if she don't know by twenty-sixyears old that you triflin if you can't find no draws to put on, I ain't got nothing else to do with it. Look at this brother sitting two stools down. You just know my man had him a bad day. Sitting on his jacket, sleeves rolled up, tie loose. Just all tore down. Make me want to say,"Damn. Have a drink on me" But then he'd probably try to get smooth on me, and I ain't come here for that. Sometimes it's cool to just go inside a dark place while it's still light outside. And I do that a lot. They know me here at The Gaelic and a couple other places, too. This place is nice, though. Supposed to be Irish-like. They got the plaid everywhere, but they also hung up some moose heads and horns and stuff, which kind of confuses the theme, to me. But you come in here, and it's dark, red leather booths, dart game going on in the corner usually.Rickie part owns the place. She's always in here wearing her tight jeans and some earrings that match 106 break any woman down the holiday. Like the pumpkins she's wearing now. But it ain't Halloween . It's Easter. So maybe Rickie just likes pumpkins. Rickie does look hard, like a woman who spends a lot of time in a bar might look, just like my mama claims going to happen to me. But me and Rickie two different people. I'm forty and got a long road before I'll be catching up with Rickie. Rickie's got some serious lines in her face. Not saying nothing bad about Rickie, I'm just saying. Here she comes now. "Hey, Doll!" She always says that. "What's new?" Staring at me with big gray eyes blinking lashes with about three coats of mascara. She's got them looking like fake lashes but they hers, I can tell. And Rickie ain't going nowhere until I say, "Can't complain" or "Fine." Answer her something. Then she goes on with her white-boot-wearing self. Rickie still looking good, though. Shoot. Ain't nothing wrong with Rickie. Just don't get me started on the man she run with. Treat her any which way. Like last night, I'm sitting here, trying to talk to this rough-cut, quiet man that said he sold car parts for a living. So we was charting when Rickie's man Pete came through the door with an old papery-looking, washed-out blonde...