More Drunken Rendevous With the Elderly

My trip back East, the neighborhood I live in, my joyous job at the shelter; all this and still I just haven't quite gotten my fill of interacting with inebriated old people. Why just the other day, a friend of mine Ali and I decided to bike up Main Street after a day at the beach and a tasty, tasty Vietnamese meal. As dessert we were in search of cheap drinks, so we went to the Royal Canadian Legion. ... ... I think we were the only people in there under 60.

Here's how it went:

We arrive and the prospect of having actual members of the opposite sex within their choice drinking establishment excited the fellows So much, they brought our bikes in for us. We thanked them kindly and sat down, pulling out our notebooks and pens... Our plans were to journal and sketch- but its hard to string a sentence together when your focus is so taken by what is being said to you. These kindly gentleman came over to introduce themselves, leaning a hand on our chairs, similar to the way high school boys mack on girls at lockers. This, however, was not a gesture of interest on the gents parts, rather I feel that they would have been incapable of staying upright without this steadying support. So we listened intently, not that the conversation was scintillating, rather our attentions were so captivated in our efforts to decipher some semblance of sense out of these slurred monologues. After a time I insisted I wanted to write and draw, but Ali played along a little more. I sat back and watched the following scene.

Being a good soul, she acquiesced their requests to sketch them, though for a 25 cent fee as at 1.90 a beer each, we still couldn't quite cover a third one to share. So there was Ali, an art school student out of the kindness of her heart drawing pictures of drunken lonely old men at the Legion on a Tuesday night. Both of us with the calm assurance that her good deed would elicit a thankful response. However, being an art school student, this would be no hurried sketch. Rather a process of creation that required a time investment and immobility on the sitees part... this didn't go over so well. However Ali bravely forged ahead, ignoring the protestations and whinery. And eventually, upon completion, unvealing her creation... The response was a little less than grateful. Both of us were shocked at the pure disdain her images evoked. It was suggested she find a new profession, one that didn't make innocent old men appear to be serial killers.

The moral of the story is this : We had no more problems with needing beer for the rest of the night. The pure disdain Ali's sketches brought, also brought a certain level of pity for us poor art students, who would clearly never be able to get out of our financial ruts because we probably wouldn't make it in life.

Pina Bausch Cafe Muller