I Heart Tourists

Editor's Note: this post was originally written on 11/13/09

Why is it that tourists are always better looking than locals? Not in an empirical way. On a scale of Welder’s Weekly to GQ, we have many men in our community that can compete with the models in both form and function. I’m referring to the continuum in my head. The one that tends to fall deeper in love once I know you’ve bought your ticket home.

I met a temporary resident a few weeks ago at Z-Tavern. It was the thick of off-season, so, when he and his friends came into my bar, it was dead. After one Jack & Coke, his buddy made them leave to chase the party. Off to the Meet Market, I’m sure. My departing line, a mixture of cocky and sass, was, “you’ll be back, I’m the most fun you’ll have in this town.” It worked like a bungee cord, pulling them back to my bar after a quick circle around A-Town, and fastening them there until 2 a.m. when the law and my desire for sleep forced me to gently push them out the door.

From where did this surge of confidence come? The fact that they are tourists meant that, if they didn’t come back, I’d never have to face them. There’s no pride lost with a stranger whom you never have to see again.

A new flirting style. A sexy combination of Cuban and Columbian heritage. A guy who’s never slept with (or even met) any of my friends. I’m not sure which piece pushed me over the edge, but I flirted back with agenda and agreed to drinks on Friday night.

“He’s not my type,” my mind tried to back out as I cleaned up the bar. The logician in my brain fought back, “if my dbeb*, the one I dated for almost two years, is my type, well, maybe it’s time to try dating against type.”

*dbeb – douche bag ex boyfriend (more on him later).

It should be stated here, for the record: I almost never agree to go out with drunk guys. My standard response is that I will never say yes while we have different blood alcohol levels, but that they are more than welcome to come back and make a plan sober. Finding me when I’m drunk might work, too, the most important part to me is that our alcohol levels are the same. The tourist tried to leave his card and I told him I wouldn’t use it. It’s a simple policy: you’re drunk, I’m sober, you come find me if you still want to go out when you wake up.

Seriously, who wants to be the girl calling up the guy who was so drunk he doesn’t remember hitting on her or giving out his number? I’m a female bartender in a mountain town, I’ve got to have some standards. And I’m not really that hard to track down, I’m in the same place you met me for at least four shifts a week.

I don’t feel like I’m being unfair. I make it clear that, if they do come back, I will say yes. Though, if one of them did actually come back and ask sober, I’d probably pass out from complete shock. I’ve responded ‘yes’ to at least seven local men in Smurf Village. Of the seven, zero have actually followed through on creating a sober plan. Zero.

When my tourist showed up for lunch on Friday afternoon, I was surprised. His follow through was disorienting, but he’s in a strange town where he doesn’t know anyone, he also has nothing to lose. His confidence was as sexy to me as mine earlier had been to him, so I stopped making up excuses in my head and resigned myself to the drink later that night.

Our first date was magical. He dorked out in all of the most fun and amazing ways. I told him I needed to make t-shirts and he pulled up art work on his phone and offered to do the drawing part. Okay, that was enough to win me over. I took him home and we drank wine, drew pictures and ironed them onto the shirts. It was the night before Halloween, so we also made him a T-shirt costume.

The next morning I woke up with a huge mark on my neck. A visual reminder of the kissing that followed the T-shirt project. Really? Thirty-seven years old and I’m still getting hickeys? Knowing he was finite, it didn’t irritate me the way it otherwise might have. I sent him a flirty text about the bruise and he showed up for our next date dressed as Dracula. An appropriately adorable Halloween costume, all things considered.

This crazy frenetic energy in the beginning of a relationship, where I’m so in-to him that I’m willing to overlook just about anything, only seems to work when I don’t know the guy, or anything about him. Quite the challenge in a bar where, on the average shift, I can tell you the name and vocation of eighty-five percent of my customers. And, as much as I love the optimism and fairy tale of the mysterious stranger, it’s a romantic notion that only lasts for as long as I get to fill in the blanks about who he is and what he’s like. Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t usually live up to the dream.

Not surprisingly, Dracula and I blew out quickly. Stella might have gotten her groove back with a local while she was on vacation, but it’s not a great way to start a relationship. If he’d left after the first two dates, it might have stayed the perfect memory, but who wants to long for a past that was all just possibility?

Every time I flirt with a tourist, I have to remind myself that just because we can all be perfect in the beginning, when there’s no pressure and nothing’s being taken too seriously, doesn’t mean that it’s the perfect relationship. And maybe, if I can muster up that sassy confidence with a guy I think I know, there will be a romantic stranger hiding underneath the surface of a friend. A friend whose real flaws I already understand and love.

My Friend Ed

My friend Ed killed himself today, or, at least he was found today. I’m sitting in my apartment, alone, staring into space and trying to make sense of it.

It doesn’t make sense.

The last time I saw him he had a smile on his face. When I picture him he always had a smile on his face, but is that just my memory playing tricks on me? I knew he was sad. I knew things weren’t going well for him. I didn’t know he would ever be capable of killing himself.

It makes me wish I’d given him a big hug when he left the party where I last saw him. It makes me wish I’d hugged him until he felt it in his bones, almost testing the pressure of his ribs. It makes me want to hug everyone who is important to me like that, every time I see them, just so they know how much I care about them.

I found out at work, behind the bar, and, while the tears didn’t come, the bile did. I felt myself start to throw up and hid in the office. I swallowed, hiding my emotion, and my body went into automatic pilot.

I locked myself in the liquor room and called one of his best friends. A guy I really care about, and the first person who came to mind when I heard the news. “I’m so sorry,” I said in my voicemail message, and it was a loaded apology.

I’m sorry that I didn’t see it. I’m sorry that I didn’t react stronger to the things I did see. I’m sorry that my other friend has to go through the pain of one more person in his life dying on him. I’m sorry for the parents of my friend who died. I’m sorry for all of us left behind wondering how we missed the signs and for all of the people who are trying to show signs that none of us are picking up because we are too busy with the minutiae of our lives.

I asked a customer three times what he wanted to drink. He was nice about it, but as he patiently said “Crown and Coke” for the third time he must have wondered if I was part of the Wal-Mart greeters program at Z-Tavern. I tried to make drinks and would put each bottle down before pouring and forget where I left it.

The friend whom I’d called came into the bar and gave me a hug. I followed him outside and the first words out of his mouth were, “I’m fine.” I just looked at him. “I’m fine, really, I’m fine.”

We live in an area with one of the highest suicide rates in the country, when someone kills themselves we all look around and wonder: who’s next? You’d think life would be easier in A-Town and Smurf Village; we wear shirts that read “My Life is Better Than Your Vacation”.

Really, what could be wrong in our world? Perhaps it’s the pressure to be having fun always. Perhaps we attract adrenaline junkies and that’s the new rush they look for when they get depressed. Perhaps we self-medicate in ways that lead to poor judgment.

Edward Dow 1976-2010

Definitely, we self-medicate.

I see it during every shift and I do it when I’m down. People say it as they walk into my bar, “I just had a really crappy day, boy do I need a drink... or twelve.”

It’s a week later and I definitely drank too much a few nights ago; the night of Ed’s memorial. It didn’t make me miss him any less, but it did make me say and do things I wish I could take back. Things I can take back, or at least make an attempt to apologize for. That’s the thing about suicide, you can’t take it back. There’s no waking up in the morning and thinking “Oh my, what have I done?”

There are people who have a crazy-switch that flips after a certain amount of alcohol. I’ve watched it happen time and again where, in as little as one sip, a patron goes from happy and buzzed to the crazy place. We have one guy who even has a different name when he hits the crazy limit. His drunk name is “Duane” and his real name, like his kind and sober personality, is buried in there somewhere.

Ed had a switch that flipped. Sober, he was one of the nicest guys in the world. Drunk, it was hit or miss. Anyone close to him heard him say to someone whose buttons he was pushing, “Suicide is an option.” Was that a cry for help we all ignored? I always thought he meant an option for the other guy, though once I did send a police officer after him to make sure he was okay after he stumbled out of the bar, leaving a wake of angry customers. It makes me wonder if he was drunk when it happened.

I’m angry and I’m sad, but I’m accepting that it’s impossible to look at this in any way that makes sense to me. I can make up theories to explain it, but I can’t look into his brain. All I can do is hope that it was the right choice for him. And that he didn’t wake up somewhere else and wish he could take it back. They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I hope they’re wrong. I hope that wherever Ed is now, he’s more at peace than he was here with us.