The Bartender

She moves with practiced angles, maneuvering around glasses and taps with a fluidity as smooth as the liquors she mixes. It’s like a carnival shell game to watch her shuffle cups and ice and customers. Her age is not easily pinned, resting somewhere after college, probably mid to late twenties. “What would you like, hon?” she asks with a sweet tone and a honeyed smile to match. Her hair is two toned like sand, the bangs confined in a hair tie with the rest sweeping over her uniform. Ink vines up her right arm, reminiscent of ivy on a house-side trellis, blending there like she was born with it. Her smile is white flashing at customers, a match for her cubic earrings, while a contrast to the tan of her reaching arms. She is the born hostess.

Two Friends at the Bar

The first one is a “good ‘ole boy.” He’s got a friendly face to match his warm attitude. He talks animatedly to his friend on the stool next to him, as if his friend will leave at any moment and so he has to fit all his words into the next breath. He’s the type of guy some might label a “country boy,” and what less kind descriptions might call a “hick.” He’s the type of guy one wonders how a southern accent lands on a guy from a Butler farm. He’s simple, not fancy, with a plain white tee, and his other chosen attire makes you wonder why his dusty orange ball cap needs to wear sunglasses indoors in the evening. He’s got amber liquid in his glass to go with the hat.

His friend is darker in complexion and matches him in animation, though he seems content to be the laugher, not the teller of the jokes. He sports a Nike swoosh on his dark shirt and raises a glass of the same beverage in comradery to his companion. He’s a scholar in the way he holds his posture and talks in a good-natured lecture. They are a sitcom friendship.