So many summers and winters pass, eventually, on the metal bar, that all of our sins, all the dirtiness, unthinkable hopelessness and unhealthy catharsis get solidified, like cultural sediment lodging itself in our everyday landscape. It’s possible that it’s not an enterprise for the scrupulous. And when I walk into that metal bar, a bright-eyed English degree holder a little more prone to good decisions than the average, I never experience the same thing twice. One time, in your Slayer long-sleeve t-shirt, you kept playing top 40 hits on the speakers, which didn’t really make much sense, you have to admit. And I knew you couldn’t name a single song by Slayer, but I was a little more concerned with what seemed like a certain desperation, in your body language, in the general vibe and in the weather outside, as it were. It was like some homicidal, metaphysical force had been crouching from beyond the horizon, spewing an unexplainable color of ominousness onto the proceedings, and we were all doing arbitrary things, celebrating their arbitrariness, and generally just trying to forget everything. I remember the Backstreet Boys sessions, your loud, spirited rendition of “I Want it That Way”; a song that came out in 1999, at a point wedged right between the Columbine shooting and Woodstock. I remember you explaining how you’d been in prison, the result of apparent anger problems, I remember you slamming the little mini-fridge closed, so hard that it opened back up. And I remember when you were portly, plain but pleasant, no trace of anger and no ties to Elkhart but blasting loud, annoying songs the whole time like “Somebody get me through this nightmare” and Kidrock. And I remember you the last time, on your “fourth day on the job,” a pleasant, laughing and portly girl, showing too much bust, spreading temporary sugar on everything, temporary cinnamon butter, assuring yourself that you like everything that’s going on, indulging in the Apollonian expedition of nightlife with blind, precocious faith. We now pass to another winter. And we’ve all seen a little bit too much. We take what is given to us, we sidestep a lot of topics, and we crouch, as the proprietor makes his moves, maneuvers his chess pieces, wields control and sees you dropping like flies, left to scramble, to free-fall, through dark corridors of your mind, lunging for dark, maniacal messages on your little mental lillipads until, one day, it all comes to an end.