In the '90s I worked at a bar & grille downtown. It was full of entertaining moments most days, but…read moreamong the best were during Fun Fourth, when so many who otherwise never would have come there would file in all day to avoid the heat and their kids (the kiddie area of the festival was across the street). The bar comfortably accommodated about 40 people and most nights wouldn't see more than 20 at a time, but would have a steady population of around 60-70 on the 4th. These were the days before Natty Greene's, when any other day of the year one could lie in the middle of the street at 8 pm and not worry about cars.
This particular day was like most Fourths, but got interesting later in the night, when Johnny Van Zant walked in.
Lynyrd Skynyrd had played that day down the block from the bar and late in the evening this hayseed came in, sat at the bar and asked for a Budweiser. At first, I had no clue whom he was, so I mocked him for asking a 14 year old to serve him a beer. Eventually, he was served and after a few bemulleted congratulated him on a good set, I realized it was Van Zant, who had taken over vocal duties for this hemorrhoid on the asshole of southern rock after his brother's plane wrapped itself around a tree.
I disregarded him for an hour as he got progressively drunker, but he couldn't stand being ignored.
Primarily, the bar was a black purlieu, making good ol' Johnny's next few statements all the more sage, and hilarious.
Upon spotting one of the Malcolm X shirts that were so popular at the time, with "It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand" printed on the back, he began with a description of his big idea to make money (was his band doing so poorly?).
"Wanna know my idea fer a milyun dollar bizness? T-shirts." His speech was already slurred as he answered his own question without giving me the chance. "You know how they got their shirts?" he said, ever louder, "The ones that say 'It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand'?"
I knew what was coming, yet he continued.
"Well, I got an idea for shirts for us!"
He paused several seconds, allowing me time to catch up to his intellect before he delivered his payoff.
"It's a WHITE thing. YOU wouldn't understand," he blurted out while pointing an angry finger at no one.
"Yeah, I think you're a little late there. I've seen those."
"And d'you know how they got their X? We'd have our X. A rebel flag!"
"I'm telling you, man, they already sell those."
"Well, I ain't never seen one."
I have never been to a Lynyrd Skynyrd show, but it would be difficult to convince me that vendors didn't sell these t-shirts at every one of them in the '90s, or now, in fact. Rednecks are notoriously behind the times.
At some point during the hick's pitch, a trailer-park blonde had stumbled in, already drunk. She sat a few seats down from Johnny Too Bad and demanded a beer. Upon informing yet another rocket scientist that I was too young to serve, she began a lengthy diatribe about how I shouldn't be working there if I couldn't fetch her beer. I asked someone else to get it, and she asked for a few case quarters.
She spent several minutes doing the Axl Rose sway in front of the jukebox while trying to decide on a song, and then suddenly she stamped her feet and exclaimed, "There ain't a god-damned thing on here worth playing!"
"You don't like 'Mr. Bojangles'?" I asked.
"I don't see- Oh."
So she chose some Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and some contemporary country that had never been played, and returned to her seat for most of her first selection before heading to the restroom. Moments later, she cracked the restroom door and yelled, "Y'all ain't got no damned toilet paper in here! I gotta drip my ass dry?" A co-worker took a whole 8-roll pack to her.
I like "Mr. Bojangles"; it's a decent enough song. But after it finished, while she was still drying out, her next song began. I don't know what it was. I'll just assume Garth Brooks or Alan Jackson. It was one of those typical, "Why'd that truck driver not take a rest the night Junior was coming home from the war and driving to meet his daughter for the first time at Christmas?" songs. So I turned the volume way the fuck down before she returned.
She took her seat and nursed the bottle for a while, until, "Can't that thing get any louder? I can't hear my god-damned song!"
"Yeah. Let's see- " and I pretended to turn it up for her. "How's that?"
"Still can't hear it."
"Hmm... I don't think it goes much higher, but I'll try," and this time I nudged the switch slightly. "That's as high as it goes. Must be the record."
"Well, God damn. I still can't hear nothin'."
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
She finished her beer as the song faded to an end, and then she walked toward the exit as one of my favorites, Clarence Carter's "Slip Away", began to play. I cranked the volume good and loud just in time for her to slip away herself, with such grace, flipping me off and cursing as she stormed out the door.
I love America.