Elizabeth at the bar tells that this place is haunted. The whole town is, she says. But this bar in particular. She sees an old man in the corner booth. After closing, after she turns out the lights.
Whatever the case, the bar isn't haunted by Mermaids. Not this week anyway.
Like so many other aficionados of fine 60's day-drinking bars, I flew to Great Falls from Arizona to spend a couple days of drinking fish bowls of diabetes-inducing Tiki drinks while mermaids and I assumed also bloated tourists swan in the pool that is the underwater backdrop behind the bar.
Turns out the pool was under renovations. The backdrop was now simply a Dollar General shower curtain covering the glass, adorned with fishes swimming like a cheap version of the Roku aquarium screensaver.
But I didn't come here just for Mermaids. I came here to get drunk for a couple of days in a vintage bar that has been on my list for years. It checks every box of a perfect bender. Inside a Motor Inn with an old school diner attached. And it even has some smoking rooms. Top that for "retro."
I peeled in off the plane wearing an insidiously striking 70's suit, pink with thin white stripes and dotted with white anchors. It could have been wardrobe from an episode of "The Love Boat." I made people stare. It forced people to comment. It invoked envy and envy is a cardinal sin. My suit made God angry.
I dumped my bag in my smoking room and hit the lounge where I met Elizabeth, the bartender who apologized for the lack of Mermaids before giving me the misdirect to the ghosts.
I met some fine folks. Laura was in town to see her brother Tom in Hospice care. She saw my suit and asked if I'd just stepped off a plane from Cuba. When I told her I was a comedian, she began to tell me run-on jokes, punctuated with unnecessary details and caveats that she's bad at telling jokes. I interrupted.
"Laura, do you think that there is any chance that your brother Tom is only hanging on to life this long just waiting for your punch line?"
Laura laughed and finished her Belgian waffles and then my open face roast beef sandwich before saying goodnight.
I met a guy from SLC towards last call who shared my own story. He too had traveled far to visit this Sip & Dip Mecca where his mother, in her youth, had been a regular and a Person of Interest. Mr. SLC may have even been conceived here but that's only speculation. I told him that I had an upcoming show in Salt Lake and within minutes he'd gotten on his phone and bought tickets. I'm practically making money just being here.
At breakfast the waitress greeted me with a $100 gift card. I'd tweeted a pic that night before at the bar prompting a fan to send the gift. Now I had less than 24 hours to spend it all. I'm hyperbolically certain that with that card I bought people at least 400 drinks, a soup kitchen worth of meals, a new set of nails for Angel, a small but cozy duplex on the river with a view, the majority share in a Botswana diamond mine and a Carl's Jr franchise and still had 23 dollars left in credit.
With that, I bought a $20 travel mug with a Sip & Dip logo and left the last few dollars as a tip.
On the last morning as I waited for check-out and my shuttle, I was entertained by the screeching of angry tires, muted domestic violence and the sobs of stab wounds from my first floor window. I peeked through the curtains I saw a sign that told me that I was at the epicenter of the real entertainment.
Who needs Mermaids when you are yards away from "New Directions Center For Mental Health."
The cacophony of domestic disturbance was mostly just one guy, in a spastic rage and fighting only himself.
Or so it would seem.
I like to believe that he was fighting that ghost who is always pestering Elizabeth in the corner booth at the bar after hours. read more