Notes From a Dive Bar - No Match in the Smoking Room

Don’t read this if you’re already bummed or don’t want to be. February is a cruel month in the dive.

Staring at the floor in the smoking room. If it opens up, he falls straight down. That might suit him. He tells me his wife left him. He has no match.

Fifteen years. All he can think of, he left the toilet seat up too often. Best he believes that. Years ago, she came in the bar and dragged him off the stool. Those types of incident are best left unspoken.

Someone will arrive soon and give him a smoke. And he’ll look up at the cloud. God, help me. But God doesn’t hang around the smoking room. Now, he wonders who will help him up when he falls down tomorrow.

I buy him a whisky. Maybe you’ll meet someone else. Life can spring surprises.

She told me she was sick and tired of me not being there for her, he says.

No one goes into the smoking room.