red bottle brew pub vs rusty bin bar

There are two bars in my town I'd like to discuss. One where it's socially acceptable to drink, and one where it's not. First, Red Bottle Brew Pub. Here, you will be greeted at the door by a smiling young hostess dressed in the standard issue company shirt. She is saving money for college right now. Some of the staff are in similar situations to your hostess. Others are idealists working a few nights a week because they want to support the local entrepreneur and quality microbrews. Their wages will be deposited into a savings account that will be used to pay the mortgage or travel the world. Only a few staff are truly working to make ends meet. You sit down at the table and for $3.50 you can enjoy a 16 oz. fine microbrew. Surrounded by all your white, educated friends, you can feast upon local sausages, burgers made from grass fed beef, and all sorts of other health foods. The decor creates a wholesome environment where you can bring your kids or enjoy an after work beer or two with your coworkers before headed home to your white picket fence, golden retriever, and warm bed. Any excessive drinking at the Brew Pub is not seen as a personal fault or moral evil. It is a well deserved way of winding down and having fun after a long day of work. Anything you may do in your inebriated state will be laughed off once the hangover wears off. There are no judgements passed here.

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However, head down the street to the Rusty Bin and you'll find a much different environment. It is not the extreme of course, go a little further down the street, almost to the other side of the tracks, and you'll find Flint's, where the true low-lifes and alchies hang out. I've yet to patronize this establishment as it has been deemed truly unacceptable, and even dangerous by my former place of employment. So I'll have to describe it's whiter, slightly classier counterpart, the Rusty Bin.

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Here, behind the bar you will see young women with low cut shirts and tight jeans. They flirt with the customers, knowing it will bring in the big tips. They rely on these tips to support their children. The Rusty Bin has a surprising number of beers on tap, but it appears everyone is drinking Coors Light, after all it is cheap. The jukebox plays the same Red Hot Chili Peppers song over and over again. The menu consists of an array of deep fried favorites designed to absorb the alcohol, but leave you thirsty for more. When you come to the Rusty Bin after work, you are blowing your paycheck, not drinking a well deserved beer. Excessive drinking is frowned upon by those who see you leaving the bar. Shouldn't you be spending that money to pay your bills, not blowing it on beer?

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Yes, I've just made a lot of gross generalizations. Maybe my perceptions are inaccurate, but let me tell you what I see and feel when I'm spending time in each location. At the brew pub, somehow I see fakery. I see people with invisible walls around them. Forced smiles and behaviors learned since childhood of how to look, what to say, what not to say. Somehow, the Rusty Bin seems to much more real. People laugh, cry, pour out their souls in a way I can't describe. Somehow life's pain is very palpable in the Rusty Bin and no one tries to hide it behind their middle class values.

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There's a guy named Joey who I have run into a few times at the Rusty Bin, who also had been staying at the homeless shelter I worked at on and off. The first time I saw him, he was drunk by the time my friend and I arrived. He came to talk to us and offered to buy us a beer. We refused of course, but he proceeded to ask, "what's wrong with letting a homeless guy buy you a beer?" We couldn't say no then. Yes, we knew he had very little money. And because he was drunk, he wouldn't be allowed back into the shelter that night. But he wanted to buy us a beer. He drinks, we drink, so why not sit down and do it together instead of trying to pretend that the other doesn't do it. It seemed okay to drink with him because we were being real to who we were.

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The next time I saw Joey at the Rusty Bin was quite the experience. My friends and I had been drinking elsewhere all night and so had he. As soon as we arrived, we started drinking with Joey. Soon he asked us to go out back and smoke. A few minutes later, I was not only drunk, but also high, but the conversation that ensued for that few minutes behind the Rusty Bin was one that I would never give up. Here we were, two middle class, college educated white girls, smoking pot with a homeless guy who stayed at the shelter at which we worked. Suddenly, the conversation became very real. (Or felt so, because of the pot.) We all acknowledged that we drink and smoke. Somehow this was okay for my friend and I, but not for Joey. Joey pointed to the roof next door and told us that was where he would be sleeping. It's where he always stayed when he needed to drink and didn't have any other place to go. When I talked about how that wasn't fair, Joey just shrugged and said, "That's the way it is." My friend and I told Joey that when we work at the shelter we felt like we had to put on airs and pretend that we didn't drink or smoke pot. We do, we just can't talk about it. Joey said he just had to respect those boundaries. It was such a real conversation and I just wish it could have happened sooner.