Shaky Slim and his damn old fashioned
Inside it was December twenty fourth, outside it was raining and forty seven degrees. While some might say that a rainy Christmas Eve is an unfortunate setting, for Seth it was quite a nice sense of relief for last winter started strong with a late October blizzard and stuck around long enough for a white Easter. This was not uncommon near the great lakes of central North America, but never welcomed. As it was said once by an leathered old black man in tattered clothes outside of a church on the east side of Detroit before Good Friday mass, 'I tell you what, if Jesus lived 'round here, he'da waited a few more days to come on back.'
So it was the holiday season again, and the forecast predicts a rainy sleigh ride for the big guy. This news bringing smiles to many in southeast Michigan, smiles through cracked lips still chapped from last years localized tundra expansion. The Motor city was dreaming of a gray Christmas, the storybook snow of the season was just not appreciated by folks around here. This year though, being already fourty four degrees warmer than the last, has brought out a special kind of Jolly Cheer. One bar in particular, Slims, was crowded with the spirit of the year end. Tucked in behind a furniture outlet between the expressway and the steel mill downriver sat a little brick building with two stained glass windows in the front. A large plastic light box -long since burnt out- was bolted to the west facing wall, written on it in translucent brown paint were the words 'Slim's Place.' While the exterior was stylistically conflicted and left much to be desired, the interior was exactly what one would expect a rich old mariners house to look like; the walls littered with photos and fabrics and shelves with odds and ends, the floor a warm patch work of weathered woods, the polished oak bar framed the plethora of whiskeys and malts offered. Every surface was individually fascinating but nothing compared the sum of the parts.
In the far right corner of the crowded box of a bar sat Seth. This is where Seth always sat, beneath an obnoxious display of signed hockey player portraits ranging from black and white to DSLR. This is where Daniel walked to the most.
-You could sit at the bar you know?
-You could stop saying that you know.
And thus began the night.