I bartended at the Moose Lodge for several years while I was going to college. My work station was usually at the service bar, a small cubicle looking out onto the ball room and stage. There were no bar stools, no customers, just four or five waitresses calling out a constant stream of drink orders. The compact bar had everything within reach: booze bottles on rear shelves, beers in the front coolers, clean glasses on the bar top, and ice in the hole. One other guy joined me in the limited space as we turned out one drink after another. The fast paced action made for a lot of fun.
I worked with a couple guys over those summers, either Art or Wayne. They were both Moose members, fifteen or twenty years older than me, and worked to pick up a few dollars on weekends. Both were fun to work with as our activity often resembled a choreographed dance. Maybe the band music helped set the tempo, and much of the enjoyment came from our coordinated action.
We served a variety of drinks. I might grab two beers with each hand, pop the caps and set them on the tray, while the other would be making a grasshopper and I’d hand him a needed bottle of Crème de Mint. I’d start a martini. He’d mix a seven and seven, then I’d reach for the sweet vermouth to make a Manhattan, then a whiskey sour…and so on. We worked well together and I think the two enjoyed the harmonized dance as much as I did.
The weekends saw a lot of action at the Moose. A local band performed each Friday and Saturday, and the spacious dance floor was always full. Sometimes all the waitresses would be shouting orders at us at the same time. There were few lulls during the evenings, and closing time at twelve or one was always welcome.
I would be a bit weary, but having been injected with adrenalin by the evening’s action, was not prepared to go home. We’d draw our pay, ten or twelve bucks for the night ($2 per hour) and put a receipt in the till. The vigor of youth was running through my veins, so I usually joined others heading off to a local establishment to relax and unwind.
One night, near the end of the summer, some people brought in a woman who had worked as a waitress at the Moose the year before. Mom and Dad had told me her story. She was in a fiery auto accident the previous summer, had been burned over most of her body, and hospitalized for months. Several described the young women as having been pretty and popular before the accident dealt her a sad fate. I’d never met her, so the only memory I have is of a burned out hulk. She was a human wreck, likely unrecognizable by those who had known her before. Most of her face had been spared the flames, but her voice was effected, and I think much of her body was scar tissue. Both legs were trapped in braces, and she shuffled, each leg swinging awkwardly forward as she managed a hobbling walk on crutches.
That was back in 1963. Nearly half a century has passed. I didn’t know much about her. I never knew her age, maybe thirty. She was tall, maybe 5’ 9”. I knew nothing about her past, where she was born and grew up, or who her family might have been. I no longer even remember her name.
She came by the lodge on two or three occasions, and one night joined a small group after closing. We went to a bar with music and a dance floor. Art, my bartending partner, and his wife were her friends. He plodded me to ask her to dance. I did so as a courtesy and was surprised she accepted.
Our dance was more of a balancing act than a slow two-step. She had neither the coordination nor strength to do more than teeter back and forth. I noticed a young man smirking at our presence, looking us up-and-down in a manner that signaled his attitude of superiority. I could have challenged him, but I was wise enough, even then, to realize that his attitude was more his problem than ours.
I drove her home that night, stopping in front of a small house in a nice neighborhood. She open the door on the passenger side and asked me if I‘d come in, and then said something like, “You won’t be sorry!”.
I was at a loss. I was being propositioned, and had no idea how to deal with it. I made some lame excuse of it being late and I was tired. A slight pause followed and then, in a plaintive voice she said, "Well, I won’t beg”. She closed the door and shuffled up the walk and disappeared into the house. I never saw her again. Mom said she died the following year.
I yet wonder if she asked me in because she was trying to find a reason to go on living, but I lacked adequate experience in that side of life, and wasn’t willing or able to help. I’ve often pondered what my response would have been had she ask for such a favor before misfortune befell her. Or would she even have bothered? In a way I was as prejudice as the smirking jerk on the dance floor. Maybe, if I’d known her before, or if I had been older and wiser, then maybe I could have offered a benevolence.
