Over the Hill

It is our day off and I wasted away in bed until 12:30pm. After nearly four weeks of pretty austere living I was convinced by some members of the Apprentice Company here to “come out to a real Louisville bar” last night. It seemed like being social was necessary, finally, as we are about to open, so I went along with my enthusiastic abettors, to a place called Willy’s. The bar (like, behind which the bartenders stood) itself was actually a really long terrarium with several lizards inside. It was actually kind of cool (and a little disconcerting) to suddenly notice mid-conversation that an amphibian was scurrying around underneath your beer.

From there we went to Freddy’s, which is apparently a Louisville institution. I can see why. I have visited some dives in my time but this place takes the cake. The first thing I notice are two very old men sitting at the bar with Santa Clause beards, squinting at us through the permanent cloud of cigarette smoke. Suddenly eight or so twenty-something’s (and, umm, a couple of thirty-something’s) descend on the silent bar and the bearded men scatter like cockroaches. I felt a bit like an interloper.

But Freddy’s it was. It was cheap. And kind of gross in that ashtrays on the counters in the women’s bathroom inch of residue on the wood paneling kind of way.

From there someone started talking about going gambling in Indiana (which I may actually have been talked into, simply because I haven’t been to Indiana since I was seventeen, and that somehow seems a shame) but instead we ended up playing some bizarre guessing game at someone’s apartment (I think I’ve played this game as an acting exercise once).

One person closes their eyes, another person in the group is silently chosen, and then you go around the circle and the person who had their eyes closed asks things like, “If I were an item of clothing what would I be?” “If I were a type of beverage what would I be?” and so on. After everyone has been asked the person tried to guess who was being described.

Mind you, many of these people were people I’d met hours before, and the others I’d met within the past few weeks but really knew nothing about. So I made snap judgments based solely on first impressions, and managed to slightly offend several people, when I called one guy the sitcom “Roseanne” (which was actually a great show) because he seemed extremely straightforward and ballsy (he thought I was calling him fat) and another guy when I said as an item of clothing he would be a white-hat (because yes, he totally looks like a frat boy. Doesn’t mean he acts like one, but that is what he looks like).

I think the game could be kind of brutal if played with people who really know each other.

At some point someone said, “It’s five-thirty”. Which of course meant, in the morning. And suddenly every muscle in my body was screaming at me, “Who the fuck do you think you are hanging out with twenty-five year-olds until 5:30 in the morning and thinking that you will do anything productive the next day?” I bid the kids goodnight and fell into a very restless sleep.

The thing is, I couldn’t really pull all nighters when I was a young thing, so what makes me think I can do it now?