Bob 'n' Bogarts

 Sun, 20 Sep 1998 16:38:12 EDT 

How did I get out of there? I got out of there OK, but I count myself
lucky. Bob wasn't your everyday Bob. He had a hard time with life, but
I loved him for it. It showed his depth, his caring. He didn't just
flit along, taking from life. That's not to say he didn't indulge. In
fact, that is why I was there. This place, Bogart's, was deceptively
quiet most of the time. But there was an undercurrent that flowed to
the surface and damn near dragged me under a few times. And to think
we often closed the place, hung around with the bartender, who one
time grabbed his bat from under the bar, chased down the guy who bit
his waitress. And she was there, always making Bob feel better about
himself, without quite leading him on. But he had trouble getting home
those nights- I wished he wouldn't drive the two blocks, so often he
landed in the ditch. It made no sense. I stopped going there after
this truck driver got pissy one night and slashed the tires on
twenty-one cars in the parking lot. THe bartender tried to track him
down- he stayed in town with his mother when he wasn't on the road.
Then one night the bartender was shot- checking on a guy who he
noticed was too long in the men's room. I was lucky. Bob and I started
going to a place where he could sometimes get up and do his
Texas-style picking on his guitar with the bar band. But after a while
that wore thin for me. I got more into dating "nicer" women, who
didn't "do" bars. Bob, he left his cushy DoD programmer's job and went
back to El Paso. I don't know why. He had stopped talking to me by
then.