MILK FROM MARY'S NIP

Jim Collins reminds me of Sears. Folks that go to Sears go there because they know Sears has what they are looking for. They know they won't pay that much. They know they won't get hassled. They know they can get what they came for and get back on with their lives in mere minutes. You're not going to buy a blower at Jim Collins, but if you sat on one of their stools for more than three hours at a time, it's likely you ended up on this couch. Beer was cheap. Juke played real records. Yard sale musical instruments hanging on the wall were taken down often and blown into, plucked, strummed, shaken. Pool table in the back served poker table, dance floor, crash pad.

Last time I was there Carli told me the whole strip was gonna get a makeover. Pottery Barn. Banana Republic. Baby Gap. Trading staggering crackers for jogging strollers and latte sipping trophy moms. It happens everywhere, I told her. Wish it didn't have to. All five reeking sots at the bar drank to that. Another dollar and a half Coors please. REM's "Radio Free Europe" plays. SCAD coeds with shaved heads and jailhouse tatts chainsmoke. An ancient retriever clicks across the floor, pacing, panting. Smoke billows up and out and hangs a few feet below the low ceiling. SCAD coed offers reeking sot at the bar a pull on her Southern Comfort half pint. Milk from the Mary's nip, he says. Retriever starts barking. There's a lanky drunk sonofabitch passed out on the couch. He's been passed out since happy hour that happened as soon as the goddamn bar opened, eight p.m.. One of the coeds pulls her cutoff jeans off, squats over the sonofabitch's face, and pisses him awake.