conversations at the bar p. one

After 12 hours at the office I walked over to the bar to rest. It was live piano jazz again, my friends behind the bar. My hair a greasy bun on the top of my head, gone wild from the monthlong fog and sweat from lunch runs. The pianist's wife always comes to watch her husband play; the son, a John Travolta circa Michael lookalike plays drums after his father, has an endearing sense of humor, is embarrassed by his former manager who sits beside me - cane in hand, gold earring in one ear, an afro of muted gray curls, his shirt unbuttoned deep, gold necklaces buried beneath chest fur, gold rings, small hands, thick fingers, large glasses with the line of bifocal at center, which keep slipping down his bulky nose as he speaks. You can't really see into his eyes, the constant slip of the thick lenses and the rim distilling a clarity, but you know by his eyebrows that he's intently looking into you. He feels like early 1960's; like free love, beautiful women, literature, flamboyancy.
"I can tell something about you by the way you look me in the eyes. Women don't seem to do that anymore."
I hesitated, somehow mesmerized by the word, woman.
"Really?" [nodding]
"You were hurt somewhere down the line yeah?"
"How can you tell?"
"It's in your eyes. You're bitter."
[laughs] "Ha, well, yes, I am, but not forever, it'll pass."
"It's not very suitable for a woman to look bitter."
"Well yeah but it's just what happens & I'm fine with it as a process."
"You just need to know that you need to get over it before you can move on, you don't want to take that with you, place it on another person."
"Of course. I wouldn't want to do that to someone."
"..."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes."
"Did you know it before?"
"..."
"Well, I guess so."
"I knew it." [nods] "I had to ask because it's in your eyes. An intuition. You're intuitive. Women are more often than men."
"Yeah, likely."
"There's this street in el Lay, you know DeLongpre? I met a hooker when I was there, you know that street right?"
"No..."
"The one Bukowski lived on, I could feel why - a lot of feeling on that street. It was hard to tell a woman was a woman."
"I really enjoy Bukowski, though it's sad sometimes for me."
"A lot of people thought he was a womanizer, but I disagree."
"Yeah, I could see that."
"I don't think his stuff is sad either. I think he was fine. Actually, I think he detested beautiful women, and he only fucked so many because he was baffled by how none of them would sleep with him when he was young & covered in acne, then he gets famous and he has them falling all over him...I think he was so dismayed by their vapidness, their transparent desire for leeching onto success, that he wasn't ever lonely for them, just complacent."
"I get you."
"Do you write anymore?"
"I'm finding it hard."
"How could you? Just carry a journal."