The Thin, Blue Staggering Line

 I honestly don't remember her name, so I'll call her Sally. She didn't work with us very long and she's really only memorable for this story and one she told me about a suicide that happened by her apartment. A neighbor had hung himself outside of her window, I think from the fire escape. Her and her little girl were just going about their business in their home when they noticed the man. That had to be frightening. 

I'm pretty sure that the last time I saw her was a Saturday when I came on shift to relieve her. As soon as she saw me, she ran without a word out from behind the bar, tears streaming down her face. The bar was crowded. Very unusual for a Saturday afternoon. I quickly assumed that, overwhelmed by the numbers, she had gotten deep in the weeds. It was something like that.

I looked the crowd over. Parents. Kids. How bad could it have been? I found out right away. First customers I approached had their backs to me talking to some others. I asked if they were doing alright. 

A guy turned around and obnoxiously said, "Do we fucking look alright?!" Then he turned back around and continued talking to other people like nothing had happened. I said something like, "Not really" but he was done paying attention to me. Sherry, the daytime hostess came to the restaurant side of the bar. "They are cops and they are fucking awful!" she told me.  

It turned out they were all cops, their wives and kids. They were all quite drunk. Except the kids. I hoped. Our chief of police had sponsored a softball tournament with cops from other towns, and these were the residue of that. Probably had been drinking during the games too. Sherry told me that they had been quite obnoxious to Sally. She didn't know Sally had run out crying but completely understood why. She asked if she should call our cops. Well, no. They hadn't really done anything to warrant that in the couple of minutes that I had been on duty. We had to see how it played out.

The thing about that, I figured, was that the thin, blue line of assholery is very important to cops. They would close ranks; them against us civilians if the situation were to escalate, and not counting wives and kids, I would be all alone until the other two bartenders came at six. I didn't really want to involve our cops if I could help it. I didn't want to find out which side they would choose.

My cocktail waitress came in, and I told her what I knew and that she should make herself scarce until they dispersed. There was no point in putting her in the midst of all that, and no point in her or me availing ourselves to them for more drinks. Cutting people off is dicey in normal crowds, but if you have to cut off one or two people in a large group- like a wedding or suburban cop softball players- you can easily disrupt the whole herd. Or not. You never know. I once did a wedding where I had people like 8 deep at the bar (open bar, of course) and someone was tossing ice cubes at me from the back of the throng. By the time I figured out who it was, three guys from the wedding hustled him off to the men's room and beat the shit out of the guy. Never saw him again that night. One of the helpers filled me in on what had happened. Fine by me! Whoever he was, they already hadn't liked him.

The cops ran out of money or the wives realized they better get the kids and husbands home- I don't know. Maybe both. They all filtered out, and I don't think I made another drink for them. Sally had clearly gotten the worst of it. I don't believe I ever saw her again. We later heard from the regulars that she had been getting $20 from each of them and giving them 'free' drinks on her day shifts. Something like that. Mighta been ten. This was back in the 80's. Sneaky little...