A bartender I have known in a professional capacity for many years served me a beer. I paid for the beverage and tipped her. Before long a hockey game broke out. (Also on TV.)
I can’t really blame hockey. I dislike all sports equally. And, dislike is a misleading term. It suggests I expend energy in the thought process leading to the reaction. I do not. There is no explanation for this—except that in my multiple decades on the planet I have simply never found a single reason to care about sports. Not one.
Eventually, another bartender I have known in a professional capacity for many years asked me if I wanted another beer.
I said, “I might be leaving.”
He said, “What can we do to change your mind?”
I said, “I doubt you are prepared to do it,” glancing over my shoulder at the largest offending appliance. This was meant as a joke. I had no intention of asking him to turn off the game. Like I said, there were about fifteen people there. Five for each TV. Hardly a groundswell, but certainly a quorum.
Deeper I dug the hole. “That’s a lot of hockey.”
All goodwill died face down on the bar. The bartender’s visage became a waxy scowl. Disdain emanated from him in waves. “Dude. It’s the last game.”
Still trying to be funny, I said, “You promise?”
The scowl deepened. Disdain visibly turned to anger and resentment. “It’s the Stanley Cup.” He shook his head, almost allowing abject pity to break through the veneer of disgust. As he walked away, I attempted to defuse the moment by lying. “Well, I guess it’s just a deficiency on my part.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.” More head shaking. He snarked two more comments I couldn’t hear, and walked into the back room.
Pity. We have always gotten along in the past. Had I known he was a hockey fundamentalist, I would have kept my opinions to myself.
My dislike of sports creates more vehemence in others than in myself. In fact, the only aspect of it that makes me angry at all is the assumption that I care. The implication being--just because I’m standing or sitting in front of you--I obviously share your enthusiasm for the rink, the court, the diamond or the gridiron. I don’t know where such delusions are born. There are many aspects of pop culture, literature, cinema, art and life itself that interest and inspire me. But I would never assume everyone (or anyone) shares my zeal for any of it. I would never, for example, say to someone I just met or barely knew:
“So, do you agree that the non-Samurai Kurosawa films represent the best of his work? I mean, Ikiru, The Bad Sleep Well, High and Low… Drunken Angel! Come on!”
I would never say that. Or this:
“Of all the Silver Age Kirby inkers, I think Chic Stone gets shortchanged. I know everyone loves Sinnott, but I think his brush strokes often squelched the energy of Kirby’s lines. Visually, Stone was noisier and a lot more fun.”
How about:
“Dude. Anthony Mann. The westerns or the noir?”
Or:
“Charles Williams. He was like Jim Thompson, but with hillbillies and boats.”
Although, I might ask:
“Do you hold three to a Royal in Double Double, or Triple Double? Or neither?”
While I was contemplating my departure, a third bartender I have known in a professional capacity for many years walked up and started talking about Robinson Jeffers and Charles Bukowski. So I had one more for the road.
