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“I’m not a bartender?” Does he expect me to sleep with him? What do I do if he does? Shit, shit, shit – okay, go home, call Mary Beth, talk to her. I didn’t even ask what I would be paid. Well I don’t have to go back tonight after all, I mean I told him my maiden name, but he didn’t actually ask to see my identification – thank God – he’s going to throw me out anyhow when he figures out I’m 19 not 21.
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    That was over six months ago. I hadn’t broken either of Charlie’s rules – was never even tempted to put a needle anywhere near my body, although he was right, it was offered multiple times by customers, and both Levi and Rick had immediately come on to me, but both were easily deterred. And Charlie never did anything inappropriate. I later learned that the whole “I’m not a bartender” line was just part of a persona he liked to project as he turned out to be a happily married man with a couple kids at home. The story around the bar was that Charlie never cheated on his wife even when the situation guaranteed he wouldn’t be caught. I now thought of all three of them as friends, more like protective big brothers who watched out for me. I was the only female that worked at The Canteen – the other women Charlie had tried hiring had all succumb to Levi’s charms and were, as promised, fired immediately.
    As time passed, I was told that Charlie hired me to help ‘class up the place ’ . The Canteen had previously been a biker bar. Charlie was trying to change it into a place frequented more by pseudo hippies, real hippies, and the young hip crowd that wanted nothing to do with hippies. Unfortunately, he and his partners didn’t have the financial backing to close, completely renovate and re-open under a new name like the other bars on the street, so they were making changes as they could, and I was one of them. I soon realized that Charlie was open to suggestions that would help towards his goal, so I talked him into hiring a decent cleaning service to scrub the place from floor to ceiling. It helped cut down on the smell, and although the stairs and floor were always nasty from freshly spilled drinks, at least it kept people’s feet from sticking too much as they walked. Charlie never did ask to see my ID – I was paid in cash each week which suited me just fine.
    Much to everyone’s surprise, including my own, I got along well with most of the regulars, proving I could handle myself around stoned, mostly male patrons, despite my lack of experience. Or maybe it was my lack of experience that allowed me to find a home there, growing to like a good number of the regular druggies and pseudo-bikers. No one judged me; other than getting drinks, I had zero expectations to live up to with any of these people– and best of all, they didn’t ask personal questions. The people who patronized The Canteen came and went. They became friends for the night, the week or the month. They came from unknown places, and disappeared back into those places at closing time. As long as they respected my privacy, I could respect theirs. It became my own dysfunctional family of sorts – one that asked no more from me than I was willing to give to them. At the end of the night, we all disappeared back into nowhere.
    The ordinary, sloppy ass drunks that stumbled in between the hours of 2 am and 4 am after the ‘respectable’ bars had closed tended to be a different story. As far as I was concerned, drunks were much more difficult to deal with than stoners – one in particular.
    With Jimi Hendrix’s, “Purple Haze” and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” blaring from the juke box in the background I approached one of these ‘late customers’. “Hey man, last call,” I said to this guy who had been nursing a bottle of Budweiser, leaning up against one of the small slate topped bars in the middle of the room. He didn’t answer; he just lifted the bottle and took another slow swig, leering at