Audio By Carbonatix
“Dude’s having trouble keeping up,” I tell Greg when he joins me at Pasquini’s Pizzeria Uptown (1336 East 17th Avenue) and sits beer-less for five minutes. I’m referring to Josh, the lone bartender responsible for the bar, restaurant and fifty-plus-person staff party just starting on the back patio. Dude’s working his ass off, though — filling multiple pints of draft beer with one hand while pouring glasses of chilled white wine with the other. He’s scrambling and sweating and cursing under his breath. “I wasn’t even supposed to be in tonight,” he mumbles in our direction while uncorking a fresh bottle of Cabernet. “Picked this shift up as a favor.”
Contributing to his growing malaise is the fact that happy hour (4 to 6 p.m., two-for-one domestic draughts) is nearing its end, and the party-goers — who are cashing in company-paid drink tickets and, more often than not, neglecting to tip — are hell-bent on getting the bargain. Greg and I are, too, but we grabbed chairs by the wine fridge, so we have no trouble whispering in Josh’s ear every time he zips by. When he finally has a second to help us, I’m surprised to discover that the Shiner Hefeweizen I order is part of the happy-hour special. When most bars offer specials on “domestics,” they mean Miller, Bud and Coors — not a good regional beer from Texas. Another plus to Pasquini’s’ two-for-one: Brews are delivered one at a time, which means my freebie arrives gelid and straight from the tap.
Sometime post-happy-hour rush, Josh finds a minute to serve himself a Go Fast and vodka. “Ahhh, sweet booze,” he says with a grin as he gulps with determination. Then it’s back to the races. Greg and I drain our second and third Shiners and watch as Josh hustles up and down the bar like a high-school basketball player running suicides. On one lap, I reach over the counter, grab his cocktail and hand it to him mid-stride. “Take care of yourself back there,” I tell him. On another lap, he stops in front of us to uncork another bottle of wine, but drops it mid-twist. Deftly, he scoops it off the rubber floor mat, spilling only a few ounces, if that. Greg and I clap. Josh bows.
This ebbing and flowing of the ticket-exchanging tide continues for a good two hours. When it ebbs, Josh finds time to run drinks through the three-sink cleaning process and joke with us about how the Steramine sanitizing tablets are so strong the solution kills HIV (only he’s not joking — it’s advertised on the label). When it flows, he’s rudely yelled at by a belligerent back-patio drinker too impatient to wait his turn. “You going to take that?” Greg asks Josh on his next lap. “Guy tipped me twenty bucks before ordering his first drink,” Josh responds with resignation. “So…yes.”
Our belches eventually take on the characteristics of a frat-party chorus line (it’s only later that Josh tells us he tapped the keg himself before we came in and that our CO2 output is normal), so we switch to pints of Bud and spend the rest of the night bullshitting about food, beer and baseball with a line cook from Table 6 who’s drinking by himself down the bar. Halfway through Bud Number Two, a woman who I assume is Josh’s girlfriend (or wife — I honestly wouldn’t notice a wedding ring if a married woman picked my nose for me) comes in and sets a carrier holding Josh’s baby on the bar. They chat just long enough for Josh to pull his pack of Parliament Lights out of his pocket and hand it to her. When she’s gone, he pours himself another tall.
Just before nine, Greg and I ask for our tab and are presented with a receipt that reads $22. “What the fuck is this?” I ask Josh, who’s trying to act nonchalant about this most epic of hookups.
“I gave you guys two-for-one all night,” he answers. Then, with mock authority: “Remember me.”
For a moment, I attempt to calculate the number of beers we both drank times their cost times 25 percent, but realize I’m much too sodden for arithmetic. So I tip to $40 and hand him the receipt.
“No, you remember me.”
