Whiskey Bar

My sister once had a moody boyfriend who, once he had a few drinks in him, would transform like a true alcoholic into a ray of smarmy sunshine and say, “Just needed to put a little primer in the tank.” Minus the bit about being a manic, sycophantic inebriate, this is exactly how I feel around 11:30 p.m. as the Ballpark neighborhood’s biggest biceps hand back our IDs and we walk into Whiskey Bar (2201 Larimer Street). I’m already in roughly 72 ounces of Pabst, give or take the ass of a can or two, and feeling the kind of primed that makes me rub my hands together and salivate at the sight of beer taps. And despite a steady, Saturday-night crowd and the thirty or forty people we barely beat down the block from an early-evening event at Orange Cat, we find three seats around the close corner of the bar and prepare to do some damage.

Maggie and I spent the better part of the afternoon at the Denver Dumb Friends League helping Cole pick out a two-year-old calico cat. As humane-society visits go, this one was especially bittersweet, considering the half-dozen or so animals we would have taken with us under different circumstances. But the trip was a success — both for Cole and the overpopulated, un-sterilized world of shelter pets — and that means tonight, we’re doing some drinkin’. Though we would have regardless.

Cole is shooting for maximum irony in the naming of her new friend, so we order a round and start a list. I start with Thesaurus Jr., a spoof on a friend’s cat named Dinosaur Jr. Inanimate objects, local newscasters and street names make the index, as do musicians, colloquialisms and ridiculous athletes. In my ever-escalating stupor, I latch onto LeBrontosaurus Jr. and won’t let go, finding any reason possible to bring up what I’m convinced is the funniest pet name ever. After two bottles of Bud, an almost tepid pitcher of Denver Pale Ale and a couple pints of Samurai, I decide shots are in order. Maggie’s on a tequila kick, but Cole won’t bite, so I flag down the male bartender and, with what can only be described as complete incoherence, order three shots of LeBrontosaurus Rex (though I mean to say Jr.), just to see what happens.

Judging by the icy look of utter disgust and impatience with which my request is met, I half expect Larimer’s largest arms to throw my ass to the opposite curb. When they fail to appear, I call for bartender’s choice and am more than a little pleased when the barkeep returns with a slight grin on his face. “What’s in it?” I ask graciously.

“I don’t have to tell you that,” he grins back.

“Fair enough.”

We shoot, we shudder a little, but we don’t scowl — the shot is delicious.

“Lemme guess,” I slur. “A Buttery Blowjob on the Sexy Nipple Beach?”

More grins, but no answers.

Half a drink later, I’m in the bathroom doing an unsteady forearm lean when the faint yet irrefutable bellow of “Last call” reaches my ears. I can’t see the guy using the urinal behind me, but I hear him shriek “Shit!” and I giggle openly at the thought of him dripping down his leg as he attempts to zip up prematurely and dash out the door. By the time I get back to our corner, the girls have decided it’s time to leave, so I close my tab, stagger to the intersection of 22nd Street and flail my arms at everything even resembling a Crown Victoria. When Yellow Cab’s most disillusioned driver finally stops for me — and the four friends expecting to pile in who have yet to emerge from the bar — I go for a bribe.

“Here,” I say, handing him a five, “put this in your pocket.”

He waits. But judging by the look on his face, I might as well have told him to go LeBrontosaurus Rex himself.