The one just hired has pink streaks in her hair. A small nose ring. And a 'Lucky You' tattoo just above the front of her low-rise jeans.

The girl with the tattoos and the streaked hair from a bottle has been in the bar quite a bit since she quit her job. She looks tired, starting to go blank at the edges. Probably has been hitting the bottle too hard: a bar here, a bar there, some at home maybe. This is not uncommon for someone who just quit their job. Or at least not uncommon when you see these people in bars. Self-selecting, yes.

She mentions that she is starting to feel paranoid. Again: not uncommon in bars, for a variety of circumstances. A lot of people at bars feel that the walls are closing in on them. Sometimes there are people suspected behind these closing walls: ex-wives, bosses, creditors, lawyers, police: again, a variety.

She has applied at countless dive bars; one just hired a girl with tattoos and the streaked hair from a bottle, but it wasn't her. The one just hired has pink streaks in her hair.  A small nose ring. And a 'Lucky You' tattoo just above the front of her low-rise jeans.

So: basically a more sexualized version of herself. This hiring is a large part of her growing paranoia.

Does she really need to sexualize herself like that to get a job? Has word got round about why she quit -- her ex-boss pressuring her to have sex with him -- and now other bar owners are leery of hiring her? Did this new girl fuck the boss? As she has said more than a few times: what the fuck?

Winter is pretty much here in Seattle: short cold wet dreary days, long colder wet dreary nights. Even the weather can make you feel paranoid: the days are closing in on you, too. People hunker down.

Summer, with its long warm days, is the time when bartenders who are prone to getting sloppy get sloppy: shifts are missed more often, drugs are taken in bigger quantities. In winter even the sloppy bartenders know to hunker down. Keep a roof over their heads. Not get fired.

The girl with the tattoos and the streaked hair from a bottle is sensing it's going to be a long winter. She knows she needs to slow down. But a bar can seem like a safe place to sit out the winter and the rain and the paranoia. Maybe there will be a job in Spring. Maybe she should just go back home to Eastern Washington. Where people stare at her because she's different. Which makes her feel kinda paranoid, too.



- james james

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