“Floozies and booze!” Frank shouted next to my ear as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, “Is there any greater force in this world to keep a man alive other than the prospect of floozies and booze?”

“None that I know of, maybe money,” I said and ordered a beer.

“Fuck money! It all goes towards floozies and booze in the end. Did I ever tell you about the time I robbed them factories blind and landed myself on a big heap of money? I swear to Christ and on my one good leg this pile was as far round as any woman Lou has ever taken home!”

There was a round of laughter and a “Fuck you, ya drunk!” from Lou, though he said it through a smile and we all knew he didn’t mean it.

“You’ve told it to me plenty of times, Frank, and I keep telling you your full of shit.” I could get away with calling Frank out on a lie because he liked me. “If anyone here had any money we’d take off and never look back.”

The Bounty Bar was the only bar on a strip called The District. It was a bar that the factory workers had all to themselves. If you were new, then you were asked to show your factory badge. The only exception to the rule was women. Any woman, whoever she was, was allowed in the Bounty Bar if they dared to enter. We were drunks, but we weren’t dumb.

The bar used to be the only one for miles, back when the factories were booming. Back then it mostly catered the workers that didn’t have wives to go home to. If they did have a wife to go home to but chose the bar instead they’d soon be divorced and would pick up permanent residence at the bar anyway. It was named after the original owner’s boat, or, more accurately, the name he would’ve given the boat had he ever gotten it. He was a gambler and a drunk that always dreamed of becoming a sailor. He said living on the ocean and only eating what he caught would be the biggest gamble of all. He never made it to sea; when the factories started going up he put all his money into the bar and made his justifications. “Factory workers are just landlocked sailors, anyway,” he would say. “They work all day, drink all night, and then sweat it all out back at work the next day. They’re either fishing for a better life or content to ride the waves to whatever shore they wash upon.”

I never met the first owner; He was already dead, and the bar was under Larry’s ownership by the time I had made it to town. Larry lived in the apartment upstairs and his main motivation in owning the bar was free rent. He was at least able to keep the bar from going out of business and kept it reasonably comfortable inside. He was friendly so long as you paid your tab. The way he told it: the bar was named Bounty Bar because he would put a bounty on your head if you ever skipped out on the tab.  He was never going to get rich owning the bar, and he didn’t care. We kept his bills paid and that’s all he needed.

I was among the youngest of the crowd but won over the friendship of the older workers quickly. Most of the younger guys tried too hard to be accepted by these antiques; I just showed up and worked my ass off. I picked a fight with every single one of them at work and I won by showing them that I was a worker. They thought of me as one of their own with old-fashioned work ethics. A lot of the younger guys would complain and cry and do just about anything to get out of work, so I’d do my work and theirs and then let them know about it with an audience in the breakroom. The old guys loved it. I’d pick my mark during a coffee break and let the new guy know just how useless he was. This normally wouldn’t stand, but I backed it up with hard work. There was no better way to get accepted by these guys than to prove someone else is useless by doing their job and yours. During one of these performances in the breakroom I had even made one of these kids cry. I felt bad for him, but it solidified my place among the old timers. I was one of them and worked the way they worked back when they first got to the factories – long before the lifestyle wreaked havoc on their health.

I also wouldn’t hesitate to help the old guys out. Most of the new guys would tell them that it wasn’t their job and would make such a big fuss that no one wanted to work with them anyway. I didn’t care. I would never say no to work and the more work they gave me then the more I did. I had bragging rights that rivaled the men who founded this town and won the respect of my elders.

That was at work, but work was long over and we had all settled in for a long night of drinking at The Bounty. Hard work didn’t matter so much here, what mattered here was a good story, a good laugh, and a good drink. As it went, any story about a woman was a good one. I had told one a few nights ago that had them laughing so hard I’d thought I’d given half of them heart attacks. I would let them know just how old they were and when I got cocky they’d be sure to remind me of just how young I am. We were in constant competition and that’s what kept us going.

“What happened to that pretty girl you paraded around the other night? You’re half mad to be here with this ugly bunch when you could be in bed with her. That’s where I’d be, you’re a fool!” Frank poked my chest like he wanted to fight.

“She’s crazy, Frank. I’m lucky to be alive, and no thanks to you!”

The only reason to willingly bring a girl to the bar was to show her off. The old men made a game out of it, though. They’d get the girl so drunk that she couldn’t make it out the front door on her own and then they’d give you hell about having to send her home in a cab while you spent the rest of the night at the bar with a group of ugly drunks instead of with a beautiful woman. The ridicule would be relentless until they got so drunk themselves they’d forgotten about it.

“Me?” Frank asked as he held his open hands up. “I didn’t do anything, I was a perfect gentleman. I just bought her a few drinks. I wanted to make her feel welcome.” I could see a slight smile forming.

“Yeah, well, she seemed to be handling her liquor pretty well, so I decided to get her out of here before she got too drunk. Before you got her too drunk. Except when we got back to my place that’s when it all hit her at once. I still have the scars to prove it.” I pulled down my collar and showed him the marks on my chest.

Frank smiled “Well that looks like a good time to me!”

“I wish I got them a different way, believe me. I got her home, grabbed some beers and she completely lost it. She started yelling at me that I didn’t respect her and all that crap; she cried that I just wanted her for the night, that I couldn’t see beyond her looks.”

“Come on, I know you’re a smooth talker. Your one of us and you land a girl like that – It ain’t your looks working for ya!

“I told her she was right!” I said through a laugh and smacked Frank in the chest with the back of my hand.

Frank laughed so loud that half the bar turned toward him to make sure he wasn’t dying. “You fuckin’ idiot! You can’t blame me for that, you’re a fool with a fool’s tongue!”

“I was too tired to deal with it. We just got off that marathon run of work last week and I was tired. I told her she was right and we could either get to the bedroom or she could get home. She couldn’t handle being spoken to like that; she was a rich girl fresh off The District. She grabbed anything she could find and started throwing it at me until I got the door open and got her out.”

“You deserve it! A fool like you, ruining a perfectly good thing.” He yelled over my shoulder, “Lou! Can you believe this fool? He goes out, gets himself a beautiful girl, gets her home, and then throws her out!”

“Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with this boy? Someone get him a drink to clear his head.”

Three shots appeared in front of us.

“Your about as stupid as Robert. Where is he anyway?”

“I saw Louis running towards him with a stack of work; I skipped out before he could get to me, too. He wouldn’t be coming here anyway, he’s just gonna go chase after Lucy. It’s probably better that he’s stuck at work.”

“Oh my god, I take it back. Only Robert is as stupid as Robert.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Lou said, and we threw back our shots then washed them down with big gulps of beer.

Frank gulped longer than us then asked “Didn’t you have a run at her once?”

“I met her in The District once and got her home, but she wouldn’t lemme get too far. Something about being in love on the other side of town – I don’t know. I gave her the bed and I slept on the couch. She’s nice enough, but she lives life on a whim. That’s no good for Robert, he’ll chase her forever.”

“Ha!” Frank laughed. “That’s two! Have you ever been with a woman or do you just like to take them home and show them what you’ve done with the place?”

“We all can’t be as wise as you, Frank. Between alimony and child support I’m surprised you can afford that drink.”

“If you feel that bad about it buy me another!”

“Fine,” I said with a smile. “Two shots, Larry, three if Lou’s allowed to drink. I don’t want to be the cause of him sleeping in the breakroom all day tomorrow.”

“I can drink as much as I want tonight. No work tomorrow, I got a good lead.”

“How’s that?”

“The distribution yard is full while the drivers are one strike. We can’t make any more inventory because they’ve got no place to put it. You saw the stacks in the factory, they’ve run out of room.”

“They work me to death and just when I get used to the money they close the fuckin’ doors on me. Are you sure it’s gonna be a strike day tomorrow?”

“I saw it with my own eyes. You saw it too. There’s no room, nowhere in the factory.”

“Yeah, I did. I just thought the lift runners were being lazy. Shit, three shots it is, Larry. Don’t skimp on ‘em, either.”

We gulped down our shots and continued through the rest of the night telling jokes and drinking until we couldn’t see straight. That’s how it went night after night at the bar. It was like a ship sailing through a storm. It was our place of unity where we all took cover as we rocked up and over the swells and dips of life. Factory work and its accompanying lifestyle in this town could kill your spirit, and this place was where we would come to get rejuvenated. It was a place of curiosities and philosophies. It was a place of drunk chaos and sobering reality. It was a place that we needed – a place to keep us grounded.

Just when we thought we were finishing up, as we were all hurting from laughing so much and trying to hold each other up, the door opened. In walked Robert.