We glided over the Bunker Hill Bridge through a haze of blue light in our stretch taxi as if on our way to a Boston-area high school prom. The bridge abruptly ran out and the bluish tinge was suddenly replaced by the yellow twinkles of headlights, and we soon found ourselves dashing off into Faneuil Hall as anxious as a dozen mice that had just been let loose from their laboratory maze.
We were flanked on all sides by buildings with glistening windows like chocolates in gold foil. Shedding a few of our members along the way, the final six of us found ourselves at Sissy K's "restaurant and nightspot" on Commercial Street.
I square-danced by three cowboys wrapped around karaoke mics and made my way to the bar. I gingerly asked the bartender for a free beer since it was my birthday and she not-so-gingerly replied, "they're only a daula fifty fa' Christ's sake." I gave her one of those "you're right, but so what" looks reserved for occasions like these and put two "daulas" on the counter.
By now my buddies had all entered the bar after battling the cold and the Marlboro guy who had tried (successfully, I must add) to convince them to sign their lives away for a free lighter. They paid their five-dollar entrance fees and made their way over to me, the new twenty-two-year-old who had been ushered in as a birthday favor by the cash collector who was clearly not related to the uncharitable bar tender.
We handled our sixteen ouncers in plastic cups like unwanted snow-globes at Christmas - with just enough tenderness to avoid dropping them in front of Grandma. The guy a few stools down with the Red Sox hat munched on a pizza and was nice enough to give a slice to one of my friends, who told me I'd "definitely be able to snag one since it's your birthday," but I rejected the idea, eyeing the hot dog and sausage stand strategically set up across the street.
With the trio in cowboy hats still singing Tim McGraw, I formed my own threesome to kick them offstage. Unfortunately, we would have to hear them out followed by another twenty crackly-voiced daredevils before we would have our turn. It was a Thursday night. And we were at Sissy K's.
We marched up the wooden staircase, the synchronized thuds of our shoes masked by the modern bass pouring out of the large speakers bordering the upstairs dance floor. We weaved in and out of the crowd as if looking for a familiar face and regrouped minutes later at the staircase after failing to integrate ourselves. To the credit of all but two of us, we never really tried to mesh with the bobbing heads who'd still been in college when the music playing below was in the new release section.
Nevertheless, the second floor dancers were preschoolers compared to the loungers on the first floor. Plus, the upstairs bar was nice; we didn't have to wedge ourselves in between guys in flannel who tossed wings up into the air like peanuts and easily caught them in their mouths in order to buy our round of tequila shots in little plastic fluoride cups. Luckily not having to swish around the cups' substance in our mouths for a minute, the process was a whole lot quicker than the daily elementary school image those cups evoked and we headed back downstairs.
Initially disappointed with the absence of "Free Fallin," in the karaoke jukebox, we settled for "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin.'" Since we still had a line in front of us, we headed back over to our post near the pizza guy.
Once there, we embraced our beers and each other, as we joked and glanced around a room full of few current and (an overdose of) former college students.
I had to wince at the thought that soon I'd be in that latter category, but then I realized that I'd remain there the rest of my life, even well into my forties like so many of the bar's patrons. Until then, however, you won't catch me in a cowboy hat in Boston, and maybe not at Sissy K's too often either unless they add the Tom Petty favorite to their collection.
