Charlie's Web

I've seen Charlie's Web before on my pit stops at the 7-11. Little strip-mall bars like this are entirely dependent upon the character of their owners and regulars, and can be a dream or a nightmare, accordingly. This one's a dream.

There's nobody here when I walk in except Cheryl the bartender, and Chuck, the owner, who's holding court down at the end of the bar with two regulars. Marvin Gaye's "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)" is on the jukebox. To bite my colleague Augustus Crimes, Charlie's Web "...was built to actually be a bar, nothing more, nothing less...", which suits me fine. The place is chill, and I feel like parking it for a while, just me and my brain and the Clydesdale team suspended in the milky fluorescence of the diorama case overhead, the prancing dogs frozen in mid-step alongside the horse team and wagon. "Here comes the king, here comes the big number one..."

They're swapping "unbelievable patron" stories down at the end of the bar: the guy who came in with his off-leash pit bull and couldn't catch the dog once inside; the guy who earled on the floor (Cheryl: "When he starts talking in a girl voice and dancing, it's time to send him home, because you know he's two steps from throwing up on the floor."); and the fat woman who, from the sound of it, hit the ladies room and managed to shit everywhere but in the toilet. From what I can gather, the bartender on duty had armed the woman with gloves, sponge and a bucket and forced her to clean up after herself. When the lady finished, the bartender 86ed her. Chuck and his staff like to keep a nice, clean place and react vigorously to such nonsense (although it's good for a laugh later).

"We've got our regulars down here," Chuck told me when I introduced myself during a smoke break on the patio. He's got a firm handshake. He's in his 24th year of ownership. "We've got our Norms..."

"And Cliffs?" I ask him.

"Oh, man, do we have our Cliffs. Probably four or five of those."

A young mook in sweatpants and his hat cocked to the side appears around the corner, from where I can hear the intermittent "psssh-psssh" of somebody using the car wash just out of sight. Two janky-looking degenerates from the apartment complex across the street are catcalling the kids at the car wash. The mook wants to cadge a smoke. I'd reupped at the 7-11 next door, and am considering walking back into the bar to bum him one when Chuck takes charge of the situation.

"Why don't you go buy a pack?" he asks, not in an entirely unfriendly tone.

"I don't got any money."

"Then I guess you're shit out of luck," Chuck tells him.

The kid stands there and looks stupid for a minute, then disappears.