Meningitis, Six Feet Under
Janet Kuypers
8/15/18
The bar was called O’Malley’s.
It wasn’t really my kind of hangout,
the music was a little too ‘80s metal
for this Industrial, proto-goth girl’s taste.
But my best friend from high school,
my once-roommate (sharing a home
is where we learned we’re nothing alike)
loved this place, and told me to join her.
And the one thing I remember
about this dive bar (that was a half-flight
below street level) was the one thing
that made it feel like home for the regulars.
At midnight, the music changed,
and like clockwork they then played
“American Pie.” And now, it’s just a song,
it’s a song before I was born, but everyone,
I mean everyone, stopped whatever
they were doing to dedicate the next
six minutes of their life to singing this song,
completely drunk, with everyone else.
Now as I said, I didn’t know this song,
it was before my time, but when in Rome,
you guess the words, mouth the verses
and the more you do it, the more you belt out
the chorus like you’re a regular. “Bye bye,
Miss American pie, drove my Chevy
to the levy but the levy was dry...” But
since I found this new home with new friends,
we even altered the words for the rest
of the chorus. “And them good ol’ boys
drinking whiskey and BEER! Singing ‘Thins
will be the say that I Die - At O’Malley’s!
This will be the day that I die’ - Gettin’
drunk, with my dumb-ass friends!” (And yes,
we were all friends, but we were all drunk,
so dumb-ass was truly a term of endearment...)
And singing these inane songs was
all well and good for this proto-goth,
but working for the local newspaper,
and seeing emblazoned on the headlines
the story of someone who contracted
meningitis at a local bar that was six
feet underground, well, everyone in town
knew exactly what local watering hole
spreading infections they were talking about,
with floors covered in spilled beer. Later on
they changed their name to “Six Feet Under”,
spelling it out for those who don’t want to think.
But when I think of this watering hole, I don’t
think of beer-soaked floors spreading diseases.
I just think of a bar, one not quite my style, and
singing a song that brought everyone together.
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