That one night in ???

It is a small bar, kind of dingy and disheveled with neon in the windows that matched the tired sag of the building.

A gravel mud-pit parking lot plays host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.

It is the type of bar that you wouldn’t really notice as you drove by unless it was raining.

Stepping in the front door offers a buffet of sensory input.

Your nose is offered up a potpourri of fragrances including sawdust, beer, whiskey, cigarette smoke, pool cue chalk, field mud, cut grass, sweat, and bar food with an underlying hint of debt collection, divorce and despair.

Your ears are treated to a softly undulating din consisting of the idle murmur of farmers and hunters taking a break from the fields, the banter of blue collar workers as they drink away their paychecks, the plaintiff moaning of country music intermixed with the sexual innuendo of hair metal, the clink of glasses and the cracking of pool balls.

Your eyes witness the spectacle of the Middle American low common denominator as they co-mingle in a stew of jeans, Harley patches, boots, tattoos, mullets, crew cuts, and T-shirts covered in bumper sticker philosophy.

Elbowing up to the bar you flag down the barmaid who is now in her early twenties but will likely live herself into her forties before the decade is over, tattooed and pierced to give the illusion of having three left nipples, and order a beer.

As she walks away to get your beer, you pull your eyes off the shorts she’s barely wearing to survey the room and you see three guys setting up band equipment over in the corner.

A question to the barmaid as she brings you your beer with a sidecar of flirty facial expressions confirms that the band is of the local variety, common to this establishment and will begin around 9 pm.

The clock hands meander their way through the evening as you continue renting your barstool and glances at the barmaid.

The music is cut off in mid-boot scoot and the band in the corner swings into the first song of what will become a four hour show, complete with Chuck Berry guitar tricks, groovegasmic bass solos, and a drum solo that lands the entire bar back in 1986.

The undulating din has been replaced by the frantic noise of invading troops and the bar hemorrhages beverages at a near fatal rate. The band is raining sweat as it moves with the music and the bar crowd sways along like a Cobra in the trance of a blues rock snake charmer. The bar, once tired and sagging, is now alive and breathing, drunk and lusting, seconds from combusting and on the verge of collapse. You are completely swept up in the experience, drunk on music and beer, not concerned at all with how you’re getting home or where you’re going to sleep because at some point in the night, a woman has seen fit to graft herself to your right arm, and though you have a suspicion you may be considering coyotes in the morning, most of your decisions are being made by other organs.

The words “Thanks G’nite” cause you to cast a bleary eye up at the clock and say hello to one thirty.

Between bouts of what seems to be recreational CPR with the woman who appears hell bent on sharing the cloths you’re wearing you survey the scene.

The band is packing up their equipment, carrying pitchers, bottles and shot glasses up to the bar by the armload, and trying not to step on the casualties of the night’s festivities who litter the barroom.

You are led outside by your newest, soon to be, regret and poured into the front seat of a rusted and noisy mid-80’s Camero decaled with cartoon characters urinating on various items, but not before slurring admiration to the bands bass player for his awesome performance of “Pink Cadillac” while laying on the pool table and smoking a cigarette, to which he says “Thanks!”

As you ride away into the night, that little bar on the corner of “Nowhere” and “Special” seems to sag back into its accustomed position then to fade into the inky country night all together.

It was a brief moment in the years you will spend alive but you will remember it fondly for a long, long time, or most of it anyway, and when, by chance, you happen to drive past that intersection, a small but evident pang will slip across your heart as you find an abandoned lonely patch of overgrown grass where that little bar used to sag and a gravel mud-pit parking lot played host a myriad of vehicles in various states of disrepair and modification.