It took three weeks for me to become accustomed to the creaking of the back entrance door when I first began my night shifts at No. 30.
Another two to finally stop looking over my shoulder whenever the boss was in the office.
My friends find it a bit strange for me to call him “boss”. Truthfully, I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. In fact, I wasn’t entirely certain that he had told me in the first place.
No name was given for the name of the bar either. You might wonder then how I was able to be hired to work these shifts. A simple “Help Wanted” on the cracked leftmost window on a Thursday evening did it.
After the first month, I began to grow accustomed to some of the patrons that ventured in the run-down hospice. I call it a hospice because it tended to a lot of the sick. The sick that have no where else to go.
Despite this, there’s some things at No. 30 that you never really get quite used to.
Initially, I blamed it on the fact that I was still new here, but it’s been almost six months since I began my shifts. So, I turned to say maybe it was the neighbourhood that was sketchy. Certainly, the elderly couple down the street would ultimately put my life at risk.
Eventually, I halted my efforts in justifying the unease No. 30 brought me, writing it off as the environment the building might secretly pride itself in.
The bar doesn't have a name — not an official one at least. Definitely not to my knowledge. People call it No. 30 because that's the address. 30 Chaconia Street. Maybe once the street had some meaning; littered with happier looking homes, a larger flow of traffic and people. Now, the street only whispers of the past that once was,
The boss came in at four to check the stock, told me the side door was sticking again, and left without making eye contact. At some point I realised that was what a Tuesday evening looked like for me.
I wiped down the counter. Restocked the well. Checked that the CD player in the corner still worked, which it did, because it always does. It's probably the most reliable thing in the building.
Right now, it's playing something low and slow from a disc that was already in there when I started. I don't know who it is. I've never changed it. I simply resign myself to the Bluetooth speaker that boss had installed roughly two weeks after I started.
At six, I unlocked the front door.
At six-oh-three, the first person walked in.
That's the other thing you learn about working a bar. The silence before opening is the only honest part of the night.
But the night doesn't stay honest for long. It never really does around here