Leaving the Party
By Anonymous / Winter 2023
I remember preparing questions for the landlord with Josh, my best friend and future roommate, outside in my small truck. The weather was perfect and painful. Just above freezing, it made our cigarette smoke denser and linger longer. He was terrified of meeting a stranger and interviewing for a chance at our first apartment. Though barely 18, I was practiced in presenting older and had natural confidence forged through struggle and snatching successes. Time came. We crushed the smokes into the pull-out ashtray and split a piece of gum. I shot some febreeze on us for good measure and we walked towards the comically square complex that looked less than loved. It was painted discount green, the kind you buy by the pallet. There was Joe. He looked as average as his name. Nothing in his face to remember. Middle height. Middle weight.
“You ready?”
That line began my near decade of life in Seattle.
After a quick walk-thru, Joe asked bluntly, “You want it?”
I asked if a newer fridge was possible and noted that the heating system looked to be from about the 70s. “I have another guy coming in at 10, yes or no?”. The cigarette took longer than for us to sign the contract. We had keys and the door of the dream we had been planning since sophomore year had cracked open as noisily as the cupboards in that kitchen. It was one unit of four train-style apartments connected by the foyer: Apt A, B, C, and D. Turns out it was freshly renovated from being a heroin den, though the improvement was hard to find. But it was ours. Apartment A. In Capitol Hill. The other units filled with days and life began. We walked each block around us, mentally mapping the new home. Seeing those a few years older always outside of the cool coffee shops: Cafe Vita, Stumpton, Vivace, Bauhaus, and Victrola. It was 2008, the hipster was in full force and we were a part of the army. We lived the coffee life for the first year or so, until those cafes spurred new friendships and you find yourself meeting the bartenders coming in before they start their shifts. The Barista was the coolest job, but the Bartender was top top. We eventually started working at various shops, and then would get allowed into the bars by our customers who were the doorman and bouncers. We’d give them a free quad iced americano, they’d look the other way when we cruised in.
This small neighborhood became our whole world. We were becoming known, and known in a good way. There are always those known for the bad way. The better of a barista, the better of a barback and then bartender one can become. We were great. Truly. We both became barbacks in short order and our lives changed, again. We had been going to the University of Washington the first two years, then transferred to Seattle Central College : it was literally a block away from us, just across Cal Anderson Park, our front yard. We applied our intensity for reading books and AP course studying styles to learning the trade. We also both kept hands in the coffee world. After about three years, Josh took a position as Lead Trainer for SightGlass Coffee in San Francisco. I drove him down. The place was beautiful and I knew it was time for us to stand on our own for a bit. We are still great friends (he just came over last weekend and stayed at my dorm. He lives in LA now). I went deeper into the industry and slowly faded from academia.
Eventually I became a principal bartender at Liberty Bar, one of the best craft cocktail bars in the city, and the founding Director of Education for Slate Coffee Roasters. At Liberty, I pursued many competitions locally, regionally, and nationally. I won a few. As for Slate, we became the #1 coffeehouse in the country our inaugural year. It was an insane trajectory. I began to travel and consult and the opportunities seemed endless. I no longer was the kid walking around his block trying to remember the way back based on the scenery - I had made an in. I was invited to the special events, flown to the national conferences, and was taken out by the brand ambassadors with thousands to expense every weekend. I remember never having food in my apartment. I was never home. All meals were out and doubled as social events to visit other bars and restaurants, each with at least one friend working. It was a dream. I could drink all night, wake up early, over perform, then simply rinse and repeat. I was young and was inhaling life.
I believed the lie: The party never ends.
The party never ends because no one is conscious for it.
After 3 or 4 years of this type of living, I started to see the cracks in the edifice. The golden statue was proving it had clay feet. I started noticing that there were only a handful of people with gray hair in the industry. It was a youngsters game. The best case was to graduate and work for a brand and fly around the country getting the next generation of bartenders hammered at 11am for a tasting of your portfolio. But even that didn’t seem so bad. And then a bartender I knew from a few occasions ended his shift after emptying a bottle of whiskey into himself and then emptied his body into the street after going through his windshield. We all remarked how sad it was. It was sad. But he was a drunk and we had it under control. Then Rocky had a heart attack on Thanksgiving afternoon. Alone, in his apartment. He had left our bartender's potluck to get some fancy rare bottles he had stowed away and didn’t make it up the stairs. We assumed he was up to something, so it wasn’t for hours of not responding to texts and calls that his best friend and roommate Miles went to check the spot and found him lifeless, broken glass nearby. Rocky knew every bartender in every major market. Every year he was at Tales of the Cocktail, an annual congregation of bartenders from around the country and world, in New Orleans, shirtless and waiting for hugs. He was larger than life, though just under five foot six and just above three hundred pounds. Rocky died at 42. We knew of others that died young and preventable, but they fade from memory quickly, unfortunately. Not Rocky. Still, I still have the Fernet-Branca challenge coin he gave me the first time I made pilgrimage to Nola for ‘Tales’.
That broke my heart and broke the spell bartending had over me. I saw the abuse it was. How normal it was to be near drunk everyday, all day, and be rewarded for it. And the food. The food was excellent, the best possible, but so rich and dense. We used to take shots of Green Chartreuse slid down roasted bone marrow, the ‘marrow-luge’. Rocky had a saying “Never less than 3 drinks” at a time, any time, and especially with a meal. My friend died because he thought the party never ended. But it did. And he was the life of it. His last gift to me was a motivation to leave the party before I had to. And I did. Years later, I am here to share his story and continue living my own.