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Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story called “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”. I don’t remember much of it, and I know it would take no effort to re-read it, but I do not feel like bothering with that at the moment. It is, in fact, not a story I remember liking, as it is one of those that students are forced to read in high school rather than something like The Sun Also Rises, which would give some inkling of why one should read Hemingway in the first place.
I am also thinking of a Jethro Tull song called “Another Harry’s Bar”, which has a similar comforting vibe. Harry is always some mythical figure of the past, as are most of the customers who have, like Harry, imbibed in their last pint. If the place is old enough, the fire is lit, with an old dog napping in front of it. If newer, the heat is on, not so much to where it feels like you’re baking in the seats, but just enough to drive away the chill of the rain and wind that invades one’s bones as they grow older.
The allure of such a place cannot be understated. Taking a random exit from the interstate on a moonless night, or suddenly seeing the sparkle of a small, forgotten town as the two-lane black top suddenly changes to four and the speed limit signs begin to count down. There is a Rose’s, a Mary’s, a Tom’s or even just a Sonic or Circle K. There is music from car stereos, the thumping of bass from the low-riders and lowered muscle cars mingling with the modern country that is not too far removed, blasting from pickup trucks and talking about fishing and drinking cheap beer on a Saturday afternoon. In many cases the conversations of the few people gathered under the lights turns to the same topics.
No one is a stranger at Rose’s or Harry’s. There are regulars, but everyone is welcome. It’s not like moths to a light, but like our ancestors huddling around a fire, fearing what is out there in the dark, but pushing away that fear with songs and stories of the heroes that vanquished those things that stalk the night. There are no dragons, griffins, chupacabras or skinwalkers, as knights in armor and pith helmets and lab coats have slowly pushed back their realm to prove that it is quite empty.
Rarely does Rose or Harry still haunt the place they lent their name to. Rather, they are but a faded, frozen countenance behind the bar or the counter, years of dust and grease and soot gathered upon their frames and their visages, next to the framed first dollar or pound or peso they earned. Most likely no one who owns or works in the place remembers them. Maybe a few people under those sprinkles of lights that branch out from this sodium or LED-lit oasis have some vague childhood memory of Rose, and maybe some old-timers have survived their years of pickling on their stools to have some vague recollection of Harry.
Still, where there’s a name, there is power. Where there is thought, where there is memory, where there are roads to travel and not be traveled, there are worlds that rise and fall, collide with each other, spark into life and fade like a beautiful firework. While the creatures of the night may have been vanquished, their spirits have not. They still travel under the stars, on wisps of clouds, in lightning and thunder, in the reflections of headlights. Did that bush suddenly move? What was that out of the corner of my eye? Where did that car that was following me go? There hasn’t been another turnoff for miles.
The light helps us pretend the ghosts have gone, but they are always here. They may be people, may be things, may just be thoughts of what could have been, but they are there, waiting just beyond the where the streetlights end and the blacktop or the interstate or forgotten desert road resumes. As one downs the last pint at Harry’s, finishes off their burger at an umbrella-covered table at Rose’s or consumes a suspicious hot dog and a soda on a bench outside the Circle K while the nightshift clerk grabs a quick smoke, in the back of our mind we know the ghosts are waiting.
