There’s a place a few blocks from where I live.
Nothing fancy. Wooden floors, low light. Lots of beer on tap. And a great fireplace I never sit by.
I didn’t go there to drink. Not really. Though I did drink. And am currently there now, drinking, writing this.
I went there to not be home.
To not be alone, even if I didn’t talk to anyone.
To sit. Breathe. Exist. Pretend the ache in my gut was just hunger.
I’ve been in darker places.
But that one had lights. Warm ones. And warmer people who didn’t ask too many questions.
They’d say, “The usual?”
I didn’t have a usual, but I said yes anyway.
Because it felt good to be known, even wrongly.
Some days I’d bring a book I wouldn’t read.
Some nights I’d scroll my phone like it mattered.
Sometimes I’d just stare at the condensation on a pint glass and think:
This is the only place I exist right now.
That’s enough.
The staff there are something else.
Not just fast, but focused. And they laugh when I tell them this, if only to shrug it off.
They catch everything. They’re therapists, bouncers, hosts, friends.
They remember your drink, your story, and the way your shoulders slump.
I used to think paramedics were the ones holding people together.
But servers hold people up. Day after day, drink after drink, heartbreak after heartbreak. And rarely with any breaks.
And somehow, they noticed me without ever making me say a word.
I never told them I was struggling.
Never had to explain the fog and bad weather I dragged in with me.
Didn’t need to.
They made space.
And space was what I needed more than saving.
I still go there.
Not to vanish, but to exist.
To sit at the end of the bar and see if the silence still holds me.
Like scratching that scar to see if it still stings.
They probably don’t know.
But I do.
That’s the point.
And I’ll always tip.
Ghosts of the Navigator 