A guy who loves Harry Potter, a guy wearing plum pants and a lesbian couple wearing Chicago Sky shirseys walked into a bar.
This wasn’t a joke. This was a beautiful, basketball thing. A basketball thing that was simply Saturday when I was 29 years old, but is now much more of a thing with the wisdom of 30.
Counting the bar tender, a rag tag starting five ended up saddling up to the counter at Basey’s on this Saturday, and we quickly put the full court press on the beer taps. The Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament was going on in downtown Indianapolis and we were all in town from Chicago – some of us working, Del and Bonnie as fans.
Basey’s is a standard dive bar. Simple old-school counter, stools, pool tables, juke box by the door, bar tendress who owns everything in her bar (I got High Lifes and Bud Heavys on tap), strip club business cards scattered about because there’s a trucker conference in town at the Holiday Inn and Basey’s owner wants to help out his friend who owns the Indy 6900 Gentleman’s Club drive some exxxtra business.
When Del and Bonnie first arrived, I was just coming back from the bikini-babe wallpapered bathroom. Del looked like the larger, crazier sister of Kate McKinnon on SNL. Bonnie could have been our Mom – but on her only girl’s night out of the year. Del took the stool directly next to me. I moved my jacket to give her more room to maneuver, seeing that Del was built like a power forward and that there were 20 other lonely stools along the counter. Wrong move.
“Why are you moving? We’re all friends here. I don’t bite. Besides, if I did, you’d probably like it.”
This wasn’t the reception we received the night before when entering Basey’s. It was our first night out in Indy, and we weren’t .75 steps in the door when a grizzled woman tending bar (potentially our current bar tender’s Mom) greeted us with a confused and curt “What do youuu guys want?”
I’d like a rainbow sherbet and a deep tissue massage. What the f do you think we want lady? It’s 10 p.m. in a bar.
To be fair, we weren’t Basey’s normal clientele. As I said, this bar was on the very literal wrong side of the tracks. And I was wearing plum pants. Later, we met a man from Florida who greeted a young lady also from the bath salt state in our group with, “Wow, you look young and you’re from Florida too?! You might be my daughter. I had this one night stand….” Sweet Jesus man.
I don’t think this story is about the bar, though. It’s about basketball. Or maybe how bars and basketball mix? Or maybe how you start off playing basketball and then end up watching it at bars? Life?
Anyway.
Del, Bonnie, the bartender, and my friend and I got to talking about the tournament, how Northwestern was a Cinderella story and how cool Maryland’s Brenda Frese is behind the scenes. When our two new best friends learned we were working for the Big Ten at the tournament, Del, channeling Chris Farley, said, “Well, now we’re talkin’. These are the guys we gotta be rubbin’ elbows with!”
The TV was on and Rick Pitino was crying because Louisville had played its last regular season game and the Cardinals were banned from March Madness due to a recruiting sex party scandal. Del looked at Rick and said, “Ew, he looks horrible. Come on man, eat a cheeseburger. Hey, miss, are you guys still serving food?”
“No, but we could make you a pizza,” the bartender replied.
While the pizza was cooking, Bonnie decided this party needed to turn up. “We need to turn on some music in here. What do you guys want to hear? What’s your favorite song?”
Anyone who’s ever had four beers with me at a bar with a juke box knows what my answer was. I Believe I Can Fly. Everyone loves that song. We were all from Chicago. Low hanging fruit.
Bonnie wasted no time, and before I knew it, a magical life moment was happening. Partly because it was so unexpected. Partly because it was so simple. Partly because everyone sang the chorus together. Partly for reasons that can’t be described on a computer screen.
After the euphoria of the gospel choir crescendo had ended, Del, somewhat regroup-ing-ly simply muttered, “Space Jam. Great movie.”
She quickly shifted gears and leveled with us. “I like talking with you guys. This has been great. Let’s be real here, though. You guys are cute, but you guys are nerds.”
The next song on the juke box was Thomas Rhett’s “Have a Beer with Jesus”. I had never heard this song before, and it was quite the shift from R. Kelly, but it somehow felt right (Bonnie has a lot of musical range). The song is kind of ridiculous.
If I could have a beeeeeer with Jesus, yeah I’d put my whole paycheck in that juke box, and fill it up with nothin’ but the good stuff, and sit somewhere we couldn’t see a clock…
It was perfect. It was one of those albino-deer-rare moments you know is a moment in the moment. I thought to myself, “If I ever had a beer with Jesus I wonder what we would talk about?”
Probably basketball.