January 8, 2007

‘Lordy, Flo, Don’t He Look Like Junior’

It was late in the afternoon and I stopped into a cozy little bar I‘d never visited before to wet my whistle, as they say.
   

The place was quiet, except for an un-listened-to jukebox pumping out a 1980s country music song that included mentions of trains, pick-up trucks, mothers and jilted lovers. I ordered a beer, and the barmaid - a big woman with a friendly face - smiled sweetly as she set it in front of me.
 

That’s when the guy sitting two stools to my left said, “Lordy, Flo, don’t he look like Junior, though?”
 

Flo, the barmaid, turned on her heel and returned to where I was sitting. After eyeballing me for a few seconds, she replied, “Yeah, enough to be Junior hisself, or leastways his brother.”
 

“Junior ain’t got no brother,” the guy on the barstool offered. “But, if he did, this here guy could pass for him easy enough.”
 

At this point, I figured it was time for me to get involved in the conversation.
 

“Who is this Junior?” I asked.
 

“Not is, was,” the man at the bar replied.
 

“Was?” I asked.
 

“Yeah, was,” he said. “Junior’s gone now.”
 

“He died?” I asked.
 

“Naw,” he said, “He moved. To Kansas.”

“That’s gone, all right,” I said.
 

The other guy was quiet for a few moments, then he asked, “You know what makes you look so much like Junior?”
 

“My eyes?” I guessed.
 

“Nope,” he replied. “Your nose.”
 

“Well, I was close anyway, huh?” I said.
 

He looked at the barmaid. “He’s got a nose just like Junior’s, don’t he, Flo?” he said.

She walked over and stared at my nose.
 

“Same nose for sure,” she said.
 

The guy at the bar took another sip of his beer. “Yup,” he said, “the nose makes you look just like Junior. And the mustache.”
 

“But,” I replied, “I don’t have a mustache.”
 

“Exactly,” he said. “Neither does Junior.”
 

Another customer entered the place. The guy at the bar who thought I was the mirror-image of Junior turned away from me to eye the newcomer.
 

“Lordy, Flo,” he said. “Don’t this guy look just like Jimmy, though?”
 

I quickly drained my beer and fled.

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