A Day In The Life, Part One: I Read the News Today

From August 2007 to April 2008 I lived in Savannah, GA with my girlfriend Sarah. Fresh out of college, I was eager to begin adulthood in an adult relationship, hopefully get an adult job, and realize my adult prospects in the Sunbelt. Pretty much nothing turned out the way I envisioned it. One of my days in Savannah stands out above all others.

Sarah and I were invited by our friend Geoff to attend a golf tournament as VIP guests of his company, the local Volvo dealership. We would have a view of the 18th fairway, an air-conditioned tent, open-bar and generous buffet. It was a beautiful sunny day – typical for Savannah. We were on one end of a long deck, broken into sections with a few tables and the tent, which housed the bar, buffet, and a few more tables. Each company had paid for a section for the use of employees, clients, friends, family, associates, etc. In our case a parts-supplier had provided for the dealership as a perk of some kind.

The day began slowly. We arrived around 11 and began drinking shortly thereafter. We had premium liquors and some nice imported beer. I think I drank mostly vodka-tonics, with a sprinkling of beer. Sarah and Geoff were the only people there who I knew. Geoff’s new girlfriend, Brooke, who Sarah and I had just met, was visiting from Oregon.

Geoff is a fun guy. A total drunk and very fun. The four of us chatted about this and that. Brooke had just finished her masters and she was going to move in with Geoff in a few months. We watched the golfers from time-to-time, ate a quality, filling lunch, and kept right on drinking.
As the afternoon wound on the deck around us began to fill. I got a glimpse of the other spectators on my frequent trips to the Port-A-Potty. There were very few people there under 30, most people seemed to be in the 45-60 age range. Sarah and I were definitely the only people there who might have been carded for alcohol. People were dressed in golf clothes: polo-type shirts, dress khakis, nice shoes, Blackberries. These were businessmen; many of them probably considered this a casual business outing I would guess.

I was a bartender at the time. I worked at a deluxe luxury hotel, serving drinks at the swanky weddings of blondes and doctors, daddy’s-girls and bankers. I had tried but been unable to find any work in my “field” or even something semi-professional. I was used to events like this golf tournament, but I had always seen them from behind a stack of rocks glasses or under the weight of a heavy tray.

In light of this, I struck up a conversation with our bartender. She was young and cute, reminding me of a college friend who I had always been attracted to. I was friendly, but I don’t think I crossed the line to flirtation. After all, we were in the same line of work, and I always enjoyed it when guests engaged me as a human, not just a hand on a bottle. The bartender lived a kind of gypsy existence, working for the traveling catering company that was putting on this fine event for us. We chatted off-and-on throughout the day, talking shop in a familiar way.

There are two conversations that I remember in particular from the early afternoon. I can’t say if it was these conversations which colored the rest of the day. In retrospect everything was building toward what was to come, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about where the course of the day was taking me. These were normal enough exchanges, inane even, but something about that day. Maybe it was the sun, the affluent atmosphere, the booze to be sure. It was probably bound to happen eventually, but this was the day that my life began to crack wide open.