I picked the broken stool and sat down. It was far enough away from everyone else, and it felt right in the circumstances. I ordered the least bad beer I could and fumed at the bottles on the bar back, as the car sat cooling and fuming itsowndamndeadself across the street.

The jukebox played something, and the couple next to me whispered smiling things. The drunk guy at the end of the bar nodded almost in time to the songs he had selected. The fat blonde woman tending bar picked up the phone when it rang -- a slimline that seemed like it should have a dial, but instead sported sleek, modern new buttons for tone dailing -- and wandered to the end of the very vast extent of the curly cord.

She dallied with her call as the guy in the gimme cap and JD shirt who had been playing the golf machine sorted out his bills and his cigarettes and waved on out of there. The old lady with a head full of brazen blonde lies finished her sandwich after wishing him well. She whispered behind her napkin at the fat blonde, glancing sideways at me. The big woman interrupted her call to say out loud, "I don't know" then she went back to what she cared about.

I sank back into my glass, admiring the way that the per-shot prices were sharpied onto the labels of the bottles back there. It was not a place for mysteries.

I was startled from my sullen thoughts by the old lady, now sidled up to introduce herself as JoAnn. I briefly clasped her hand, careful not to hurt it, and gave my name. She explained how she owned the Rustic Tavern, where we both sat, now that her husband had died 21 years ago. It wasn't 20 or about 20. She knew the moment, and she'd been there 52 years, she proudly said, most of them, apparently, in his still tangible absence.

I asked polite questions about the history of the place and the regular clientele -- confirming that she knew them all and acknowledging her wonder at my drifting in. I then mentioned my one previous experience with the place: I had delivered flowers to the barmaid there one year however long back, when doing volunteer labor for my friends who owned the shop. "Oh! Blooming Fool!" she exclaimed. "I know them well. I once attended a party at their house. we and the construction company next door (now shut) always ordered flowers from them. The did such a nice job!"

And indeed they did, and still do. I was happy to report that Ken, my pal since 6th grade, and his wife CJ still were working at the profitable side of their business, creating arrangements for office buildings and restaurants downtown and taking the occasional phone order. They gave up the shop after running the numbers and realizing that they were just breaking even for the seven 14 hour days they were putting in to keep the retail shop open, and all their profit came from the small number of repeat accounts. I was happy to report that they both were vastly happier now than when they ran the shop (or it ran them) and still doing fine. JoAnn was delighted that they still were churing out the flowers, and she understood in a deep way the decison they had made.

We chatted a bit more about how both of us were born & raised Denverites -- a rarity, to be sure -- and how the Rustic would be featured, the publisher promised, in the top ten of a book about old bars in Colorado or Denver or the region or something. It's due out in October.

I made my excuses about having to give back some of the beer and visited the men's room, badly remodeled quite a while ago, but tidy nonetheless with a chalkboard for graffiti. Maybe I'll remember to bring my own chalk next time. Then I wandered across the street where the car had died and limped it home. Dunno what I'll find in the morning when I try to start it.