Talking at the Tav

The conversation was growing stale and I was perusing the inner bowels of the bar when a lioness wrestling with her cubs on the screen of an iPhone caught my eye. It was held by the gnarled hands of someone who had been around the block a few times, with the slight shake of old age or perhaps a drink too many.

Only a table away, I leaned into the picture-sharing to ask if it was an original video and as the shadows shifted, a weathered, but pretty face framed by a colorful wool hat came into focus.

Of course I took the video, young man! I’m a photographer—here, take a look at this one. She scrolled through her photos to find a picture of a richly-maned lion roaring away a flock of vultures by the carcass of a water buffalo. And what do you do…? Small talk drifted away and we shifted our seats back to our respective tables.

The two-man band was jamming away in the corner and restless for something new, I ambled over to request a song. Oblivious—maybe ignoring?—my ominous figure in the corner, the two men played away as a solitary, chubby old man danced out of rhythm, the wooden floor drinking more than the dancer. Thoughts swirled, my foot tap-tapping to the rhythm of the banjo when a hand on my shoulder pulled me back to reality; the same hand I’d seen holding the iPhone.

That’s my son up there. Not the one that looks like Jesus; the other one, the old bum. You have a request or something?

Yeah, I was going to ask them to play Ripple by the Dead.

Ripple! That’s my favorite song. Go ask.

The band hemmed and hawed, well, we’ve never played that before, but was quickly interrupted by my old friend, this is a fine young man and you will play what he asks! And so they did.

She took me back to her table (no talking during a request, she said) before asking me where I was from.

Virginia—me too!—I went to UVa.

What a wonderful place. I graduated from Mary Washington over fifty years ago; you know, back when it was a girls school, and the Virginia boys would come up on the weekends for dates. They’d dress up, coat and tie, very gentlemanly-like, but we had our fun, oh yes—chuckling, arms crossed as she nostalgically leaned into her chair—we had fun.

She introduced me to her friend, a native Wyomingite, who complimented me on my pronunciation of “coyote,” rhyming with “throaty.” It sounds so much better than “coyoat” she said with a shudder.

The two-man band had mingled into the crowd, drinks in their hands and the Wyomingite pointed out that it was past their bedtime. After hugs and a last goodbye wave, they walked off into the night, softly falling snow covering their footprints as I returned to my friends.