The 'wine' store has more hard booze bottles then wine in its half-a-block window. O.K., so some of them are made of plastic and have nothing in them. But, they and the rows of florescent lights lay bare what the real deal is inside the big store.
This place is the place of ye olde cocktail hour, when people actually mixed drinks at the end of a long day. Since the neighborhood surrounding it still has those folks, perhaps now retire, business is still brisk.
I went in once - young and brokenhearted, facing the holidays alone - and stumbled out with a pint in the back pocket of my jeans. It was the only paint-stroke I could think of that looked like how I felt. Obviously, the rest of the evening didn't go well.
The next 36 years passing that brightly-lit window was like rushing past a furious smear of white light, as if graffiti had been blasted away but lettering in the shape of bottles still peered through, insisting their permanency.
It was only on a walk down to make necessary peace in an old beloved bar that a new eye looked into the doorway.
How long had that fish been there?
