Inside the white ghetto of the working poor
“73 virgins in arab heaven and not a dam one in this bar!”
—Men’s room wall, Burt’s Tavern
Faced with working-class life in towns such as Winchester, see only one solution: beer. So I sit here at Burt’s Tavern watching fat Pootie in a T-shirt that reads: one million battered women in this country and i’ve been eating mine plain! That this is not considered especially offensive says all you need to know about cultural and gender sensitivity around here. And the fact that Pootie votes, owns guns, and is allowed to purchase hard liquor is something we should all probably be afraid to contemplate. Thankfully, even cheap American beer is a palliative for anxious thought tonight.
Then too, beer is educational and stimulates contemplation. I call it my “learning through drinking” program. Here are some things I have learned at Burt’s Tavern:
1. Never shack up with a divorced woman who is two house payments behind and swears you are the best sex she ever had.
2. Never eat cocktail weenies out of the urinal, no matter how big the bet gets.
From Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War