Ever heard of “PBR”? Its not entirely common out here on the west coast. It stands for “Pabst Blue Ribbon” which, if you don’t know, is one of the worst beers ever brewed in a country that is known for making the shittiest beer on Earth. Now, even here on the hallowed western seaboard, you can find PBR. Usually in cans. Typically in a 30-pack. Some of the low stoop even lower to carry one of these so called “cubes” out to their car, but PBR isn’t well known, for the most part, in this part.
Shift scene. Bar Harbor, Maine. PBR, in all its glory, is being served on tap. A rarity, I surely thought, though I was soon to find out more than I ever wanted to know about this rustic brew. The Maine-ite female, yes, yes. Well, it is perhaps my fourth or fifth night in Bar Harbor. As previously stated, I’ve been cruising the local scene for a shot at bag of weed. I make my way into one of the bars I haven’t yet plied and quickly spot a girl sitting at the bar on her own. Now, I’m not one to flaunt my sexual history. I’ve had some hits, and hell, I’ve had some misses, but when it comes to misses, this one wouldn’t have hit the board. Some people have a defective physical feature or two. This is normal. We’re used to it. Few of us are flawless. This girl, though, was the perfect storm of physical disaster. I mean, God really threw his back into pulling all the disparate parts of unattractive into this one, concise package. In her defense, she was perfectly nice (c’mon, I’m not a complete asshole), though her personality is actually irrelevant to this story.
So there she is, drinking a beer, rolling a cigarette. An American Spirit, no less! I’m mildly buzzed and also thinking about “borrowing” a smoke (who ever returns the butt?), and as I’m moseying over, my eagle eye strikes. You’ve seen a pouch of rolling tobacco, right? A plastic pouch often with a zip-seal of some sort and a large, plastic flap to pull over the reseal-able opening? As she is closing up her pouch of tobacco, I notice a bulge in the flap that is, usually, quite flat. I didn’t have much time to study it, but years of practice have taught me to recognize the shape of a bag of weed when I see it, and I knew it was. I was invigorated. I grabbed an empty bar stool next to her with renewed enthusiasm and immediately struck up conversation. What line did I use? What other could I use?
“So whatcha drinking?”
“Oh,” says she, “PBR.”
“PBR on tap?” I return, gesturing to her pint glass, “I didn’t know anybody cared that much.”
And thus did I willfully submit to 30 agonizing minutes of mindlessly banal conversation regarding her family’s connection, via some obscure and tangential marriage over a hundred years ago, to the brewers of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
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| They swear by the Ribbon out there. |
She, in fact, was certain that her constant intake of Blue Ribbon was helping to support family members that she subsequently was unable to either name or relationally identify.
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| Luckily, I seem to have found some of her brethren. |
After ordering a glass of wine in hope of soothing my now frayed nerves, I further pursued my quarry. I asked her if I could have a cigarette, and as she opened the pouch I pulled one of those wow-I’m-surprised-and-No-I-didn’t-peek-at-my-Christmas-presents-in-the-closet-last-week kind of looks as I again ogled the bulging bag of what must be pot in the pouch’s flap.
“Is that…” I offer.
“Probably,” she says, smiling (still I shudder, remembering the first inkling of premonition I had), “what do you think it is?”
Needless to say, I was right. She then went on to inform me of the massive weed drought that had been affecting the east coast, as if to insinuate that I might have to do something extra special to secure my own stash. Luckily, since I was steadily getting drunker, I didn’t get the chance. Though she did promise me weed, she just as quickly disappeared among her local friends and the next thing I knew, she was gone. Stymied!
Now, though, I had a scent, so for the next several nights I repeatedly visited this same bar in hopes of reacquiring the target. No signs. I was severely bummed. Sobriety had taken on religious tones. The trip, however, continued, and it was with some degree of sadness that Wyllis and I left Bar Harbor for a week of adventure out on Penobscot Bay. It wouldn’t be long, though, before we were back.
Seven days out and our return path found us again in Bar Harbor for the last three days of our journey. Wyllis quickly set to work on some gal he had met during our former stay and left me to my own designs as far as evening fare was concerned. Is it any surprise that I was back at the same bar? Fate, it would seem, could not be undone. There she was, again, same spot, same drink. I saddled up to the bar again. She gave me one of those sidelong “you again?” looks. There were only three days left on this trip and at this point I was frustrated and honestly pretty indifferent as to the acquisition of weed, so I promptly set to work on a bottle while I let her initiate the conversation. It didn’t take long. It was, perhaps, the second or third thing out of her mouth when she told me that she had scored a bag for me and had been waiting for me to pick it up. I was shocked into action by the turn of events and scrambled for my wallet to see if I was ready on my end. I wasn’t. “No problem!” she says. “I’ll come with you to the ATM and then maybe we can smoke some at your place.” My evening was darkening...
Concluded in Part III
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