Cecil on His Laurels

Cecil has had a busy day.  He spent hours driving in his 1963 Lincoln continental, from his last client’s office.  In fact, movie studios have offered to pay Cecil to feature the car in films, but he has declined because of his travel schedule.  On this day, Cecil is in a middle-American town called Laurel.  Once a bustling hub of industry, the town has fallen on hard times.

There are about 1,600 inhabitants, which is a decrease from the previous 10,000.  There are many boarded up houses and overgrown parks and front yards.  Graffiti covers much of the buildings as you drive down the side streets, and buildings that were once big industrial parks and manufacturing hubs now sit vacantly and look like war zones from people looting steel and cooper to sell it.  Only the die-hards who grew up there have stuck around.  The ones who move there for work in its heyday have left.  The main street, which once teemed with life and mom and pop stores is now a row of boarded up shops in brownstone buildings that would otherwise be historic.  There are two shops that remained open: the bar and the convenient store.  On this day, Cecil decides to stop in the local bar called “Louie’s.”

Louie’s is owned by a World War Two veteran who grew up in the town.  He runs it with his grandson, but most of the time he is the one tending bar.  The bar itself is a hole in the wall; it has nothing but six booths lining the wall and six stools at the bar.  There is a small walkway down the middle of the floor, and a couple bathrooms in the back.  The bar is nothing special – just a wood grained bar that goes the length of the room and bends like an L at each end.  There is a mirror behind the bar as well as a couple of shelves of top shelf liquor.  There are only a couple beers on tap.  The walls of the bar are brown and paper-thin and Cecil can see the age of the bar because of the paint chips falling off.  It looks like a wood paneled wall with black lines in-between panels. The place serves no food, and it is dimly lit.  But Cecil is not interested in class.  He just wants to drink and unwind.

Cecil asks the bartender for whatever is the local favorite drink.  The bartender pauses for a second, then he reaches to pour the Blue Moon Sunshine.  This is a beer that is brewed in the bar’s basement.  Sure, it’s illegal, but it seems to please the locals and Louie has a nice relationship with the local Sheriff who has been on the job for 30 years. The drink is a dark brew with a nice inch of white foam at the top.  It has a taste that is somewhat bitter, yet with a refreshing mint aftertaste.  Cecil likes it.  As he loosens his black tie and unbuttons his white dress shirt, Cecil starts to relax.  He even takes off his black jacket and hangs it up on the coat rack by the door.  Cecil then asks the bartender to point out the last person who ordered ‘Sunshine.’

The bartender points to a man half asleep at the end of the bar.  He calls him Jimmy.  Jimmy is wearing jeans, a jean jacket, a plaid flannel shirt, denim rimmed hat, and gloves with the fingers cut off.  It is obvious to Cecil this man is down on his luck, perhaps even homeless.

Cecil’s passtime during the times he visits bars along his travels is to make stories about the people who are drinking the most popular local drinks. For this guy, Cecil figures that Jimmy was once a prosperous businessman in the community who owned a flower shop and did pretty well for himself. He also considers that the man was well liked.  However, Cecil realizes that when the plants closed, his business was one of the first to go.  The man’s family left town but he stayed back to try to save his business, which ultimately went bankrupt.  The man never heard from or saw his family again.  Having invested his life savings into the business, Jimmy fell into a deep depression, lost his home and his way. 

Cecil thinks that it was a sad way to go, but he knows that this is life in a depressed small town like Laurel.  On that note, Cecil turned to the bartender and paid for his drink. He also leaves an extra $10 on the bar. “Buy a Sunshine for you and Jimmy on me,” says Cecil.  He gets in his car, pulls away, and starts thinking about the next appointment.