TK

When I turned twenty-one, I went to a bar for the first time. 

I was underwhelmed.

The drinks were boring, and the other bar patrons weren’t exactly the type of people that I would hang out with outside of the pub. It didn’t take me long to look around and decide it wasn’t for me. I left.

Over the years, I walked by a great many bars. Most of them looked as boring as the first one had been, but occasionally I would peek into a unique-looking establishment’s window and see people laughing, clinking their drink glasses together, and playing darts or card games. It looked fun, but still, it wasn’t for me.

One day, however, I came across a building painted a bright teal with equally bright orange trim. The smell coming from inside was delightful. I opened the door, almost intimidated by the brash colors, and stepped inside.

I was immediately greeted by an onslaught of “Hi!” and “Come on in!” as I stepped across the threshold. It was warm and cozy, the inside of the building a stark contrast to the harsh palette of the facade. Soft purple cushions lined wine red couches, upon which a fair amount of people sat laughing and drinking. 

When I looked at the bar, I saw an older man with short white hair, a white beard, and a kind face. He smiled at me and tipped me a wink. I awkwardly smiled at him. Bypassing the laughing people on the couches, I headed for the bar and ordered my first drink.

It was heaven.

The bar was called The Phineas, and it became my regular go-to spot. It seemed like there was always a new drink to try, and each one of them was more delicious than the last. Eventually, once I had tried each drink at least once, the bartender came up with even more ideas. The new drinks were as delicious as the originals.

Eventually I made my way over to the laughing people on the couches. It seemed that there were regulars – folks I recognized from my many trips to the establishment – as well as people who came in, had a drink, and left, never to be seen again. But the crowd around the couches were always laughing, always giving me a wave, and seemed incredibly friendly.

Turns out, they were.

When I joined them the first time, we all had a brief round of introductions before the regular chatter started again. Many of them had drinks in their hands that I didn’t recognize – they certainly weren’t from the bar. I asked about the drinks, and the people holding them looked around at the other members of the group, grinning. They had made the drinks themselves. I was puzzled.

“Isn’t that kind of rude to make your own drinks right in front of the bartender?” I asked. 

They laughed, and one of them replied.

“He doesn’t mind,” they said, raising their glass to said bartender. He was polishing a glass with a clean white dish towel and nodded toward the group, smiling. “Says it keeps things fresh.”

“Want one?” someone asked, offering me a drink. It sparkled in the light from the lamps dotting the room, and I took it hesitantly.

“And you’re sure he doesn’t mind?” I asked, inspecting the glass.

“Trust me,” they said. “He doesn’t.”

I took a sip.

If the bartender’s drinks were delicious, this was dynamite. It felt like a punch to the gut in the best way possible. It went straight to my head, and everyone laughed at the look on my face.

They became my people.

I still ordered drinks from the bar, but soon I was consuming more from that little group than I could handle – but I did handle it. I held my liquor, as they say, and it was incredible. We got drunk off of each other’s drinks, and when I made my own drink for the first time, everyone said it was delectable. It soon became a hobby. It was infectious, making drinks for others to enjoy. It was true that the bartender didn’t seem to mind. He never came over to drink with us, but he knew we were there and having fun, and that was fine with him.

Just peachy keen.

I had some of my best times at The Phineas, and met some wonderful people. Then one day, the bartender left. Sometimes we’d see him walking past the bar, waving to those of us inside, but it was never the same after that. Our drink-making died down, and some of the regulars left and didn’t return. The bar got quiet, and even though there was someone new behind the bar serving the same old drinks that the original bartender had created, it wasn’t the same.

I had created over one hundred different drinks during my time in The Phineas, and while I had enjoyed doing it, I felt like it was time to move on. I waved cheerily at the few folks that remained, promised I’d look in on them from time to time, and left the bar. And while I have kept my promise to check in on those nice folks every once in a while, to this day, I have not returned to The Phineas.

Part Two: The Golden Horn

I was introduced to this English pub by my best friend – he had promised me I’d love the drinks there, and he was right. The bartender was a tall man with a kind face – it reminded me a bit of my old favourite bartender – and he was assisted by an even taller man who seemed to intimidate every patron at the pub until you realized he was just a big softie. His name was Daniel. The one who owned the pub, the one with the kind face and gap-toothed smile, was named Jeffery.

Sure enough, the drinks were amazing. So many of them, and so many different flavours and combinations! There were a lot of people lounging on the sofas in the main seating area, but I didn’t really interact with them. They didn’t seem all that welcoming, to be perfectly honest with you.

I frequented The Golden Horn for years before it happened. It came at me out of the blue when I was halfway through one of the delectable drinks Jeffery had made for me. He brought out a glass filled with a shimmering golden liquid I’d never seen before in my life, swirled it around, and tipped it towards me. Immediately I was drawn to the glimmering sparkles of the drink, and I knew it had to be delicious before I had even taken a sip.

“Where’d this come from?” I asked, eyes wide and stuck on the drink Jeffery held in front of me.

“From the back,” he said simply, nodding his head toward the back of the bar.

I looked in the direction he had nodded to, and squinted my eyes. I could barely see it, but there was a door there. Almost completely hidden from sight, and locked with a sturdy looking padlock.

“Someone else made this?” I asked incredulously.

Jeffery nodded. “They’re quite good. You should try it.” He held out the drink for me to take.

I took it.

God help me, I took it.

It looked like liquid gold and tasted even better. When I had downed the glass, I asked Jeffery how to order more.

“Just go through the door,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t go in there too often myself, but when I do… it’s good.” He raised his eyebrows at me. His brilliant blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Do you have a key?” I asked, implying the question: Could I borrow it?

But he shook his head. “I don’t have a key. I just sneak in sometimes when someone comes in or out.”

I gaped at him. He grinned, the gap in his front teeth endlessly endearing.

“Then how do I get in?” I asked.

He shrugged again. “Not my problem, mate.” A smile flickered on his lips.

Reluctantly, I handed back the empty glass and turned to leave. That night, I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was that golden drink.

—

Every day I went back to that pub, and every day I looked for opportunities to enter through the locked door. Occasionally someone would come out of it, walk through the shadows, and leave through the back door of the building. I was baffled that I had never noticed them before. There were a couple other times that Jeffery offered me another one of those golden drinks, but they were incredibly rare. Sometimes I noticed drinks being left right outside the door. I drank them greedily and wished to meet the people that had made them.

One day, I got my wish.

I caught someone coming out of the door and introduced myself, asking whether I could please have a key to the door to thank the people that had made these exotic drinks. They said they would ask and then get back to me.

The next day, I was handed my very own key.

—

The locked room inside The Golden Horn was everything I had dreamed it would be and more. It almost seemed like the TARDIS, bigger on the inside, and absolutely fascinating. Sofas and beds of all shapes and sizes were scattered across the room. Everyone looked at me when I came in, and I introduced myself. It didn’t take long to know I would fit right in.

I won’t go into detail about all of the close friends I made, the long conversations about drink-making and bartending, or the reverence that we all felt for the two men working behind the bar. Suffice it to say that I had found my people, and for three very happy years, I spent making drinks with all of them. In fact, I made over four hundred drinks in total. This year alone I made at least one drink a day. It doesn’t matter now, but back then it did.

I had finally found a place where I truly felt like I belonged. The Phineas had been wonderful, but I wouldn’t have called any of my acquaintances there my friends. In The Golden Horn, I made life-lasting friendships. Or, I thought I did. My friends and I concocted our own drinks, but occasionally we would make a drink together or hold game nights where everyone who showed up made a drink and we had to guess who made it just by the taste. We spent long nights talking and laughing, and a few times I even had some of my friends over at my place even though they lived a long way away. We would meet outside of the pub and have the best time.

Until I made a mistake.

There was an unspoken rule that you never offered a drink that you had made to the men behind the bar. If Jeffery and Daniel wanted to sample our drinks, they were more than welcome to do so, but always on their terms. On the few occasions that they did, they even said that although our drinks weren’t quite to their taste, the drinks themselves were well made. Some of us felt proud. Others felt embarrassed. But we all still loved those two men. We admired them for starting the pub and for keeping it running after ten years – a good time longer than many other pubs in the world. Jeffery had gone grey doing it – over a decade he had spent behind the bar.

Some of us got it in our heads that we’d like to hear more about what Daniel and Jeffery thought about our drinks. Did they have a favourite flavour? What was the best one they’ve had? How often do they sneak one of our drinks while we aren’t looking? We got curious, and I proposed that we just… ask them. So I spoke with Jeffery and he agreed to answer some of my questions. It was thrilling and fun, and I took the news back to my friends.

A few months later, I had an idea. I wanted to make a tray in honour of Jeffery out of things he himself offered behind the bar. Several of us came together to make the tray. There were snacks, little plastic toys like you’d get out of a Christmas cracker, and two small drinks. My friends made the drinks, I made the snacks, and some of our other compatriots provided the toys. When it was done, the tray was exquisite. I beamed with pride. What we had made together was nothing short of incredible, and I felt happiness bubbling up inside me. The tray looked like something straight out of The Golden Horn’s kitchen, complete with fun little baubles and the two sparkling golden drinks on the side.

That’s when I made the mistake. I offered the tray to Jeffery.

He loved it.

Jeffery told me that the tray was incredible – an amazing piece of work. He was impressed. It made me so happy to show off the hard work that my friends and I had come together to make, and I was honoured that he liked it so much.

A month went by before one of the two people who had made the drinks on the tray asked me a question. Had I given the tray to Jeffery?

Yes, I told her. I did. He loved it.

My friend was shocked and furious. Upset, she told me that she never would have consented to have her drink be brought directly to Jeffery. She was hurt by my actions. Did the unspoken rule mean nothing to me?

My world came crashing down around me. I immediately apologized. I had been so caught up in the excitement of showing off what my friends had made – how wonderful and incredible it was – that I had forgotten about the unspoken rule about the drinks. I asked if there was anything I could do. There was nothing. The damage had already been done. Trust had been broken. She would never speak to me again.

I supposed I deserved that.

But I don’t believe I deserve what happened next.

Word got around that I had given the tray to Jeffery. People who I thought had been my friends turned their backs and refused to talk to me. Some told me that what I had done was unforgivable. A few of them even took me aside privately to attack me until I couldn’t handle it anymore and shut them out. I didn’t know how many times I apologized. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I cried in bed for hours at a time. I felt numb and stupid and broken. I watched my friends leave me, one by one. I kept making drinks, but they were tasteless and I felt hollow. I had made myself a promise to make one drink a day, and I kept that promise to myself, for all the good it did me. No one was drinking them.

Pretty soon after, one night when I was asleep, my key to the room where I had happily spent the last three years was taken from me. No one told me why or gave me a warning that it was going to happen, but I found out later that I had “said something inappropriate” to another member of our exclusive club. To this day, I don’t know what I said or who I hurt. But without me there to defend myself, I heard second-hand that my friends came out of the woodwork to proclaim that they had always thought I was a bad person. This was news to me, and it broke my heart. I heard so much negativity about myself coming out of nowhere that I started to question whether I really was a bad person and just hadn’t realized it.

I started going to therapy again.

Jeffery reached out to me and asked if I was all right. I wasn’t, but I thanked him for his concern. He’s a sweet man.

I don’t make drinks anymore. What used to bring me an immense amount of joy, and something that I could pour my creativity into, now only fills me with anxiety and a deep sense of loss. I’m grieving the community I lost, although both my therapist and my long term partner say that no real “community” would turn on me the way that my friends had, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Now I suppose I should talk about Amy.

Amy was the person I looked up to the most in that secret room in the back of The Golden Horn. It seemed like her drinks were custom made just for me, and some of them were. They were the best thing that I had ever poured down my throat, and I was constantly thirsty for more. We became close friends and made drinks just for each other, playing off of what the other had made previously. We even collaborated on a couple of exotic drinks that turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

I invited her into my home. I invited her into my heart. She was special to me, and I always wanted to please her and to make her proud. I talked her up to Jeffery more times than I can remember, and I was certain that the bond we had created over the last three years would withstand the trial that I was going through with the fallout of my mistake.

I was wrong.

After my key was taken away, I reached out to her and asked her if she was okay. It was the lowest I’d ever felt in my life, but I was concerned for her. She shouldn’t have been caught up in all the drama, and she didn’t deserve to deal with the witchhunt that was happening.

No response.

I told her I was happy she was my friend, and thanked her for everything she had ever done for me.

I still haven’t heard from her.

My therapist says she must not have been a real friend. But if that’s the case, I must not know what real friendship is. Amy was one of the closest friends I thought I had. And now she’s gone.

What hurts the most? Losing countless friendships I thought I had over a misunderstanding? Not being allowed to defend myself? Losing what felt like a community that I truly felt I belonged in for the last three years of my life? Losing opportunities which helped define me as a person and as a creator? Being virtually removed from the drink-makers of the world because it hurts too much to make drinks anymore? That it only reminds me of the friends and community I’ve lost? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m still grieving, and I wasn’t allowed closure. I was turned on, ignored, harassed, and condemned by the people I had come to know, love, and care about.

All I wanted was to make them happy, and I fucked up. I’m more sorry than I can say, but I will say this: giving the tray to Jeffery was a mistake. And as far as the “inappropriate comment,” whoever it was never talked to me about it. As far as I’m aware, all of my interactions with anyone from that group came from a place of genuine love and caring. My intent was never to cause harm or make someone feel uncomfortable. I don’t think intent matters too much to those people, but it matters to me.

So here I am, forced out of something that I loved doing. I still get the urge to make drinks, but I stay my hand. It’s too painful now, and even though Jeffery still checks in on me from time to time, sometimes it hurts to see his face. Every time I do, I’m reminded of the good times. The friends I made. The endless drinks I created. The joy and freedom that I felt getting to do what I loved around like-minded people who valued me for who I was, my authentic self, and cared about me the way that I cared about them.

Until they all turned on me when the door was slammed in my face.

Nowadays I mostly stay outside on the pavement, wandering the streets. I occasionally look into pubs, but I never go in. The prospect of trying to make new friends and fit in somewhere else isn’t especially appealing after what I’ve been through. The spark that had shone so brightly is still inside of me – I can feel it fighting to get out – but it’s locked behind bars. I don’t know what the patrons of The Golden Horn are doing these days. No one there talks to me.