Sipping a Coke

by Lisa McAllister

Bars aren’t places for children. In fact, walking into a bar and seeing a kid 

is kind of like seeing a nun in Las Vegas or a whore in church - just wrong.

 But here I was, and here was this kid, with these - pigtails I guess you’d 

call them, sitting up on a stool, as grown up as you please, swinging her legs

and sipping a coke. I couldn’t help but wonder at the sight of her. And

although comparisons are odious, I looked at her and saw how she must see 

me, a drunk in old pants, gray socks falling around my ankles, my plaid shirt

all frayed at cuffs and collar.

“My father’s in the back,” she told me, as grown as you please, and I 

glimpsed him: a small man, dapper in a striped shirt, black pants and shined 

boots - not yet broken like me, but on his way, oh yes. He handled his pool

cue like it was a woman and he grinned often at his little girl - he wanted her 

to watch him, to admire him. I felt nothing one way or the other. I just kept 

drinking, looking at those little legs swinging. Her school bag rested on the 

floor next to her stool, incongruously pink and small. She wore ribbons.. Her 

papa kept pushing the stick around on that green felt table, kept robbing 

those fellas, kept slapping ten dollar bills down and ha ha-ing it all the way 

to the bank. And I had to wonder, wasn’t he already the richest son-of-a-

bitch in the place? I mean, wasn’t he?