The Knickerbocker

About a hundred years ago I knew someone who owned restaurants. I spent a bit of time in one of them, and observed "the regulars," who provoked a lot of thought on my part.

I had the idea to write a series of short stories about them, weaving in their personalities as I saw them, with my fantasies of their home life.

I had once visited the Knickerbocker bar in downtown Atlanta and I decided to set them in that place. It had these leering caricatures painted on the wall, likenesses of local politicians, I think, and in my story I imagined them to be muses of sorts, observing the bar patrons and discussing them there amongst themselves.

I ran into a box full of these stories yesterday as I was home with a bad cold or the flu, who knows. Anyway, I thought I might put one up here on the blog.


Barbie looks down when people ask her name.
“Barbie Hooper,” she whispers.
Her short fingernails dig into her palms and she hesitates before looking the polite inquirer in the eye.
How could her mother name her Barbie – such perfection to live up to! A perfectly molded body, firm, upright breasts, flat tummy, round, high fanny. Tiny little rosebud mouth. Blue eyes. Blonde hair.
Barbie’s brown hair always looks frazzled and on rainy days: it puffs out, tiny hairs forming a kind of halo around the other, heavier ones.
She never can find her tweezers – last time they were in the kitchen where she’d used them to pull dried spaghetti from the colander. One giant eyebrow crawls across the top of her face.
Her complexion is rosy and her monthly pimple is always prominent, on her chin, or her nose.
She can’t help that it’s so hard to find cute clothing, cheap, in her size.
The only thing she’s really self-conscious about is the tiny line of very fine, dark hairs across the top of her upper lip.
“Don’t be silly,” Mama always said. “You can’t even see it.”
Yet she often brought Barbie chemicals to lighten, remove, or peel away what she insisted no one could see.
Barbie works in an office building two or three blocks from the Knickerbocker. She’s a file clerk for a title company and doesn’t often go to the bar simply because she can’t afford to. She goes when she can, to find a guy who makes more money than she does. Then she could be happy, if she found a guy with money.
When she goes, she returns to work with a story or two to show those girls at the office that she does, too, have a social life. Of course, she might exaggerate just a little, romanticizes reality just a bit. Her details usually involve a little more interest from a man than he actually showed. Sometimes it’s a bartender. Sometimes it’s an attractive, slightly older businessman. She tries to vary the lines to give the stories more credibility. She is sure her stories make her seem desirable.
Barbie’s pushing thirty and all she wants from life is to marry someone and have his baby. Stay at home like Mama did. Be a good cook. Tiny white house with a very green lawn.
Barbie thought once she would go to school and become a dental hygienist. She heard somewhere they make good money. She’s never come up with the tuition and so files for Hayes, Moore and Moore.
She hates it.
At night, she returns to her apartment to cook a Lean Cuisine, then eats potato chips and microwave brownies as she watches the sitcoms. She’d really like to get a flat screen TV one day.
Her furniture is used—gifts she received as Mama’s bridge club remodeled their homes. The afghan was made for her by an aunt. Barbie kept it in her Hope chest for the longest time, but one night as she lay on the sofa watching TV, her feet were cold and she thought, “Why not?” and pulled it from the chest. It’s been draped over the back of the sofa ever since.
Flowerpots sit in the windowsill, full of dirt with a single dead stump in the center. Plants she buys on impulse at the first sign of spring, waters for a week.
Beside the sofa is a basket with a needlepoint inside. It says, “HOME SWEE” in three colors. It’s waited for a year or two now, but she’ll get back to it. The colors in her living room don’t match the yarns, anyway.
So every month or so, Barbie splurges and takes herself out to the Knickerbocker. She feels pretty there, especially after her second glass of wine. She tosses her hair and uses her hands a lot; catches glimpses of herself in the mirror behind the bar and thinks to herself, “I look pretty good.”
As the people begin to filter out, Barbie realizes she has no one left to talk with. The bartender is beginning to look a little drawn around the eyes.
“Well, I guess I’ll head out now. I actually have a late date tonight. Hate to make him wait too long.”
The bartender gives her an understanding smile. “Bet you’ve got ‘em lined out the door, Barbs.”
“Well, not really.” Barbie smiles at him over her shoulder on the way out. She’s sure that looks really good, smiling over her shoulder that way.
“You have a good un, now, doll” she says, and breezes out the door.
Outside, she glances in her reflection in the window. Her mascara has run all below her right eye, and the middle button on her dress has popped open.
Barbie slides into her car, feeling so, so empty inside.
Maybe if she had a cat…