The other bookend arrives:

I have a very real quandary. I was in Kirksville this past weekend, as you may well know, and I arrived in town with friends and went to the Dukum Inn. We got there around eight. The party for T.J. had just begun upstairs, but that wasn’t clear to us as there we no signs etc. So we set off to do a bar tour of the downtown. We did have a drink before we left and in that time I talked to Dave who used to work with B.J. at the comic book shop, and I gave the bar owner Craig our customary firm handshake.

Craig was trying to get a wooden door that was set into the floor to close and he was using a sledgehammer to convince it that its’ current swell was an unwarranted ego trip. Slightly winded I still got a broad grin and an eye glint of welcome. Craig is a good man. A man I would have been happy to work for if I didn’t have this desire to separate my fun from my work. I worked at Ryan’s. I drank at the Dukum. To be sure, Craig would get me to work fairs and things like that for him, but never did I tend the Dukum.

On our way out of town, at the weekend’s conclusion, I was having a conversation with myself about Craig and my Ryan’s boss Harry. Harry, like my current boss Tom, is an impossible man. He’s likable on many fronts, but hopelessly irrational and difficult to please. When I was comparing them in my mind I posed the question, “Do you trust Craig?” I did a tandem parachute jump strapped to Craig. We freefell for a mile and then he taught me how to fly the canvas in wide swings to the right and left for the second mile, I guess I must trust him. The quandary is this: why do I repeatedly work for impossible men of questionable character to bizarre extremes and not work for people I like and respect? Am I, as I am beginning to suspect, attempting after all to please my impossible father (who is no longer impossible, but was when I was young)?

We’ve, my father and I, had our “cats in the cradle and the silver spoon” conversation and we’re all good, but when I was young he just wasn’t around and I still have this “please the impossible man for a little attention” thing going for me.

The narrative continues:

After our first beer, Brad’s beer that we shared really, we went to Il Spazio (sp?) in search of Bob and cohort. Coming up empty we retired to T.P.’s Office for our first round of gin and tonics. My buy. The drunken elderly sat behind us calling for the bartender by the bar owner’s name, “Paul, get me another.” Paul wasn’t there. Paul is an Elvis impersonator. I’ve written about Paul and Ma Mary before. It’ll all come out in my comprehensive history of the bars of Kirksville.

The sleazy Kirksville ambulance chasers association held up the far end of the bar, you know who I mean. The lawyers of the ville can generally be found at either T.P.’s or Too Tall’s, depending which side of the court they’re playing on a given day. These men are crossing into elderly, but still manage to make time with the daughters of their clients.

A long island mix master gave me a nod from the other end of the bar. I am sure she’s happy to be free of the Golden Spike since its recent closure. She looked aglow with the post-fired bliss of the newly free. In her nod was a universal wink. The Office: red leather barstools with large silver rivets, a mirrored ceiling to enhance the sense of space in this hallway of a bar. I met Stephanie B. in here, at that back pool table, talking about our dogs. At the time, with my roommate Jennifer’s Collie and her boyfriend Paul’s dog, I had three and Stephanie had two. We would take our pack to Thousand Hills State Park and they would circle us in a low orbit of chase while we wandered along the trail out to the dam.

To be continued: