“A woman’s sitting room?”
“They say it’s where the wives would sit and wait for their husbands while they drank with their male counterparts.
Occasionally a female could enter the bar, but they had to have an escort.”
“Interesting,” I say and wonder into the small room. It makes sense. Women weren’t exactly seen as the same class as men.
“What else can you tell me about this place?”
“Well let’s see. These back bars, they are actually hollow, and it’s said that when guys used to sit here and play poker, they would throw chips up there. It’s never been moved, for as long as the bar has been here. So, who even know what could be back there?”
“So why are there two of them?” I point to the similar back bar that sits opposite the main one.
WHEN YOU'RE READY
47
“That one was said to be at the Headquarters Saloon. It was a couple of doors down, before this one was built. It was moved from there to here.”
“Wow. So much history in one small bar.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking around with his arms crossed. “If only walls could talk. The shit this bar has seen, I can only imagine.”
“Are there any pictures of what it used to look like?”
“Right there” he says and points to the pictures on the wall that I obviously missed when I walked in the first time. The pictures show the hall and the billiards room, and how small the bar actually was. Just wide enough for bar stools and a line of people behind them.
The rest of the evening is steady. I grabbed a few beers for Grayson and delivered them to customers with a big smile.
Everyone seemed really nice and welcoming. I always thought small towns frowned upon new people, but I suppose with this town what it is, they get a ton of new people here all the time.
“Can you go lock the doors while I get the last of these glasses cleaned up?”
“Sure thing” I walk to the front and lock it, looking out the window to make sure no one is sitting on the benches out front.
When I turn around to walk to the back, Grayson is gone. I assume he’s in the back. I walk towards the back, but halfway there, I feel as though I hit a wall of ice. A chill runs through my body. I look up, but there’s no air vents around. I shake off the weird feeling and keep walking to the back and lock the door.
“Thanks munchkin” Grayson says, and I jump when I turn around to see him merely a couple of feet behind me.
48
T. SPEAR
“How did you get there. I didn’t even hear you. And these floors creak…bad” I twist my hands at my stomach, with that weird feeling still lingering on my skin
“You, okay?”
“I kinda got a weird feeling walking back here, I’m fine. I’m sure it was just a draft.”
“Ah, the bar ghost got ya huh?”
“I’m sorry…bar ghost?”
“Oh yeah. You think this bar has been here for over one hundred years and no one has ever died in it?”
“I mean, I would hope not.”
“I would hope not too, but it is said that when the upstairs used to be a whorehouse, they had to use some rooms as to keep sick people in and a cowboy died up there, He tucks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.