The Vern

The Vern is a dump. They remodeled it recently so now it’s a nice dump, but it’s still a dump. Over the front door of the Vern is a sign that once said “Tavern”. At some point the sign got busted and the T and A were dented and broken. The sign now simply says “vern”, and thus the name. I don’t frequent the place like I used to, but there’s still the same people sitting at the bar today who were there in 1999.
The Vern’s ceilings were hidden in dense clouds of smoke. The only light came from the jukebox, neon beer signs, a couple of TVs, and the video poker machine. The jukebox was the best jukebox in the Pacific North West. It played 45s and the music ran the gamut from Yoko Ono to Star Wars to Black Flag to Joan Jett. Many of the tracks were mislabeled. It was a ploy to spot the tourists. They thought they were playing Men At Work, instead it was 6 minutes of avant guarde warbling. The regulars would get pissed off and ask why the hell someone played that piece of crap song and malign the tourist. If you got up to put on a song it wasn’t uncommon for people to shout numbers at you instead of song titles. 224 was the Dicks, 182 said it was Def Leopard but was actually the Rolling Stones.
The Vern wasn’t exactly welcoming. It stunk, there were often fights, and the bartender is insulting. On my first visit he read my ID and said “Another fucking Texan” and from then on called me Tione, short and gavachocized for Antonio. He saw my roommates ID and said “Buffalo’s a real shithole”. It was love at first sight.
The Vern’s only happy hour was on Sunday at 10 in the morning. This was savvy business acumen. The methadone clinic next door had a dosing at 9 am and there was always an eager clientele milling about waiting for them to open. You can tell that this was a real class joint. Pictures of Henry’s were $5.50 and Pabst was straight $5.
The Vern’s bathroom was completely covered in graffiti. My personal favorite was “Sean Pitts is so gay he uses nasal spray.” That’s not the name we choose for the team. We went with an old poem, a classic you might say, that’s been passed on from generation to generation in shitty bars like this all over the world. It reads as follows.

Dump Truck
By Anon
Oh I wish that your mother were a hole in the road
And I was dump truck so I could give her all my load.

Thank you and goodnight.