‘ID please.’ The bartender behind the counter was a bored looking woman with stringy, chestnut hair streaked platinum. Her eyes looked tired and posture stooped slightly. Cassidy reached into her pocket and showed the woman her driver’s license. She squinted to look at the date. She needed glasses but was too vain to wear them. In the dim light of the bar she couldn’t see the date of birth so rather than own up to her farsightedness handed the wallet back to the pretty but very young looking black girl at the counter.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Guinness’
‘Nope. We got Heineken, Pabst, Coors, Blue and this new local stuff called Bitter Girl IPA.’
Cassidy looked past the woman at the liquor selection at the back of the bar. ‘2 shots of Kentucky Bourbon. Neat.’ She turned in her seat to the sound of music coming from a back room in the bar.
‘Is that Bel Biv Devoe, they’re playing?’ she asked the bartender.
‘Yea. It’s Throwback Thursday here and the DJ plays nothing but pop and hip-hop from the eighties and nineties. It’s pretty popular and it should get wild with the full moon tonight.’
‘You’re the second person to mention the full moon to me in the last half hour. I had no idea Parsley was so superstitious,’ she sipped and luxuriated in the smoky flavour.
‘Superstition has nothing to do with it. The moon’s a powerful thing. I wouldn’t joke about it.’
‘Alright alright,’ Cassidy said as she slipped off her stool to get closer to the music. She left a 20 percent tip and smiled at the woman who had a name tag that said Angel Flo on it. There is no way that’s her real name Cassidy thought as she walked into the darkened room lined with posters advertising Throwback Thursday, different framed black and white and colour pictures of famous angels and a giant pair of tacky feathered wings behind the DJ. He had his head down, spinning the vinyl and De La Soul’s ‘Buddy’ was playing mixed with En Vogues’ Never Gonna Get it.
There were lots of women in the room dancing. Some by themselves, others in circle groups and a couple chair dancing out of shyness about their coordination. A tall, lanky guy the colour of 12 year of scotch was moving languorously with his eyes closed and he was surrounded by a klatch of young women. He wasn’t paying attention to any of them but not ignoring them either. He swayed and the women around him seemed to move in concert with his swaying hips. Cassidy felt compelled to join the women gathered around the young man and put her scotch down on a two top near the DJ. The music morphed into a mashup of Sly & the Family Stone and A Tribe Called Quest and Cassidy spun into the mix.