The Tao of Steve

The weekend began innocently enough. Adam, Brad's fraternity brother (left), came in for a long weekend. He was on hiatus from his residency in pediatric oncology in Houston. Brad thought it would be fun to show Adam around downtown Paducah, so several of us met after work on Thursday at Doe's. We spent time sampling the mixological specialties of Paul and Travis and discussing the alcohol content of the various Budweiser products on tap. From there it was on to Ristorante Di Fratelli for dinner. Since I'd already eaten once, I ordered the tuna tare tare (sp?) which was absolutely delicious. It was also at this point that we were schooled on the smoothness of Level vodka by Justin. To drive home his point, he ordered a vodka tonic for Adam who had been playing devil's advocate to Justin's professions of perfection in Level. After dinner the real craziness ensued when we asked the inevitable question: What tour of downtown Paducah would be complete without a visit to the legendary Silver Bullet?

You can't really see into the bar from the street, so we had no idea what we were getting into until it was too late. Karaoke night at The Bullet. A distorted "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" blared as we entered to blank, drunken stares. We strolled as nonchalantly as possible to the very back of the bar and sidled up at the end right beside (marvel of marvels) an ATM machine. The bartender was very welcoming and attentive, but the same could not be said for the clientele. Their suspicious looks were unsettling and progressed to a state of alarm when I decided that I simply could not let the opportunity to document our presence go by. The idea was to get a shot of several of us sitting at the bar with the karaoke madness in the background. But when the flash went off, things took a turn for the worse. Immediately, this man...

...turned toward me with a sinister stare and began pointing and shaking his head mouthing the word "no." I ducked behind Michael and carefully placed my camera back in my purse. "Holy smokes, that guy is MAD!" He then proceeded to carefully ease off his bar stool and move toward us.

"Don't you take my picture no more. You hear me?"

Adam spoke up, "She wasn't taking a picture of you. She was taking a picture of her friends sitting here at the bar."

The man didn't turn but continued to glare intently at me. "You hear me? Don't you take my picture no more."

Seeing that I was clearly terrified, Adam then tried to divert the conversation and reiterated, "She wasn't trying to take your picture. She was taking a picture of her friends here." As if in slow motion, the man turned toward Adam. "What's your name?"

Adam replied, "Steve. What's your name?"

The man stood speechless for a couple of seconds. "That's MY name!" And then it was on. A potential barroom brawl averted and a new lifelong (or maybe hour-long) friendship was born. Steve never did stop telling me not to take his picture and oddly enough began calling me Gwen.

The bar got happier and people began Texas two-stepping up the aisle behind us. The lady in the foreground above asked Brad to dance, but when Brad pointed to Adam and said that he would be a better candidate, she huffed and went to the end of the bar to sit and stare at us. When she got over it in about 15 minutes, she came up to Adam and asked him why he was wearing a shirt. (!)

When we couldn't decide on a song to sing for karaoke, we decided to give Steve and the rest of our new friends a break and move on to Jeremiah's. It was at that point I decided that the Steve Incident had worn me out and I needed to head back to the house.

Before I left, Adam threw down the gauntlet. "I vow to visit any bar seedier than The Silver Bullet at any point during my stay. If you can think of one, I will go." Seedier than the Bullet? I am still studying on that one.

Namaste