Karaoke

For young professionals in a city like Washington, DC, bars can become a second home. No, we’re not alcoholics. But in the absence of band camps, and athletic rehearsals and community service in your high school’s student council, where else do you hang out with your friends after work? For us, the bar becomes an institution unto itself. Gatherer of wayward 20-something souls. Town hall. Secular sanctuary. And sometimes, teacher of life lessons.

A few coworkers and I organized a night of karaoke at a deliciously tacky basement bar a few Fridays ago. The event was a success. Britney Spears, Montell Jordan, and several pleas for “Teach Me How To Dougie” later, we’d decided to keep the party going. Friday #2 was to be even more spectaculous. 

That next Friday, eager to be close to the action, we settled on a table right up front, just a few arms lengths away from the mics. Close enough to read the karaoke screens from our seats. The table was perfect, save for all the jackets piled onto it. So, being the go-getters we are, we moved them to a random corner table just a few feet away. Because what else are stray jackets in a dive bar if not nuisances to rid oneself of? 

Settling down for our first few drinks, trouble came. A balding, paunchy, ruddy drunk approached us. He was mad that we’d moved his jackets. He became even more upset when we wouldn’t move them back. He started to yell. Lots of expletives. A strongly pointed index finger. Demands that we move away and return the jackets post-haste. 

And then he zeroed in on me. Mind you, I’ve never been in a bar fight; I don’t think I’d do so well with that kind of thing. And I didn’t need to be escorted out of any bar that night, especially without even getting to sing. 

So as his finger got closer to my ear, his face closer to my cheek, his voice closer to breaking, I buckled down. Locked my jaw. Trained my gaze on something in the distance on the other side of the room. I felt stray spittle hitting my ear lobe, and smelt cheap bear on his breath. But I knew I couldn’t respond. 

Because I don’t know how to fight. 

Luckily, before I lost my composure, one of my [female] cubicle buddies stepped in. Sometimes, nothing defuses a drunk man better than a stern, sober woman.

“If you wanna yell at someone, yell at me! 

“You wanna fight me?!” 

“What are you gonna make ME do?”

He wilted. Other coworkers seized the moment, and began speaking sense to his less inebriated and much more reasonable friends. I was still mad. So I just stood there. One by one, Drunkard and his posse gathered their things and went to the other side of the establishment. At some point an hour or so later, they were gone.

But I was still irate. Not for having a woman step in to diffuse the situation. Or for being able to keep my cool in a predicament like that. The reason I was confused, then absolutely indignant, was because I couldn’t figure out why he chose to single me out for the yell-fest. 

I wasn’t the only man in the group, and I wasn’t the only one to move the jackets. After a few more minutes of deduction, I decided that Drunkard picked me because I’m Black. 

I then made his shouting part of a meta-narrative of racial resentment, fear, and objectification of Black masculinity. So on and so forth. He thought I was trying to steal his things, didn’t he? He didn’t want me in that bar at all, did he? He probably wanted to call me the N-word. Because I’m a Black man. 

How dare I have to butcher Motown classics next to this racist prick. 

I went to unload my new theory on my cubicle buddy who saved the day. But she stopped me fast. Before I could even get the word “race” or “Black” out, a pleading hand went up:

“Sam, I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not that. It’s not that at all. He picked you because you’re the biggest guy in the group. Look at us, who else was he gonna try to fight?”

I stopped. And thought. She was right. I was wrong. It was about alcohol. And height. And things having nothing to do with my brown skin.

Life as a Black man can be a continual fight against paranoia. Will I be a statistic? Do they think I’m stealing this? Is that cop following me? Why am I the only one of me in the room?

Why does Drunkard want to fight me?

But the older I get, the more I realize, with the help of my friends, that not everything is a conspiracy, or a racial allegory, or a struggle centuries old.

Sometimes I’m just a guy. On a Friday night. With friends. Wanting to do a little karaoke. 

Sometimes, it’s not about race. At all. And in those situations, the lesson of the bar is a simple one:

Stop. Breathe. Drink. Sing.

Repeat.