The Wake I'm going to a wake this weekend. It is one of those "living wakes", actually, since the body that will be celebrated is not yet dead. There is absolute certainty that demise will come on schedule, though. The condition is, alas, irreversible. So it goes with our existence. Amiable familiarity is the result of any term of proximity, and not just with the people in our lives. We even get to know our cars after a while, to the point where they can be spotted in a mall parking lot from a hundred yards out, even with half a dozen identical makes and models surrounding it. That's also how one can maneuver through one's home in the middle of the night without banging one's shins and toes on the furniture; night-vision goggles are not required. Many people get quite depressed when leaving their place of longtime residence, or even employment. A piece of them dies there, they say, because that is where they spent so much of their lives. They can't bear to let it go. A wake like this particular one, then, is special. There will be no corpse in a casket surrounded by candles and flowers in brass pots. There may be music playing, but it definitely won't be parlor music. The subject of the wake will be very much alive, breathing and joking and speaking and soaking up the joy in the room for the last time. It's a beautiful thing, really. The subject of the wake (already) is a small bar called the Monastery. It has been there for a long, long time. I feel inadequate to the task of telling its story, since I'm not one of those who will be feeling like a piece of them is dying along with it... I'm just a neighbor, really, a guy who hung out there a few times, long enough to become a friendly acquaintance as opposed to a member of the family. I got invited to the wake almost by default. I know it to be pretty cool, though, and that's a generous word where I come from. It's a big old house, really, with a bar stuck in the middle of it. The walls are festooned with pictures of good times past. It does not feel like an establishment where business is conducted, where the lines are so sharply drawn between the customers and the merchants. It feels like you're at a friend's house, where the parties are always great, and they never stop. The Monastery goes down as one of the few places where they serve their meat raw (you get to cook it on the outdoor grill). There's a pool table on the patio, a volleyball court in the yard along with tables and chairs and firepits throughout the property. There's the obligatory TV set, a video game enclave, plus old-fashioned board games in a cupboard. In short, it's like a YMCA that serves alcohol, which is what America needs. A few years ago, a shiny new sports bar opened up across the street from the Monastery. One of the first things the sports bar did was place signs in the easement, expressly prohibiting "Monastery parking." The sports bar became a pretty popular place, but that didn't really affect the old house across the street, because it had always been out of the way anyhow. The only people who knew about it were the ones who needed to. Those are the ones who will be at the wake this weekend, many of them for both days. Those are the ones who know the place, who have gone there for years and who will miss it dearly, more the way you'd miss a close friend or a family member than the way you'd miss your goldfish or your Jetta. For all the good cheer that will be on the lot, a few will not be consoled, and rightly so, as there is truly no other place like the Monastery anywhere in the Valley of the Sun. I imagine there will be some tears, as there must be at a wake. Many will be from misery, but some will be from all the smoke spiraling up and away from a fiery grate loaded with steaks, burgers and sausages. However somber the tone might be, a wake is also a party. Stifling as the desert heat of mid-June might be, I'll bet someone decides to throw some wood in one of the pits anyway, for old times' sake. Afterward, as the cars file out of the always-dusty parking lot, the finality of the wake will start to set in. As much fun as you've had, you can't ever go back there. The property will be fenced off, razed and scraped to make way for condominiums or some other God-awful thing. The sports bar across the street will probably absorb a smidgen of extra business, but my guess is that many of the Monastery's patrons will melt away to other places, or to no place. For our part, we'll do the honorable thing: Go back to our house and continue the party. We'll burn steaks on the grill, maybe even swing the croquet mallets while the fire rages. If we crank down the AC, I can light up a crackling rainbow chem-log. There will be pool to shoot as we ignore the TV. As it gets late, maybe we'll play a little chess, or roll some dice. And we'll drink into the night. After the wake, that's what you do. Paul Heller 6/16/05 << back to the archives
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