Why Sharlene's? - by nvo
On December 30th, I and a few friends went to a small gathering in Park Slope. We got off at the 7th Avenue stop off the Q train. Which is right next to a dive bar called Sharlene’s. Before we made our way into the apartment where we were supposed to pregame a birthday party at a bar in Bushwick and then a show at Elsewhere (neither of which we eventually made it to, mind you), my friends Gabe and Matty and I were enraptured by the subtle elegance, by the enchanting veneer, of Sharlene’s. To be sure, from the outside, it looks like any other dive bar, whether you’re ambling around in Bushwick, Ridgewood, Greenpoint, or wherever else in Brooklyn you might find yourself. That is, aside from the striking red sign. And the nice cursive font.
Maybe it’s just the name. Sharlene’s. It’s quintessential Americana. It makes me think of Lana Del Rey, of listening to Lana Del Rey, of listening to Lana Del Rey’s song Wildflower Wildfire, where the first three words she sings are “Here’s the deal,” while driving down a road in my hometown that’s lined with willow trees (which epitomize adaptability, which bend to withstand many extremes) with the windows down, driving eighty miles per hour along the straightaway on a residential street, like I have a death wish (like many people, at the end of the day, do, at least to an extent.) It’s like Murakami said:
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.”
I digress. ‘Here’s the deal.’ We had a fun time at the pregame. We stayed too long. There was a certain ambient inertia in the air that I felt into. That we all felt into, eventually. Rippling and reverberating in the room. Perhaps it was the inertia of being at the end of the year. The night before New Year’s Eve. Who knows. Suffice it to say, no one was really trying to make any moves. Not yet. To be sure, we were also having fun. Playing drinking games we hadn’t played since college. Spinning silly stories. Setting intentions for 2024. Discussing the things we wanted to leave behind in 2023.
One person said, “Being too cunty”.
One person said, “I want to finally fucking quit my job.”
I said, “Doubt.”
My buddies Gabe, Matty, and I, though, had at least one other intention. One that could move us all forward. Out of our inertia. We knew we had to go to Sharlene’s. Just because, well, she spoke to us. For whatever reason. At the end of the day, all language, all names, and all words are abstractions. They’ll never get you to the core of the matter. Never fully grasp the beauty. Or the vomit. They’ll never perfectly encapsulate all the infinities contained in any person, place, or thing. At any moment. In any breath. Or any year, that’s for damn sure.
Still, sometimes, they serve us. They serve us well. Words, that is. Or names. They’re a signpost—a lighthouse in foggy seas. Sweet Sharlene. She called to us. Like a siren song. We knew we wanted to at least see what she had on offer. Wanted to experience whatever the contours of her soul had to offer. Before we did anything else that night.
So we did. We convinced everyone. It was time to go. Time to linger, no more. Time to let go. To move into the night. To drop into Sharlene’s. Before anything else. For one beer. For one Miller High Life (which, at Sharlene’s, you can still get for $4).
When we made the hajj – a short walk, to be sure – we didn’t wreck our ships on her rocky shores. She wasn’t a sinister siren. She was a delightful siren. Sharlene’s was rocking vibrantly with an eclectic mix of folks, as the best dive bars in New York so often are. Still. Against all tides of gentrification. Or at least, she was trying her best.
The music was hot. Our expectations met, we were reminded that at the end of the day, your intuition is one of your best guides. The best-laid plans, endless hours of rumination, planning, swirling preoccupation – the quotidian stress of standing in line at the grocery store – you can put it all to bed. Once in a while. And do the thing you want to do. Without understanding why you want to do it.
You can stop trying to explain it all. Seriously, Nick, stop (can you? Really??).
Not yet. Almost. I’m still reminded of the three words that David Foster Wallace used to close his most complete short story ever.
Sometimes, all there is left to say is “Not another word.”
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