Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Cody sat across the table from his sister. Ruth drank her cocktail and he drank his Budweiser. He wore faded jeans and his work boots – even though it was Saturday – and a hat from the local tackle shop. She wore a shirt that cost a person fifty dollars to go for a run and yoga pants. He’d driven there in an F-150 and she’d come in her electric car.
And yet it wasn’t their differences they’d met to discuss.
Kerry was a mid-sized town, two hours from D.C., two hours from the nearest NASCAR racetrack. It was neither a southern town, nor a mid-Atlantic town. The nearby mountains were popular with both the hunters and the hikers. Ruth worked in a boutique law firm providing legal services to immigrants who’d resettled in the area. Cody had a horse farm out in the county. There was a small liberal arts college in town, along with a collection of hippie coffee houses and shops purveying essential oils and art glass. Downtown, you could buy handmade, “Save the Planet” bags and embroidered Pride quilts and vegan dog-treats. You could also buy handguns and MAGA-hats.
Patty’s, the bar, was no-mans-land. Neutral ground. For its owner, nondescript was a defense-mechanism. Patty’s served all clientele, provided they paid and didn’t talk politics with anyone else in the bar.
It was also neutral ground for Cody and Ruth, too. She could pick up a case of infused smoothies to bring back to her husband and Cody could ask the bartender for a growler refill. It was the only place in town where you could order both burgers topped with pulled pork and bacon, and Keto, vegan, nut-free, soy-free, non-GMO, sustainably-produced, carbon-neutral dessert bars. When Ruth’s brother called her up and said, “we gotta talk,” she naturally suggested Patty’s.