This ornate and outlandish story was told to me in Utah, where they have the roughest bars. The woman tending bar had a front tooth missing, and on her hip a mysterious, beautiful tattoo, octagonal in shape. When I looked at her, she could hold my gaze, even from the far end of the bar, and even as she was mixing a drink.

I wondered later if she used hallucinogenic drugs. But she told me that she lived a life of absolute sobriety, so as to have the best chance to participate intelligently in the world we had made together, which was a kind of collective hallucination.

IN PRAISE OF FEMALE BARTENDERS

Our friend, a sampler of spirits, was sitting at a bar. He noticed that one of the bottles in the rack was empty. This empty bottle, however, still had a pouring spout and was placed in company with the whiskey, rum, and other spirits frequently used. When the bartender was asked why an empty bottle merited such treatment, she answered that the bottle contained the bar’s home brew, the only bottle of that unique beverage ever prepared.

Our friend in his amusement asked for a straight shot of the brew. To his surprise, the bartender, in her meticulous way, tipped the empty and worn bottle over a shot glass and poured nothing into it. Our friend paid, and then, not knowing what else to do, lifted the glass to his lips and drank the liquor it did not contain, tasted the spirit he had not perceived, swallowed notions he had not expected, and felt himself ready to enter wholeheartedly into a life he had hardly dared hope for.

All around, he could perceive the earthly powers he always had dreamed about; and, comically enough, these powers now approached him, addressed him, and welcomed his questions. The change was simple to describe: what had seemed to be separate forms of life or matter, alien, distant, and aloof—say, for example, plants, weather, or rocks—these very forms now became close, friendly, and helpful.

To state it even more simply: everything took on its own true life. The parts played in our history and destiny by the things of earth, he could understand. Everything showed itself to him; and he to them. And the bartender grinned.

First, the two men next to him at the bar revealed to him that they were not men at all, but rather two date-palm trees that had taken on human form. And why would they have done so? So they could discuss with him secrets of life known to palm trees, such as how to be dignified and life-giving among sand dunes in harsh and deadly climates. In addition, as the conversation drifted on, they clarified for him how palm fronds in the desert, on midnight of the spring equinox when there is a full moon, will glisten in a way to direct your gaze to a certain evening star. If you watched this star calmly all evening, and if you were honest, you would be able from then on to prophesy.

This was surprising news. But more was to come—an energetic woman burst into the bar: she turned out, really against all the odds, to be, though he could hardly believe it, a volcano. She bought him another drink and told him stories, including some funny ones about men who had not thought her formidable and nearly had to suffer incineration. As their musings took on more confidence, she tutored him helpfully on how he might reach deep into the earth to encounter molten currents, so to bring into use common materials that, set out in the open air, give light.

A sunflower taught him how his life could move in easy and gradual concert with the hours of the day. And, as our friend began to drink more heavily, a cyclone (she had a muscular form and startling white hair) turned up and was very glad to meet him, and spoke at length to him. In fact, a sympathy and a hopefulness moved between them, and such was the vigor and depth of their exchange that when the cyclone took the hand of our friend, there was in that handshake of newfound friendship a concentrated, glittering circulation of power.

Our friend, as we may well imagine, continued to drink. And he saw how all the varieties of life might, if we would seek to be useful, come closer to us. To his considerable astonishment, a shark, dressed in a rather natty suit, stopped in, and showed him how to streamline his thoughts so that their swiftness of movement had always a fierce, attentive grace. Finally, at the end of the day, someone put in his hand some freshly cut sugarcane, and as he closed his fingers upon it he learned how to make his bones like sugarcane, so that the marrow sweetened his blood, and he could walk forth onto the road that led to the lover he would then be ready to embrace. And he felt that he might have some chance to be worthy of such embraces.

When our friend was able to pause amid the common and happy shenanigans of this education, he recalled how all this had started with a certain beverage. He inquired of the bartender what processes were used in brewing such a spirit, and what rules of etiquette pertained to its consumption. She replied that any honest request for the beverage would bring a sufficient quantity into existence. Most people simply were not willing to seek the brew, in such a way that it could be found. For example, they did not usually believe it might be found in their homely neighborhood bar. But it happens to be the case that it is the function of bars everywhere, she said, to provide a home brew. All the other spirits are stocked simply to give us a taste for the real thing.

Now, said the bartender, the empty vessel represents of course the customer himself; and he must recognize this, and drink deeply. A customer, however, who thinks himself full will not notice the empty bottle; and so he takes some other drink. Many bartenders, unbelievably, have not even heard of the home brew; and so they see no vessel full of world-spirit, but only an empty bottle to be chucked into the rubbish bin.

“A desperate situation,” said our friend.

“Indeed,” said the bartender, as she winked at him. “The only consolation is that so many people are being driven to drink.”