Chapter 21 – Tequila State of Mind

El Jimador – 3447 W. Forest Home Ave., Milwaukee

The last three Saturdays in a row have had almost identical snowy weather which, while cheering me up, makes it hard to walk, and on this one, after almost falling on my ass twice in one block, I decided to go to the nearest place with coffee and call it a morning. But as I rounded a corner, a snowblower came right at me down the sidewalk, and also there was a bus coming down the block, and I happened to be at a bus stop, so I jumped on. You could call this the taco bus, as it's the one that hits Cesar Chavez, Greenfield, Mitchell, Lincoln, the South Side—but I stayed on to Forest Home, thinking I might settle for the Brass Key—but then noticed El Jimador's “open” sign and jumped off at S. 35th Street and waded over. I've been by there a thousand times and never noticed the place, my mind probably dismissing it as merely a bar, which it kind of looks like and likely used to be. Going in the front door was one of those experiences I savor, entering a place for the first time, which you can only do once, as I felt like I had both traveled a great distance, far from my home, and also traveled in time at least several decades past. The walls are log-cabin-style dark wood that looks like a super club or roadhouse in the North Woods, and there are those oblong octagonal windows I associate with taverns. I was the only customer that early, besides two workmen sitting at the bar watching soccer. I had to use the bathroom and went further into the past, as the urinal looked old enough to be a museum piece and was set into the floor with crude but beautiful mosaic shards. The waitress was very nice, the menu included breakfast, so I ordered Huevos a la Mexicana, which came with rice and beans and corn tortillas. It was a hearty breakfast, and just perfect for the snow coming down out the window, and the Spanish language soccer broadcast, and writing in my notebook. Only later did I look up El Jimador and see it's a brand of tequila (I wouldn't have ordered any had I known), named after the agave farmer, or harvester—so, tequila, tequila, tequila, but I stayed warm and dry. Anyway, it was a fine morning, and for ten dollars—to feel simultaneously at home and worlds apart, just like that—you don't have to be a millionaire.