{"id":135578,"date":"2023-12-27T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=135578"},"modified":"2023-12-27T13:34:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T19:34:09","slug":"winter-reading-issue-stairway-to-something-by-jenna-mason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/winter-reading-issue-stairway-to-something-by-jenna-mason\/","title":{"rendered":"TLV 2023 Winter Reading Issue: “Stairway to Something” by Jenna Mason"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Until I was on crutches, I\u2019d never paid attention to the fact that Oxford\u2019s two best bars are sanctioned off by stairs. Perhaps I would have if I\u2019d had a disability, or if I wore heels like most Oxford women, their pedicured toes peeking out of precarious stilettos. But I live in flip flops February to November, which is how I ended up on crutches to begin with. I\u2019d slipped in a crosswalk after a hasty rainstorm had doused the Oxford Square in July, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days after an orthopedic surgeon reconstructed my kneecap, I painstakingly ascended the stairs to the City Grocery bar. I needed to prove to myself that things would eventually get back to normal, and normal meant meeting the same two friends on that balcony every Thursday afternoon for happy hour.
It\u2019s fitting that one has to hike up a flight of stairs to reach the City Grocery bar. To blend in with the regulars there\u2014lawyers, professors, accomplished writers, successful real estate agents\u2014is an accomplishment in itself. They\u2019ve climbed their way up, and they matter. I\u2019ve penned a couple opinion pieces that some of them have read and respected, but I\u2019m typically the lone patron that also waits tables. The day a local artist introduced me as a \u201cwriter\u201d to someone there, I nearly choked on my wine.
I\u2019m not the first to marvel at the magic of this bar and this balcony. A smattering of golden nameplates dot the bar, denoting longtime patrons and their standard drink order. It\u2019s an elite honor, and uniquely Oxonian. No one who dares ask for a nameplate will ever get one. The first rule of the nameplates is: You do not talk about the nameplates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I want to feel detached and clever and respected, City Grocery is where I go. I\u2019m smart enough to hang with the lawyers and professors as they talk politics and roll eyes at folks who don\u2019t share their stances. I\u2019m dumb enough to banter with the bar manager over the Saints and the Falcons, knowing my team is the one that will always suck. I\u2019m neurotic enough to philosophize with a fellow regular over the meaning of life and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least, I used to be those things.
During the six-month recovery from my injury, I floundered magnificently. Medication made my brain murky and stunted my sleep. I was broke because I couldn\u2019t wait tables and depressed because I couldn\u2019t do much else either. That symbolic hike up the City Grocery stairs seemed puerile as I watched \u201cnormal\u201d slip further off in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laundry and dishes piled up in my new place, and late freelance assignments piled up on my laptop. Most nights I fed my children cheap pizza or cheaper ramen noodles.
And I drank. A lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t have the energy to don any of the masks that had kept me comfortable at City, so I increasingly took my drinking across the Square to the Blind Pig. The way down is a lot easier than the way up.
The Blind Pig is the rec room of Oxford\u2019s downtown service workers. The chalkboard marquee on the sidewalk whispers, \u201cWelcome to the Basement of Dreams.\u201d Its staircase tunnels beneath a boutique that sells wispy strips of tissue for young college girls to wear out on the town. When they aren\u2019t on the clock, industry folks retreat to the cavernous space below to play pool, throw darts, and catch up over Jameson shots and PBR tallboys. Political pontificating and philosophical posturing are more entertainment than any kind of shibboleth. No mask is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, I\u2019d stopped into the Pig for a beer after busy night shifts at Saint Leo. Once I could drive again, I started showing up earlier in the afternoons, antsy to get out of the house in which I\u2019d been stuck for two months. I\u2019d order a shot and a beer and hook my laptop up to the secret outlet on the underside of the bar so I could try to be productive a while longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pig was the only place I ordered Jameson. It\u2019s the standard industry shot around here, though we older folks generally just sip ours. After a week or so of my new routine, the day bartender would preemptively pour my Jamo while I crept down the steps, clutching the handrail and a single crutch. When I told him I was giving up whiskey for Lent, he started waiting until I sat down to ask, \u201cWhatcha havin\u2019 today, Jen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five days later, I answered, \u201cEh, gimme a Jameson\u201d and followed my order with some bullshit about Sundays always being Feast Days even during Lent, which is technically orthodox, but in this case was just convenient. The bartender just smiled some good-natured something about going easy on ourselves sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spending afternoons at the Pig brought a new cast of characters into my drinking life, friends whose lives more closely aligned with my own. When it was slow, servers and bartenders would cluster down by the POS, drifting in and out of the side door to take smoke breaks in the alley. The night bartender would ask about my kids, reminding me if I ever needed anything, anything, she loved kids and she\u2019d totally be happy to babysit or pick them up from the library or even run by the grocery store for me. Whatever I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019d started assuring me of this the first time I clambered down on crutches, but she said the same to the other single moms who would stop by during her shift. One bartended opposite shifts at the Pig, and the other served around the corner at Bour\u00e9. We dubbed ourselves \u201cTeam Badass Mom,\u201d even though we all felt like failures. We\u2019d take turns reminding each other that \u201cbad moms don\u2019t worry they\u2019re a bad mom\u201d and each try our damndest to believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I lingered much longer, a new crowd of servers and cooks would filter in, fresh off their day shifts. Around 7:30 or 8 pm, each of us would have to decide whether to call it or to double down after checking that we had enough in the bank to Uber ourselves home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As long as I stuck to crappy beer after the first Jameson or two, happy hour at the Pig would be a brief and welcome escape. If not, I\u2019d likely end up crying on a friend\u2019s shoulder in the alley before the night was over. I might flip off an ex who infiltrated my safe space with a pretty young blonde beside him.
That only happened once, right at the bottom of the staircase. It\u2019s why I gave up whiskey for Lent.
Or tried to, anyway. The way down is a lot easier than the way up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenna Mason is a freelance writer and editor in Oxford, Mississippi. She can be reached at shoelessjennamason@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Until I was on crutches, I\u2019d never paid attention to the fact that Oxford\u2019s two best bars are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123459,"featured_media":135575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[7078,16734,5,4,27524,3,753,7570],"class_list":["post-135578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing","tag-creative-writing","tag-jenna-mason","tag-mississippi","tag-oxford","tag-stairway-to-something","tag-the-local-voice","tag-tlv","tag-winter-reading-issue"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/TLV-Cover-433-WRI-WEB-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135581,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135578\/revisions\/135581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}