Part I from our guest writer, Rhiannon Davies.

Her name is Jones. Persephone Jones. Perry to her mates. She’s the Queen of the Bar. It might be that a bar-is-a-bar-is-a-bar, and the building is just made of paint and wood and furniture. But it’s the PEOPLE that make the bar the place to be, and Perry knows this. She worked in a place in Berlin before she came back  to Wellington that was the size of an ATM. It had a couch, a wee bar that was a plank of wood ontop of two stacks of beer crates that stood two high, and she made thousands of dollars off it.

She’s THAT girl. It’s all about the saucy, sultry smile and sassy temperament. It works as a brilliant smokescreen while the price of the alcohol she’s pouring does to wallets what Hitler did to Poland. Her ego outweighs her body, and she’s going to get a belt in the chops, one day, but that day hasn’t happened yet. On she goes, the cheerful juggernaut, with a glass in one hand, and a bottle in the other. The fully-automatic 50-calibre smile on her face dares you to stop her, and the sly-yet sweet look she gives you as she pours your drink knows you never will.

Four other staff work under her, junior and complementary. Together, those madcap, charming five have a piece of wood that’s about a foot and a half wide between them and the rest of the roiling drunken mob. It’s their job, nay, their sworn duty to get you as legally intoxicated as your wallet will allow. That is to say, before you hit critical mass and vomit all over your exquisitely-chosen well-worn-in-all-the-right-places-faux-povvo-but-cost-three-hundred-dollars-Chuck-Taylors, and those jeans that you bought with the holes ripped into them just so. Keith Richards would be proud to blow something like you out of his left nostril.

And on you come, a hideous wall of people, with your VODKA-LIME-SODA and your BOURBON AND COKE and your WHAT’S CHEAP AROUND HERE?

You, darling punter. You are what’s cheap around here. Leonidas had it easy at Thermopylae. All he had to do was kill a bunch of Persians. They’re not allowed to kill anyone, which, perhaps, is grossly unfair. Although Leonidas didn’t get to narrate his night using David Attenborough’s Wildlife Documentary Voice [TM] though, so they win. Just.

Tags:   bars · drama! · guest writer · nightlife1 Comment