The Gold coin Saloon

Another Friday night in Central City/Black Hawk. The area gets ready to receive hundreds of people in search for the money, in search for the gold; just like the old Wild West- times. If you come from Denver and take Highway 6 all the way uphill, it would be a good idea to be prepared for the 8040 feet above sea level and car sickness. The highway is not exactly straightforward. It more or less goes like a snake: lots of curves next to the river and in between the mountains. Very dangerous on snow. The first casino town the highway crosses is Black Hawk: massive new brick buildings with five to twelve levels for parking, neon lights, flat screens the size of a garage door, 2x point’s deals on slot machines, more neon lights, people smoking in the streets, $5.99 lobster deals, franchises everywhere… A small piece of Las Vegas in Colorado. However, Black Hawk is not the main destination of the day, luckily. All those franchises and corporations are more of the same old thing. One mile up higher from Black Hawk, there’s an imaginary line that separates dramatically “Las Vegas” from the real Wild West. On the other side of this line, there are six casinos, family owned. Colorful Victorian homes along the roads with baroque details: this is “Central City”. Here is where I’m going to stay to tell this story.
In Central city, the main street is still surrounded by the brick buildings from the old mining times. The silence of the streets makes it feel like a ghost town; as if the miners were still walking around smoking, gambling and trying to take some lady in a corset to bed. Lamp posts line the streets and some casinos display mannequins dressed up in corsets and vintage outfits. There is silence, yes. But the atmosphere is not quiet: there are too many lights here and there and few people are walking fast, crossing the streets from casino to casino; and most of them have a cigarette in the hand. As I said, people here are in search for gold, and the casinos are evidence of it. I walk inside of one of them, “Easy Street Casino”, and the silence of the street disappears. Again the neon lights, under the yellow light of a Victorian chandelier, noise of coins cashed out from the slot machines, a man yelling loud: “Yeah!” and his wife clapping hands (he might have hit a jackpot), the “ding-ding-ding” of the machines, people drinking, the staff smiling, the cocktail waitress with a tray full of Coronas, Budweiser, mixed drinks and… coffee (?!). “If I get alcohol for free in casinos there’s no way I order coffee,” I think to myself.
After exploring the place I start to realize that some gamblers look more or less like zombies in front of the slots: sometimes they look excitedly focused on their slots for several minutes and sometimes they turn their heads somewhere and space off, but their fingers keep pushing bottoms as if they were programmed.
The noise and the lights become more and more overwhelming. I need some mental rest so I finally decide to go to the bar.
I must say that the entrance to the bar looks very dark compared to the casino area. I go because I’m curious, because I have been told that that bar is one of the oldest ones in Colorado, and because is the only bar in Central City/Black Hawk that does not have anything related to slot machines. Besides, the girl that did my hair last week, Candace, is the bartender in that bar. She said that she makes good drinks, so here I go.
The place smells like old wood. The walls are covered with some 50’s or 40’s green wallpaper, that kind of wallpaper that displays pictures of flowers and golden dashes. There’s vintage wall art all over the bar and three deer heads. As a joke, somebody had attached a “buck” on one of the deer’s nose with a thumbtack, and as I look high on the walls to see those “two bucks”, I reach the ceiling with my eyes: a layer of dollar bills, maybe a thousand of them; you can hardly see the ceiling. “Hey, darling!” I hear a loud voice breaking this small contemplative moment. “Hi, Candace” I say. At the top of the bar there’s a wooden sign that says:

Jack Brown
-Service without a smile-
“How ironic,” I think as I sit down in front of the bartender who has a big smile on her face
-“I thought it was service without a smile, Candace”.
-“Ha-ha! That sign was here since Jack was a bartender in the 60’s. He never smiled; but he loved his job so much, he requested to be buried underneath the bar. His ghost gives me a hard time sometimes, but when he does, I dance like this…”

Candace does a goofy dance jumping and shaking her hands and ends it with a big laugh. She is matching this place, definitely. She’s wearing an old times corset with a big low cut so anybody can see her bra straining to cover her big chest.
-“I like your uniform” I say.
-“Dude! I’m going to make some money tonight!” she says, as she adjustes the corset so that anybody can have a better view of her breast. She puts some humor into it.
“The locals are coming tonight, you’ll get to know them…What do you want to drink?”
-Ehm… I’m still thinking
-I make the best Martinis in town… do you want to try some?
I don’t know about martinis since I am not the biggest fan of vodka or gin but after a little bit of bartender flaring and some fancy moves, I say: “Sure”. She starts flirting with the bottles: she grabs a bottle of cheap vodka and throws it in the air, catches it, pours some in the drink shaker… she keeps adding more liquids into this compunction, shakes the shaking glass and finally pours some into a martini glass. “Coffee martini, try it, you will love it” I take a sip and feel like there is an alcohol orgasm introduced into my mouth. Sweet, bitter, coffee; “Oh god, Candace, this is yummy”. I sip on my drink and turn my head to see more and suddenly, there it is: a Jukebox. I walk towards it and take a look at the selection: Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, “Harley Davidson songs”, “Songs for the road”… As the songs are free of charge, I play “On the road again” and some Santana; and when I’m done setting up what I want, three guys come inside of the bar through the old swing doors and I almost feel like they are cowboys ready for the action.
I assume they are some of the locals since they talk about things going on in town. Candace interrupts them saying: “Guys, I want to introduce all of you to Mayra. She just moved here a month ago with her husband”. All of them say “hi” politely while Candace serves them a shot of Jack to each one and a bottle of Bud. A Fat girl comes out from the casino, a local as well, she goes towards the jukebox and plays this song that goes more or less like this: “You don’t have to call me darling, darling… don’t ever even call me by my name…” Country. Everybody in the bar know that song and they all sing it loudly. I am still curious about the dollar bills on the ceiling so after this song I asked her: “What’s up with the dollars in the ceiling?” She goes: “It’s an old mining custom. In the mining times, in the paycheck days, each miner used to stick a dollar bill on the ceiling and any time one of them died; they took all the money down and would give it to the family of the dead miner”. Then the fat girl says: “Nowadays we use the money to throw a party. There’s free alcohol; you get invited if you stick a dollar in the ceiling”. Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” is now playing. A gambler comes into the bar and orders a Corona, Candace grabs a lime, throws it in the air and catches it with her left boob, grabs the bottle of beer; “Do you want a lime in your Corona?” she asks. He says yes with the head and immediately she proceeds to locate the bottle in between her two peaches and with a smart movement on her chest she makes the lime fall perfectly into the bottle. “Here you go, honey”. Seems like everybody in the bar already know this trick but still enjoy it.
I keep thinking about the dollars in the ceiling and the miners. I tell Candace that I want to do it, I want to stick a dollar bill on the ceiling. She gives me my tools: a thumbtack and a quarter, she shows me how to wrap everything together, and tells me that I just have to throw it towards the ceiling. It seems like it’s impossible to do, but I really want to give it a shot. So there I go: I try to find a good spot, relax my arm, throw it and Bam! Got it stuck on the first shot. Candace goes: “Right on dude! Let’s make you a shot, all right everybody! Shot time!” Again, there she goes again mixing and shaking; one, two, three, four and five shot glasses over the bar that she fills artistically. Right after we were cheering each other and before taking that shot, her loud voice interrupts us all: “Hey wait! If the midgets did the YMCA, would it be considered lower case?” Everybody laughs for some seconds and then we take the shot. “It’s called “Adios Motherfucker”, it’s my signature shot” she says, always loudly, talking to everyone. That shot was too sweet that I get ready to say adios.
Suddenly, before I leave this place, the jukebox plays the next song: “the locomotion”, some sort of disco song that puts Candace at the top of the bar dancing with a hula hoop. She dances on the top of the bar during the whole entire song.
I finish my martini and observe Candace entertaining the whole crowd by herself and now she’s behind the bar again. I tip her because according to me, she’s a damn good bartender in a damn nice bar. I leave the bar thinking that certainly that’s the only bar in the area without gambling and big crowds involved. A small island to breathe and to forget the life for a bit. And to drink. Just like in the Wild West times. Cheers.