Overcast
I walked out the door one final time. Well, that was it, I thought to myself, the end of Vega’s. I trudged down the same, faintly bustling sidewalk I’ve walked so many times, trying not to look back. Maybe it was melodramatic of me to think life as I knew it was over, but it sort of was. My grandpapi had opened this bar 40 years ago. It was a small bar. Not one of these huge, super trendy hipster bars that stayed packed to the gills, but it was the proverbial watering hole I’d grown up in. I’d learned how to be a proficient barback by age 10. I was hired there officially the moment I turned 18. When I graduated college, I just gravitated back there. If I’d played my cards right, I could’ve been working in corporate America, crunching numbers in a cushy little office, driving a nice Audi, and more importantly I would’ve been considered “essential.” Now my unessential ass is being kicked to the curb, along with the rest of my family. I should’ve started making moves earlier, when I was 22 and vibrant, but I just got too comfortable to leave. Now I’m 29 years old and basically unemployable for anything but hospitality work, which is obviously going down the tubes the world over. “Damn COVID,” I cursed aloud, kicking an errant pebble out of my path as I lazily meandered down the street back to my apartment.