A man walks into a bar, so the joke goes—except the bar closed six years ago. The space has been converted into a hot yoga studio offering “restorative movement.” No man without a man bun would come within 100 miles of the place.
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The old bartender, Murray, moved to Florida to live near his daughter. A few years later, he had a heart attack. He now gets around in a wheelchair and lives in a nursing home 20 miles from his daughter, who visits every other week. The old patrons—Bob, Billy, Sid, and Tommie—have scattered into senior housing centers or the basements of their children’s homes, where they watch television alone. Smash the patriarchy.
Bob was a cop, Sid was a lawyer, Tommie was an accountant, and Billy was a plumber who had spent 15 years driving an ambulance for the volunteer fire department. But whatever else they were, they all had a place to go. They would meet at Murray’s and talk about the game, which was largely a pretense for the kind of real intimacy men show. During a pitching change, one might mention his biopsy. During a commercial break, another might bring up his divorce or the fact that one of his grandchildren had just been diagnosed with leukemia.
They were good men, although none of them would have described themselves that way. One winter night, a regular named Eddie collapsed beside the pool table. Billy recognized the heart attack before Eddie hit the floor. Bob started CPR while Billy worked on him and Murray called the ambulance. Sid drove through a snowstorm to find Eddie’s wife and bring her to the hospital. Tommie stayed behind, cleaned up the bar and waited for news. Eddie lived another 11 years. No one wrote an article about it, received an award, or posted a photograph online. The next Friday, Eddie was back at Murray’s drinking ginger ale while everybody made fun of him for trying to get out of paying his tab.
When the 2008 crash nearly finished Murray, the same men saved the bar. Murray had fallen behind on the rent, the beer distributor wanted cash on delivery and the bank had suddenly discovered that it was deeply concerned about lending standards. Sid renegotiated the lease for free. Tommie straightened out the books. Billy repaired a leaking pipe and replaced the toilet without charging him. Bob organized a “retirement party” for a man who had no intention of retiring, and nearly every cop, firefighter, contractor, and municipal employee in town bought a ticket. The regulars prepaid their bar tabs for six months, although everyone knew several of them could not really afford it. Nobody called it charity because Murray would not have accepted charity. They simply told him they were thirsty and wanted to pay in advance.
They argued about politics. Sid was a lifelong Democrat and a liberal Jew; Billy was an Irish Catholic conservative. But when they argued, they did it face to face. When they left the bar, they shook hands or gave each other a man-hug. When they walked into Murray’s, they felt as though they had a family—brothers from another mother. When one of them was in trouble, all it took was a phone call. Someone knew a doctor, a mechanic, a lawyer, a cop, or a guy with a truck. If nobody knew the right person, they found him. Smash the patriarchy.
The American town square, where people once sat and met one another, was demolished and replaced by a shopping center. The new shopping center has 100 women’s clothing and jewelry stores, another 10 stores catering to young people, and a food court. The place that served hoagies is gone. The neighborhood pizza place was demolished after a failed petition to save it. The green space became a parking lot. There are now seven yoga studios, eight coffee bars, and three juice bars. A 40,000-square-foot health club will open next year.
Once the gym opens, everyone will wear headphones and look at everyone else out of the corner of an eye. No one will dare speak to anyone. A man certainly cannot speak to a woman unless he wants to find his name in a police report. There will be proximity, but fellowship will be prohibited: 50 people lifting weights in isolation. Tommie tried a gym for a while because Medicare gave him a deal. The girls at the front desk were too snarky for him. He felt out of place, so he bought a few weights and now lifts in his daughter’s basement.
His son-in-law, Dave, is a nice enough guy and a good provider, but Tommie barely sees him—even though Dave works remotely. Dave begins before breakfast, emerges from his room occasionally for coffee, works through lunch, and often continues late because people on the West Coast need to speak with him. Tommie’s wife died five years ago, and he is grateful to have a place to live. But he knows he is one heart attack or serious illness away from following his friends into a nursing home. Smash the patriarchy.
Before his heart attack, Murray tried taking language classes in Florida. There were 18 women in the class and one other confused-looking man whose wife had made him enroll. Murray enjoyed learning the language, but there was always some woman who wanted to get political in the middle of explaining the subjunctive tense. When the class divided into small groups, Murray realized that he had not joined a community. He had merely been permitted to visit one. People made plans after class that did not include him. Smash the patriarchy.
Murray returned to his old town for a visit before he fell ill. The tavern was gone. The union hall was gone. The bowling league had folded. The hardware store had closed because everyone ordered from Amazon. The synagogue was unrecognizable to him. Murray just wanted to die. Smash the patriarchy.
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He tried going online, but he did not enjoy arguing with strangers who used names other than those they were given at birth. It seemed savage to him. The disagreement was still there, but the nuance, passion, and love were gone. When Murray and Tommie argued, neither was really trying to win. Murray loved Tommie. He missed Tommie.
Meanwhile, public radio convenes a panel of experts on male loneliness. They are puzzled. Men are urged to “reach out” and “start communities,” as if they could instantly rebuild everything that has been taken from them. The tavern was not a drinking hall. It was a temple. The lodge was a family. The church was not only about doctrine. It was about showing up every week, being there for one another and reaching out to the community. The pool table in the corner of Murray’s bar—which he eventually sold on Facebook Marketplace—was a communal rite. It was not really about who was the best pool player, although it was usually Tommie.
Tommie puts on a ball game and discovers that even baseball has been taken away from him. He cannot stand the female broadcasters. There, he said it. He does not want to spend three hours listening to a woman who never played the game explain baseball to him, and he suspects that millions of other men feel exactly the same way but are afraid to say so. I guess this makes him a bad person. But he does not like most of the male broadcasters either. They never shut up, do not understand the game’s rhythms and cannot communicate the action.
There used to be Bob Prince, Harry Caray, Vince Scully, and Ernie Harwell. When they called a game, you were right in the middle of the action. Every ball game was a drama. Now the broadcasters talk endlessly about pitch counts, exit velocity, and on-base percentage without seeming to notice the game taking place in front of them. They suck. Today, there is not even sanctuary in watching baseball. Tommie cannot put on the NBA either. Nobody plays defense, and the commentators sound as though they are hosting an awards show. He wishes he could tell the guys. There was solace in noticing and complaining about how everything was going to hell—together.
There was also Timmy, who had known the Rolling Stones’ road manager for a while. He was fun and knew everything about music and the band scene. Now almost everyone playing in a band is over 60. Murray heard that Timmy opened a used-record store catering to old boomers and curious Gen Z kids. Timmy was probably the happiest of the lot.
Sid’s wife, Carmen, is still alive, but they rarely spend time together. They are more like roommates now. Sid lives in a new town where he does not know anyone. Carmen has adapted nicely. She takes long walks, listens to podcasts, talks to the children and reads. Sid thinks he might write a novel, but he has not decided what it would be about. He wants to travel, but Carmen prefers to stay home, and Sid cannot find anyone who wants to go with him. The kids are working or busy with the grandchildren. Everyone back home either dislikes traveling or is too sick to go. So Sid watches YouTube videos about exotic places alone. Smash the patriarchy.
Murray was the intellectual of the group. He reads and thinks about how this new generation of men may never know what male friendship is. There are almost no spaces left where men can talk quietly and work through the problems of their lives together. An online discussion is not a face-to-face conversation. Young men will never see Roberto Clemente or Ernie Banks play for the love of the game. They will never understand a complete game instead of a “quality start.” They may never see an NBA team play defense.
More importantly, they may never experience the feeling of a few men going off together, perhaps barely saying a word, getting into a fishing boat or walking into a bar with the knowledge that whatever problem they brought with them, someone would listen. Someone would swap stories, refrain from talking over them and actually give a shit. They may never discover what it is like for a political liberal to love a political conservative. They may never know what it means to say that their boss is an asshole—and have someone really listen.
We demolished the places where men learned friendship, loyalty, and responsibility, and then commissioned a study to discover why they were lonely. Smash the patriarchy. We’ve done it. I hope we’re proud of ourselves.
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This content originally appeared on ABSTRACTRUTH Substack.
