Bar Story

"A man walked into a bar," said Joe, and Methos kicked him under the table.

"Heard it."

"How the hell do you know?" asked Joe. The kick hadn't hurt, of course, but it was rude.

"I've heard them all," said Methos. Mac rolled his eyes. He had just joined the table and was trying to catch up; he was sober, and by default, the designated audience, until he could tell stories worse than the other two. "Six years," Mac muttered to himself, and poured more scotch into his glass.

"You haven't heard this one. A man walked into a bar with an alligator...."

"I've heard all the lawyer jokes, too," said Methos. Joe snorted. Mac drank. He decided to take a drink every time Methos lied. Or smiled. Or gave his trademark smirk and pissy squint.

"Not that one. This alligator only has three legs...."

"'Because the rabbit won the bet,'" said Methos. "Told you, I've heard them all." Mac drank.

"Well, I haven't. You tell one, then."

"I don't tell jokes, Joe." It was true, Mac thought. Now, wasn't that funny? You'd think the old guy'd have a million of them.

"Real men tell jokes. Wimpy little sissy girls...."

"Carry swords and take heads." Methos shelled a peanut with exaggerated delicacy, and popped it in his mouth. Mac shrugged and drank.

Joe scowled. "No joke, no beer."

"You have to tell one joke," said Mac. He was a little curious. "What's the oldest one you know?"

Methos shelled another peanut. "You wouldn't think it's funny. It's pretty old."

"Funny's funny. Maybe it's just a rotten joke."

Joe cleared his throat. "I said, No joke, no beer. And I'm not talking any old joke -- I want a bar joke, the oldest bar joke, the first damn bar joke in the world, since you know 'em all."

Methos was out of peanuts. He gave the bar a calculating look, then dusted his hands together, picked up his last, almost-empty bottle, and tipped back his chair. "As it happens, that's also the oldest one I know. A man walked into a bar...."

"Wait a minute," said Joe. "I want to be sure I get the whole experience, here. What bar, where? When?" His fingers clenched around an imagined pencil.

"It's a bar, Joe, it's always the same damn bar." Methos rolled the amber bottle in his hand, his eyes misting, as if contemplating the curving counter, the sawdust floor, of that eternal, thirsty corner of Plato's cave. He sighed, and drank, and began again. "A man," he said, slowly, "walked into a bar in Babylon, holding a frog."

"I think I've heard this one," said Mac.

"No, you haven't," said Methos.

"Okay," said Mac, and Joe gave him a dirty look. Mac drank.

"The man sat at the, uh, let's call it the bar, and put the frog on it, and the bartender said, 'What'll you have, and what's with the frog?'"

"I take it this is a loose translation?"

"I can tell it in the original language. It isn't any funnier, though."

"Humor me; can the modern slang."

"Fine. The proprietor said, 'What can I serve you to drink, strange man, and why do you have that frog with you, that you've placed on my nice, clean equivalent-of-a-modern-day-bar?'"

Mac poured more scotch into his glass, and drank.

"You understand that 'nice, clean' is also an approximation of contemporary...."

"Get on with it." Joe drank, too, and hunkered forward over the table.

"The man said, 'This frog is my only friend. I'll have a beer. I don't know what the frog wants, he's not talking to me today.'" Methos shook his beer bottle, then drained the last drop. "Talking about beer makes me thirsty," he complained. "That's me speaking, not the man in the joke." He looked longingly at the bar. Joe shook his head, and Methos sighed and went back to his story. "The bartender, who was a dull and unfeeling man," (Methos squinted at Joe; Mac drank) "looked at the frog. He came around to where the man was sitting, picked him up by the back of his tunic, and threw him out onto the street. He kicked the frog out after him. 'Go away,' said the bartender. 'You're crazy and your frog is dead.'"

***

Methos tipped his chair forward, got up, and fetched a cold bottle of beer from behind the bar.

Joe stared after Methos. "And I asked him for it."

"Never again," said Mac, taking another drink.

-End-

Note: This happened after Rhi asked for stories beginning "A man walked into a bar..." here. It's also the result of reading Daniel Pinkwater with Highlander on in the background.