The lunch crowd had been meager, curious, and all male. They had stood milling around staring at the walls, as if by some lucky chance the ghost of Luella Katz would come floating down the stairs offering them all a poke, a smoke and a tot of fine bourbon. Diane, thinking on her feet had smiled and said, "Come on up to the bar boys, seeing as it's opening day, your first beer is on the house."
So up they shuffled while Diane passed out beers and with a wink and smile, said, "Now don't you boys be shy, sit yourselves down on these very comfortable stools and let me fix you up with a menu. They had, and she looked over at them after passing out the menus, leaned on the bar and swore in a very conspiratorial tone of voice, "You boys ain't lived till you've had a taste of Mr. Dweezil's southwest cheese burgers. The secret ingredient is hatch chilies."
That was all it took. The boys started eating, the barmaids, started flirting and when it was time to go, they all said they'd be back.
The after work, happy hour crowd was larger and actually contained some lady cats, who after an awkward moment or two, came up to the bar, started ordering and flirting with one or two of the guys standing around.
At seven, even more cats arrived and the tables were filling up fast. Two old timers had commandeered the table closest to the window and set up their checkerboard. When Trixie turned all of the TV's to the Colorado Rockies game, the place came alive with groans and cheers and shouted out bits of unsolicited advice for the umpires.
Things were going better than Dweezil had hoped, when at 8:45, the door opened, the room fell silent, and Jack Katz walked in.
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