Pour Choices: Tales from Tahoe and Beyond

By Tofer Wade

"Pour Choices" is a story about people and relationships. It is about being human, learning, and growing. This is a story about our friend Nick and his life growing up in the small town of Incline Village in Lake Tahoe. A breathtaking coming of age story, this book shares the defining episodes of a young man's life and the people, relationships, and community who led him to a higher Sierra – and more importantly, back down to reality. "For it is nothing to be holy. Alone. Atop a mountain".

Through his eyes, we see Nick's struggle to discover personal identity through performance on the field, then foregoing the life of a professional athlete in exchange for establishing and running the only authentic pub in his hometown. From the hilarious to the heart-wrenching, these are the episodes of his life-altering losses, loves, and the profound complexities of being human.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667818818

Book preview

Title

Pour Choices

©2021, Tofer Wade

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in

any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for

the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-09839-591-9

eISBN: 978-1-6678188-1-8

For Dad

1933 - 2011, but you’ll find his true self still existing in these fictional pages

For Mum

who has supported me unfailingly, in every possible way, since giving me life in 1965

For All

you personalities out there who have helped inspire life to these characters

And for Yavon

for her undying generosity, encouragement, and Love through the creation of this novel

CONTENTS

PRESENT DAY

The Lake

The Heart

The People

The Pub

The Brewery and the Bee

Dad

Dad & Mary

Chad

Doc

Chad, the Knife, and a Pint Glass

Aftermath

LOOKING BACK

Privates

The Puddle

Yo-Yo Ego

Senior Year: Football & Homecoming

Winter Break

Baseball

The Answer Not Taken

Lil Sis

Jess, Interrupted

PRESENT DAY

ER

Sage Heals

More Gifts

Ashes to Ashes

Dad Speaks

Discovered

The First Two

Mary and Dave

PatchMan Returns

Caught

Regret

Dust & Flies

Too Soon?

Gordon

Darnell

Thrift Store

Darnell Joins the Family

Music

Goodbye, Michelle

Lydia

Memorial

Selling

The Lawn

Jess, Revisited

Back in the Pub

Regulars

The Mother in Law?

Questions

The Accident

Visit #2

More P.C. Routine

Visit #3

History

Church

Visit #4

More P.C.

PatchMan and Sage

Visit #5: The News

Darnell and Some Dave

Renown Hospital

Jess, Liberated

Dave & Mary

Renown #2

Back to P.C.

Fred & Renown

Gordon Returns

Dream

Renown #4

Robert

Skye

Robert & Sage

Robert & Sage: Part 2

A New Path

More Renown, #5

Again to Pour Choices

Cisk

Down to Renown, #6

Renown: Darnell and The End

A NEW BEGINNING

Gracie

Pour Choices’ Baton Passing

Nepal

Uniting

The Lesson

PRESENT

DAY

THE LAKE

Dad is destined to survive me. Thirty-five years my senior. He scoffs at the odds. Says I’m the athlete in the family (which is just the two of us). But he’s the one who exercises faithfully, is sensible with his diet, visits a Naturopath regularly, and happily pops down a couple dozen organic supplements daily. I remind him how my heart now circulates the red stuff only with the aid of a pig valve—I love my Piggy.

This aortic reminder worries him. "Son, I need you to take better care of yourself."

Oh God yeah, Dad. You know me.

He smiles, Yes, I do. So, what did you eat today, Nick?

Only healthy stuff. Always.

"I mean solid food."

Oh. That. Ummm, well…

By Nevada state law, I am allowed to consume fifty drinks on a bartending shift. That’s a big 5 - 0. I fucking love Nevada. Growing up in the paradise of Lake Tahoe did not suck. The bluest blue and the moodiest steel grey, depending on the state of its varied relationship with the sky each day. It is impactful enough that my own emotional state flows with the visual.

Voted best drinking water in the country. Enough of that pristine liquid in our eleven by twenty-two mile pool to drown the entire state of California in fifteen inches of water. The Empire State Building planted at its bottom wouldn’t breach the surface. Forty trillion gallons of water. So, a gallon jug is about a foot tall. It’s only 1.3 billion (with a b) feet to the stinking moon. Tahoe’s water could travel there 300 times with those 1.3 billion gallon jugs stacked, each trip. Sweet Baby Jesus—that’s a heckload! This Lake is my life-long Buddy; I must brag over Her.

Sadly, with my second Ex, I had to fritter away a few years in Seattle, which holds its own beauty with the San Juan Islands and Mt. Rainier. But Nature long ago planted the grandeur of Here in my soul. Up there, we bartenders would habitually congregate around 3 p.m. to worship at the altar of shots, edifying ourselves to soon convert respective patrons to accept the Lord Jack D. into their hearts. Truth, I hate how the hard stuff assumes command over the body so quickly and wholly. So I’ve learned to control myself, mostly, with the relative tameness of beer. Anyway, no drinking of any kind on a shift was allowed up in the Northwest. Pathetic. Oh, hear how thankful I am to be back in my home state, at the Lake, where I openly imbibe all the free brews I need to endure my daily turn at my very own pub, Pour Choices.

THE HEART

I awake to my Apple Watch signaling my heart slipped into Atrial Fibrillation. That’s when it decides to beat in a syncopated rhythm. Every time it happens, I sense it drumming off beat. So, the watch is unnecessary. Just cool. Resting rate now 150 beats per minute, skipping one every six or seven. I climb the stairs to the medicine cabinet and am winded as if I ran a 5K. I rub my chest while knowing it does nothing to ease the discomfort or sharp pain. This frequent burden is not relieved with a big sigh. Once in a while, the meds rescue me from an outing to the local ER. Not this time. I am there so often the hospital gives me bulk discounts on cardioversions—drug me out, electric shock paddles to restart my heart back to normal rhythm, drug me alive.

I arrive at the teeny Tahoe Forest Hospital, they usher me quickly to the room, since there are no other patients, So how’s that smokin’ hot wife of yours? I ask the doctor.

Smiling, he puts his stethoscope to my chest. She puts up with me, Nick.

That’s the truth! You sure married up, Randy. How was it that you hooked Cindy, anyway? The doctor prestige? The money? Got her pregnant?

Ha! I’m going to cardiovert you without anesthesia if you keep going.

Yeah, actually, that’s a great idea. Can’t we just do this thing one time without putting me under?

"I was kidding, Nick. Believe me. You really do not want to be awake for this."

Alrighty, then. I guess you know bestest. My eyes roll till he must see only the whites. But will Cindy be holding my hand when I wake up?

THE PEOPLE

Six hours later, I’m at Pour Choices. Heart shit always wipes me out. But I am here. Obligated because the regulars jokingly refer to me as their local hero for creating this beloved refuge for our community. There are other total dive bars specializing in Bud, Coors Light, PBR, claustrophobia, and second-hand smoke infestation persuading you to burn your clothes after a visit. But Pour Choices is the first craft brew pub established in our little Incline Village since the town’s birth in the 1960s.

All our beers are created from that pure Tahoe water by our master brewer, Dave. 5’6", 135 pounds. A Pitt Bull of twenty-eight human years. Total Irish badass with a full red beard cascading like a mini-Niagara down to his sternum. Sculpted like a weeny-David of Michelangelo, adorned with tattoos. Like, everywhere. Probably has one on his dick. Even when someone towers a foot higher and weighs in a hundred pounds beyond his stature, nobody messes with Dave.

Sage, my only other employee, is a total hippy Texas Girl. I’m grateful to say she, like Dave, embodies the old-school work ethic. Wholly has my trust when I’m not behind the bar (and gets far better tips even though I keep telling myself that I must do something better than she). Early thirties. Maybe five feet on her tippiest of toes. Sometimes blue, sometimes orange, presently rainbow-colored hair. I’m color blind and can only see two colors in Nature’s rainbow, but I can see three in hers. It suits her. I don’t know why, really, I’m usually curious about such things, but I’ve never asked about her natural hair color. I do know her eyes, though. They’re a shade my eyes can actually see. Big and bright and hypnotizing green as the beloved Ponderosa Pines around the Lake are to me. Yep, she’s cute as a puppy’s nose, and creative as Van Gogh (my favorite). Funny, Dave has mentioned that he considers her, with a shrug of the shoulders, quite average looking. Take her or leave her and leaning toward the latter if given a choice. He even has echoed some of the regulars’ conversations that she could really use a bit of make up. And I just think, assholes! What’s wrong with you?

Anyway, I think she’s adorable as is. I love the natural look. Very petite, especially for the force she can emit from such a small frame. With her sweet Texas accent, interactions between her and Dave are often heard with the contrasting flavors of Sage saying, Hey! Ya dumb-ass bitch… get the hell out from behind my bar!

Dave’s head bowed, Sorrry, Sage.

"Yeah. You wanna damn beer, I pour it. Get your tiny butt in back and brew your shit."

Yes, Ma’am, he sarcastically drawls.

With a subtle curl on her lips and equal sarcasm, Awww, bless your lil heart.

"Hey! Can I just say that it’s my shit that makes you money out here?"

Of course you can, honey. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. Turning to me, but within his earshot, If that boy’s brains were leather, he couldn’t saddle a flea.

You gonna stand up for me, Nick?

I shake my head and smile.

Turning and announcing to Dave, It never ceases to amaze me that they drink your brews, but then I recall, Sage, duh. It’s your charm, not his beer that keeps the lights on.

Sage and I are around the same age. A couple years either way. We have a very casual thing. The kind with benefits. She would say, We’ve been hitchin’, but not churchin’. I could’ve gone back and teased the possibility of our almost getting together here, or a brush against the other with electricity there. Build the tension—which is what happened over the first year. But it’s today. And we’re in full-on bonk mode.

I secretly wonder sometimes what it would be like to be more than casual. But I embrace what we have because it’s so easy and she’s an amazing human being. And, she’s fine with the arrangement. It took a year of working together until the night she finally noticed me checking her out—something I had been doing covertly since day one. So all that culminated in this: She called me on it, and I said, Well, what’s a poor guy to do when a prime work of art is present before him?

She walked toward me and kissed me like a pent-up impassioned movie scene. The rest is, as I think they say, a predicted outcome of an auspicious beginning.

We double up on the bartending, Thursdays through Sundays, to handle the extra brew traffic. At midnight, we turn the sign to Not Open. Amazing how quick the closing chores are list-crossed knowing a late night delight is our reward. Mopping and pint glasses are foreplay. We nearly run to the back brewery. We discovered that a keg atop a pallet is the perfect height. Stash a special pillow for her bum. Dave found it after a careless concealment. Holding it with both hands and sniffing it knowingly, he asks, So. Nick. What might you use this for?

THE PUB

My door (only one) opened in the summer of 2013, following a couple years of searching and begging for funding. Fortunately, there is little shortage of obscenely wealthy people here who value fine brews and have fun money accounts with literally hundreds of thousands available for flippant spending. I’m not kidding. So, yeah, when I think of them, I’m a shade of green, too. Anyhow, it took nearly fifty years till my hometown had this real, non-dive, and non-smoking public house.

Though generous to a fault, Dad tells me in mild frustration—I admit he should have more—that since I graduated high school, he’s forked out around $200,000 for my college expenses, down payment on my condo, and now this pub. He’s not in membership among the club of those obscenely wealthy, but of course he contributed to my start-up, anyway.

This is it, Son. Early inheritance is gone. I’m pretty much living month to month now.

Jesus, Dad. I’m so sorry! I feel like a complete, selfish asshole. He’s never called me on anything like this.

Putting a hand on my shoulder, "Just make this happen, Nick. You’re running out of chances."

This’s my dream job. Last career, I say as I wonder how long my heart will cooperate. I’ll work my ass off. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. Now, I question if I really believe this. But know it doesn’t matter either way, I’ve stranded myself here.

Pour Choices is hushed of customer commotion for the moment. I’m grateful for the peace while still recovering from this morning’s hospital zap. All I hear from the back brewery is the noise of Dave and Sage at it, You Irishmen above using a stinking broom? I mean, it’s not like trying to put socks on a rooster.

I imagine Dave pausing to imagine that task.

I. Uh.

Sweep up the goddamn hops. It makes my bar smell like an old horse barn!

In a whiny tone, Yes, ma’am.

Oh, go doodle yourself, motherfucker.

Don’t mind if I do.

I chuckle. Sage and I never talk to each other like that, but one of her favorite pastimes is ragging Dave’s ass, all in fun. Anyway, I’m relieved they’re in back and occupied. My energy level doesn’t return for hours after being dead for an eye-blink in the hospital—guess I can’t complain. Better’n a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, Dad taught me. I take a stool. Look around. And reflect how he also provided in another way. I note to myself, again, what beautiful and professional work Dad did creating my pub. Knowing his past and passion for working as an engineer and his private interest in architecture, I easily convinced him to design my space.

The tables and the bar, or the rail, itself are stunning. One of my investors discovered these nostalgic timbers on craigslist for a buck a foot. They had been buried, and somehow preserved, in our arid mountain climate for decades. These old-growth hewn logs are a legit 6 thick by 14 wide. They were hewn at a time when a guy would say he had 6" and actually have it. Two bound together with steel rods through the sides, and antique hardware on the ends every yard or so, produce imposing tables eight men together would all tweak their backs trying to lift. Hardy beams contrast with cold, economical aluminum stools that not so sweetly lullaby your bum into a numb dreamland.

THE BREWERY AND THE BEE

My beloved brewery room. An unexpectedly welcoming place. It’s spic, and even mostly span. Especially for such an environment—because spilt beer smells like vomit. And it’s light. Five large windows network three of four walls with our neighbors and customer parking in the back lot. It’s unfinished. Veteran, raw, handsawn timbers. Raw cement floor. The kinda place that inspires you to get down to some serious work.

I’m standing, well leaning, over my old-school workbench at waist level. Had long existed when I moved into this 1914-built space. When it’s just me and all is very quiet, I hear this old building wrestling with the earth—after all this time, seeking to find its final resting place. It has seen a century’s worth of various families’ memories. I think the prior residents, who used this space as a home first and others later as a metal shop, must’ve all been cool people, as there’s not even a hint of a negative vibe in the place. I know. That sounds a bit foofey-woofey. But I happen to believe in the foofey-woofey.

Since I remodeled—actually, I’m Mr. Unhandy—so since the studly construction guys reworked this shop into a micro brewery, it’s been an escape for me when Dave’s not around. My office, the size of a walk-in closet, is a space that has a place for everything and everything is in its place. Well, almost Dad. You taught me well, and I’m still striving to live up to your practical life pedagogies. But wait. Hold on. This is out of place. A bee. A honeybee. Perched on a stack of pint glass boxes.

It’s ready to strike. I freeze. I recall stepping on a bumbler when playing tag with Mary, my childhood friend, on our school’s baseball field. What was it doing hiding in the grass, anyway? Idiot bee. Damn, it hurt. Dad scraped out the stinger with a quarter. Weird. Why a quarter? I had forgotten that.

Why aren’t you moving, Mr. Bee? You’re kinda creepy just standing there, staring at me. You can’t be dead, too? Okay. It’s late Spring (I know this technically shouldn’t be capitalized, but I disagree—think of days of the week, months, etc. How much more, seasons?). Hey, do you bees hibernate? I should’ve listened in entomology class in college. At least Boy Scouts. But back then, I was too preoccupied with the stress of attempting to not pee myself when we’d play an intense game of hide and seek on the vast, dark playground. Thanks to goodness our troop master was inordinately lax and I could untuck the sinfully unstylish brown shirt subsequent to an unhappy penis percolation. Took me till I was nearly twelve to overcome that little nervous release. I can’t believe I just mentioned that. But it was only a wee squirtage. A dark spot the size of a dime.

Well, Dude. No peein’ today. No SireeBee—That was bad, I know. Are you okay, Bud? Is there somethin’ I can do for ya? Maybe you’ve been imprisoned back here too long and are nothing more than weak from hunger? Am I discerning a faint nod? How’d you know what I was saying? An English-speaking bee, no way…. why not?

"Alrighty, then. I’m not gonna hurt you, little Man. You’re definitely less voluptuous than other bees I’ve encountered, so I’m taking a stab at your gender. Forgive me if I’m wrong. No frets, I’m just gonna gingerly lift your box and take you outside."

I set the box with him still standing regally upon his cardboard throne, outside my office on a pallet of hop sacks. Hmmm, little friend, what to do... What to do? Aha! Honey! Duh, it’s not just what Pooh craves. Hold on, Mr. Bee. Don’t go anywhere!

I race into the brewery’s break room, duck (how many times has my 6’ 3" self forgotten to do so, ahhh!) under the non-rounded, but Hobbit-height door (perfect for Dave). Is he gonna still be there when I get back? Where’s the stinkin’ honey? I don’t eat the stuff. Gives me a headache. Oh, yeah…. on the same shelf as the salt! Himalayan mineral salt. Could it really be all the way from those distant Nepalese mountains? My mind’s eye conjures a caravan of yaks with burlap sacks filled with the stuff, trekking nonchalantly down the rocky trails of the foothills. An ocean of mammothly dazzling white peaks ripple off into the foreground.

I really must go there someday.

I see a bee flying around a yak’s face, irritating it. A Yakherd robed in the classic chuba discourages