By Seth Amos

*The Long Wait is a letter series celebrating our favorite gathering places, in support of raising proceeds for the 86Fund.*

Created by Fyrn in San Francisco.

Doodling at the bar, photo by Seth Amos

March 16, 2021

I was new to Brooklyn when I first heard about you. I must admit, images of A Clockwork Orange came to mind: barbiturate-laced milk, bands of “droogs,” Beethoven’s Ninth. But I knew, even with all of the city’s niche joints, that would be a tough sell. I kept you in my back pocket, and one day a long walk brought us together.

I liked you immediately. (Please forgive the past tense, I am still unsure what will become of you after this year of chaos, loss, and change.) You were honest from the beginning. You weren’t trying too hard. You did a few things and did them well. Your food equaled your drink. You knew that a good bar makes itself and has little to do with graffiti and vintage tchotchkes. On this first visit, I took a corner stool. Brick wall to my right. The bartender told me the happy hour special: $5 Old Fashioneds and a deal on a burger and fries with a free Coors Banquet. This quickly became ritual.

I tend toward whim, not schedule. I don’t often keep regular hours, but something about you inspired a kind of order in me. Every Wednesday I walked the twenty minutes from my front door to yours. I took this as a chance to call my parents, hoping their knowledge of my destination might prepare them for the goodbye. At some point they started answering the phone saying, “Are you on your way to Moloko?” I planned to arrive as close to opening time as possible, so I could be sure my corner stool was free. I would have a couple Old Fashioneds, then a burger and fries and my free squat-bottle Coors.

Like every restaurant, and in some bars, each seat had a number. Mine was Bar 1. It was a simple wooden thing. Round. Backless. Light and sturdy. Not overly comfortable, but my boots easily, almost instinctively, found the footrest. The stool itself was secondary, perhaps even tertiary, to its position and its view. My back to the door, I was able to see people only once they found their seats and slowly, if subconsciously, disarmed themselves. I found myself also disarmed, and enjoyed this subset of the world as it came close yet remained at a slight remove.

Eventually, and usually with a little liquid courage, I crawled out of my shell, but I kept to my corner. I could engage, or I could be invisible. I spied on first dates. I eavesdropped on drunken chatter. I tried to understand why people came to you for salad. I studied the various ways people ate chicken wings and burgers. This was all stored in my head, notes that never served any purpose, except as fodder for the fascination I have, at a distance, with my fellow human beings.

You introduced me to one of my best friends. He was one of your bartenders, only worked Wednesdays, closing shift. As we got to know each other, my regular hours increased, as did my appearances. When he had a free moment, he brought his shift-sipper over to Bar 1 and sat on the lowboy so we could talk while he kept a keen eye out for empty tumblers and balled up napkins. Often, he would refill my glass without asking, or simply check with a look and a nod that my session was not over. I once sat there from open to close. A stack of doodled coasters. A finished book. A color in my cheek. A slight ache in my back. A smile on my face. Through him, I made another Brooklyn friend, and together we formed a writers group that has met once a week, missing the odd one here and there, for the past three years. Thank you for that.

The connections continued. You became host to ad hoc symposiums of rapscallions, troubadours, libertines: poets, playwrights, filmmakers, dancers, actors, painters—the gamut. Conversations flowed. Court held. Discussions around literature, politics, philosophy, The Beatles, and whether or not we should have another.

I’ve thought about you a lot this year. The melted cheese, raw onion, and potato bun. The Angostura bitters and well whiskey. The condensation beading on the brown bottle of a beer, running down and soaking a white square napkin. Watching the bar fill up, the crescendo of conversations blending into each other. I’ve had to come up with new excuses to get off phone calls, none of them as good as you. I have not been able to people-watch or scribble on coasters or sip a beer only drinkable because it’s free or feel an evening spontaneously turn into the wee hours of morning. I don’t know if we will get the chance to share such experiences again. I’ve heard rumors that we might not. If we do, please save my seat.

Seth Amos

Seth Amos is cofounder and former poetry editor of Rivet: The Journal of Writing That Risks. His writing has been published in or is forthcoming from Tin House, The Fourth River, The Canopy Review, Poetry Flash, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.

Moloko has permanently closed, and is missed in the neighborhood.

If this letter stirred memories of an experience you've had at Moloko, share it with us in the comments.

Or contribute to the 86Fund which is providing grants to bridge restaurants through this period.

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