Bob raps his knuckles twice on the bar after serving a round of drinks. The sound echoes briefly through the Coq d’Or, a subterranean cocktail lounge in the Drake Hotel. Its grand distinction, aside from Bob, who is, perhaps, as essential to the bar as its dark wood and cherry leather, is the claim of being the first bar in Chicago to open after the repeal of Prohibition. This may or may not be true. What is of most consequence, to me, is the Coq d’Or continues to exist timelessly. Days neither rise nor set. They only maintain a sepia tinged haze of comfortable proximity to where it is you want to be.
“Here comes trouble,” Bob says as my guy and I take seats in front of him.
He already has the basics for my Manhattan in hand, and accepts a nod to confirm my choice of Templeton rye. Bob mixes the aromatic concoction with authority, deftly pouring it over ice and adding three bourbon-soaked cherries to the glass. Like Bob, my drink does not change.
For my guy he pours Booker’s, a small batch bourbon of such deep caramel color it matches the grains of wood on the bar. Bob knocks twice, we tap glasses, and toast to our last stop on the way to summer. I lean into my guy, letting my knees touch his. There is no greater pleasure to me than him in this moment of easy familiarity and forever.
Slowly we sip our cocktails and talk of us. My guy’s eyes are warm, crinkled at the edges when his smile brightens. His sideburns are tinged with the handsome gray he loathes to admit but that I adore. He is at once my equal, my opposite, and my partner, dressed in a slim suit of black on black. Occasionally I fancy us Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, or, when I’m feeling morbidly romantic, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. The ageless fashion of the Coq d’Or makes slipping in and out of yourself an uncomplicated affair.
Mostly though, I enjoy our present. We have earned the privilege of familiarity at this bar, and Bob knows to slide fresh cocktails into our conversation seamlessly. He does the same for the man two seats to my right at the far corner. We have seen him before, a regular even moreso than us, always drinking white wine just outside the realm of conversation. Soft fingers circle his glass. I may never know his name, but I know his gentle face and smooth white blond hair. And if his deliberate tilt and nod in our direction is any indication, then he knows us as well.
This is what I love most about returning to a bar such as the Coq d’Or: making limited connections in strangers the same way I do a bartender. The joy comes from being recognized; the satisfaction is in walking away. There is no need to know each other for more than what we are in these contained moments.
Soon, a jazz trio will balance the atmosphere with vintage melodic notes over the modern conversation. Perhaps they will play Cole Porter and I can tap my fingers on the glossy bar top in time as I might have in another to make the night all the more spectacular. And maybe, if the ice in his glass will resist melting long enough, I can even coax my guy into a brief dance.
Our time is all about potential as we stretch minutes into eternity. It won’t be long before we trade the midnight leather and velvety drinks of the Cod d’Or for the sunlight and fizz of our summer wanderlust. But until then, we sway to our own mystic love, enchanted by the antique charm and luxe treasure of a bar that stands still in time.