Drinking like it's My Job
by Jake Kulju | photography by Renee Chartier

3pm

I was determined to be the first of the day's patrons at Nick-A-Nee's, a corner pub with a great jukebox, a toasty woodstove and a friendly dog. I'd set out to see what a dive bar in Providence is like from open to close. Despite my eager-beaverness, I was greeted by a few barflies already hunkering their shoulders over half-empty tumblers of whiskey. Finding it hard to blend in with the early regulars (you practically have to be born in a bar in Providence to be considered a regular), I took a seat near the back wall and nursed a Narragansett tallboy, trying in vain to be inconspicuous.

4:30pm

I look up from reading a magazine to see that a table is taken, and the neon beer signs are surreptitiously blinking on. As the workday ends, the slap of the door becomes more frequent. On cue, the music turns to dirty blues, classic rock and rolling guitar rhythms: Neil Young, Aerosmith, BB King.

5:30pm

The storm has broken, and the room has really become a bar. The noise of the crowd rivals the music, and the dim inside lights are brighter than the falling night outside. People who have been working half their lives come here for a few drinks after work. It is Friday, after all.

6pm

The after work crowd has an hour's worth of beer in their bellies. Loud whoops issue from back tables and pool balls crack as frequently as the clinking of ice cubes in drink glasses. The crowd fills the bar in an even distribution and I am frowned upon for occupying a table to myself. This is what you call "cookin" - people refilling their glasses, a line at the jukebox, the bathroom doors swinging open and closed constantly.

7pm

Now the first to leave are putting on their coats, saying "we should do this again," and going home to supper with rosy cheeks. Some tables are opening up, and slow blues is coming through the speakers. The work crowd has ebbed; the night has not yet begun.

8pm

We're back down to a dozen people, a new pool game is racked up, and someone is finally drunk and upset.

9:30pm

Noise level is up. Some newcomers who look ready for the duration have arrived with fresh faces. Most people are at least mildly intoxicated, including myself. The familiar barroom scenes of bad dancing, a couple on an obvious first date, and stacked quarters on the pool table are present.

Midnight

Things get a little more adventurous. Behind the back pool shots, cologne, and people making out pepper the room. The dusty pinball machine gets some love from some tight-jeaned, shaggy-haired hipsters.

1am

Shouts from drunken patrons. An upturned purse. A stumbling apology and equally stumbling assistance from other drunken bystanders ushers in the last hour of the night. The bartenders start corralling people to the bottoms of their glasses and ends of their pool games, and give me sidelong glances, hoping I'll finally peel myself from my table and head out. I eventually do, letting the cold city air and humming streetlights usher me back into the outside world.