Why We Can Never Go Back to Magnolia Cafe

Do you remember 2008? That year was a disgrace birthed from hell’s fetid bowels. At the time, I thought it was the worst of my life. I have since gained some insight.

I do my best to keep things in perspective, even in the moment. Though that is often a taller order than I can sum up, I do think effort matters. So even though death and destruction rained down unto me that year and it only got worse in those to come, some really amazing people happened to me as well.

One of my closest friends once told me that she’d been ruined for relationships because she was always going to be waiting for the Doctor to grab her hand and tell her to run. That’s pretty much what meeting Jenny was like, and this is the story of why we can never go back to Magnolia Cafe.

After attending the first and only hardcore show I’d ever been to with a group of friends, I went along with said ragtag gang of degenerates to our ultimate Austin hotspot: The Side Bar.

Now, this place is the shit. The strength of their drinks serves a practical purpose: you have to douse yourself into a stupor because no matter how pure and kind a person you are in your little unicorn heart, your brain is in serious danger of just shorting out from Ultra-Judgment Overload caused by an eternal parade of terrible facial hair and unwashed Austinites trying to out-fug one another as a badge of ultimate coolness. I mean all of this warmly. There’s Al Green on the jukebox and if you get there early enough, the bartenders let you help them pick what’ll play on the TVs. It’s always something bizarre, in my experience. So don’t get me wrong, this is a sacred and beloved haven. It, like this city, bewilders, perplexes, and sometimes even delights me. 

The reason Jenny became so irascibly drunk on Malibu and Coke (the old signature drink) is because mixed drinks at Side Bar are only roughly seven percent mix and almost all drink. There is an urbandictionary entry for ‘sidebar pour’, and countless Austin residents have fallen prey to a dirt-cheap glass or five of jet fuel, so we can hardly blame her. She’s about no-foot-nothin’ in heels, so once it’s saturated into her, there’s nowhere for it to be channeled but belligerence. Jenny’s sort of like Tinker Bell. She’s so small she only has room for one (drunk) feeling at a time. So when that feeling is feisty, and - spoiler alert: it invariably is, things get interesting. 

This adventure occurred before I actually lived in Austin. I’d never been to Magnolia, a well-known local establishment, but luckily I had the foresight to request an outdoor table. (Foresight is my blood type.) It’s worth mentioning that though in our current universe and timeline, I am one of the only people who can talk to an irrational little drunk forest sprite, this was not the case then. I was barely allowed to make eye contact lest it be perceived as a threat and I befall a terrible (if tiny) smiting. 

So we sit outside, per my suggestion, and I am next to another new friend I have made (and fallen immediately, desperately, and horribly in love with). Can you imagine trying to kick some game at a fine blonde while four feet eleven of sassy drunk bitch is yelling FUCK YOU I DON’T NEED WATER and making long-distance calls to Canada a few seats down? I’m trying to have a civilized meal and make some googly eyes, but Jenny has other ideas. 

Have you ever tried to lay the mack down while your future BFF is retching at the other end of the table, teetering precariously forward on her chair? It’s fairly challenging to keep one’s eyes bedroomy when your new homechick is plummeting grill-first into a vom-moat she created for herself on the outdoor deck of a restaurant. 

More challenging than even that, though, is hiding one’s bewilderment when she proceeds to do it a second time. 

This is one of those incredible moments in my life during which I am simultaneously the most amused I have ever been... and the most horrified. We all know that pretty much nobody who has ever worked at a restaurant gets paid enough to have to clean up some drunk asshole’s puke. We were not the first unruly group of ne’er-do-wells to descend upon this establishment like a plague, I know. This place is open 24 hours. These people see the scourge of our decadent society on a daily basis. So on the one hand: I virulently do not want to be a part of the pestilence. But on the other: this drunk hussy just puked and fell in it. Twice. 

The non-drunk among us (myself and the aforementioned fine blonde I am trying to zap with rays from my ultra high-powered Flirt-a-Tron 6000) offer to clean up, but we are of course rebuffed, so instead we write and illustrate a thank you/OH MY GOD WE ARE SO SORRY note to affix to our bill and personally tip as heavily as we can afford to and still make the trek back to our home cities. 

I didn’t see Jenny again for a couple of months after that, and a couple of months is plenty of time for one’s life to fall completely to shit. But the next time I did, we grabbed each other’s hand and started running. We haven’t really stopped since. 

(We also drew facial hair, unibrows, and song lyrics on each other with eyeliner, but that’s a story for another day.)