It’s not the last night, but the melancholy is thicker then the cigarette smoke that hangs in the air like a cloudy blue curtain.

I am perched behind the bar like every Friday night from September to April for the past eight years. Smoochy from the Bowling Stones is sitting in the corner booth behind lane one, recording some kind of commentary.

Since it’s roll-offs and only four teams are participating, it’s quieter then usual, giving me too much time to reflect. I’m overcome with the urge to be nice to everyone who comes and asks for a beer. But I worry that my niceness will frighten the bowlers. They will fear for my health.

Nobody is annoying me and I have to fight the desire to pet and hug each of them as they come up for beer or pizza.

“She’s not a bartender, she’s a writer,” Scott from Scott’s Auto Body shouts from lane three every time someone approaches the bar. He is convinced that I am in the midst of writing the great American novel. This is only after three years of telling him that I wasn’t, in fact, a teacher.

The bowlers are tense, knowing that this very well could be their last beer frame of the second game, their last turkey in the tenth. Only two teams will bowl next week, though I will be surprised if the house isn’t full with onlookers and well-wishers. After all, next week really is the last frame.