By Aja Viafora
Jack and Ginger Ale is the drink of choice for Jon of Bison Witches on Mill Avenue. This 27-year-old bartender got his first bar job in a bar at age 20. While attending school at U of A, Jon encountered a night on the job at O’Malley’s in Tucson that would become his greatest story.
Jon working at Bison Wells
It was Ladies Night at O’Malley’s and the bar was super packed. Jon said the bar was five to six people deep and he was whizzing back and forth helping customers like a typewriter. Jon was helping this “chick” when she told him that the guy next to her was next.
The guy, “had his eyes closed and was playing the air guitar, rocking out,” Jon said.
He wasn’t paying attention so Jon skipped him and went to attend to a “pretty little blonde.”
“I felt someone grab my arm and I flung my arm in the air and his [the air guitar man] hand smacked the shit out of himself,” Jon said.
Jon grabbed two drinks for some more ladies and Mr. Air Guitar told Jon to “... off.” Jon made a rebuttal with a full force spat of cussing then turned to the girl next to him and said, “here’s your drinks sweetheart.”
There was no doorman that night so, Jon thought, “This is awesome. I’m all excited because I get to throw this guy out.”
Jon came up from behind the guy who was unaware of Jon’s intentions.
“I put him in a headlock and pulled him up over the stool,” Jon said. Mr. Air Guitar tried to wriggle out so Jon just grabbed on tighter.
“I gave him a half nelson like no other,” Jon said. “He wasn’t going anywhere.”
Jon dragged the guy through the bar toward the exit. It was raining outside so the potholed ground was filled with water. Chuckling to himself at how ingeniously his plan had worked out, Jon pushed the guy into the door to open it.
“I threw him into the water and he fell into the puddle,” Jon said. Jon walked back into the bar feeling accomplished and his ego was boosted up again when the girl who was seated next to Mr. Air Guitar stares at Jon with wide eyes. As she gawked at Jon, she slid him her phone number, and Jon was the man of the night.
“Busy nights are fun,” Jon said.
Epilogue: Jon never called the girl from the bar who gave him her phone number because he didn’t really talk to her or get to know her and he was afraid she was too drunk to remember who he was, etc. He didn’t want to feel like an, “… goon” as he so poetically put it.
Bison Witches: As far as his current job at Bison Witches goes, Jon said the bar is, “a little more mellow,” though not without its perks. A few celebrities have been sighted in Bison Witches including Arturo Moreno (owner of the Anaheim Angels) and Steve Nash.