The Black Forest, Downtown Eugene.

It looks like this place has been closed for at least a year. The windows outside are dark, and a man and woman were lingering outside when I approached. The man’s face is tanned, dirty, and his red shirt was almost brown.

“How you doin’?’ he asked, as I locked my bike to one of the ample bike racks in front of the bike store next door. I note his appearance and decide not to respond. Instead, I pull open the wood-covered door.

“You should describe this place as dank and musty,” Alec says, after I dutifully explain that I am here to write a travel blog about downtown Eugene. He has short blond hair, blue eyes, and a snarky, over-confident nasal voice. It seems like he screams “chemistry major” from every pore of his body, but I think that happened only after I found out what he was majoring in. He’s quiet until you ask him one question that he really thinks he can answer. (Topics vary from drugs to chemistry formulas, Israel to the Onion).

“I come here because of Sasha,” Thomas says. He sits in the stool to Alec’s right, and I take the one next to him. His black hair is in a messy bun, his gaze firmly fixed on the fish tank above the bar. Sasha is the big catfish — approximately one foot long — swimming lazily back and forth along with two other fish half her size, and a few smaller ones more along the normal fish-tank-fish size. The name “Mickey” is written in pink across the front of the tank, but none of the fish are actually named Mickey.

“Can I see you’re ID, hon?” the bartender asks, after Thomas finishes quizzing him about the fish’s livelihoods. As usual, I fumble with my wallet to pull out my ID. Someday, I’ll get a wallet with an ID sleeve that’s easier to maneuver. But as long as I’m living in Eugene, and going to bars like the Black Forest, the amount of shame I feel at wasting a bartender’s time is not motivation enough.

Some kind of 80s music is playing at a medium dull hum, just a little bit louder than some lady at the bar’s yells. I realize I first saw her outside the door — with the man who in split judgement mode I would call Sketchy. She wears a clean white blouse, and her hair looks like it was done in elegant curls a few days ago and then slept on. She is trying to sing along to the music, but her voice is painful to listen to. She is not in the same mental space as the rest of us. Alec, however, orders another shot. He’s headed her way.

“Mickey’s dead.” Alec says, suddenly passionate enough so that I hear his voice over the bar din. I’ve missed some conversation, because not many people are used to talking over someone else trying to put together a cohesive story while they hang out at a bar. Thomas and Alec had reverted to talking about the fish tank again. They have now concluded that Mickey’s name is on the fish tank because his body is there no longer. He hit the toilet bowl, and is for now memorialized at the Black Forest.

There are exactly 20 brightly lit screens that make the Black forest not so black. Keno machines enliven the black bar counter, video lottery screens brighten the hallway to the bathroom. The bathroom’s alcohol-intense pee smell drifts occasionally out into the rest of the dark bar, but never in a constant enough draft to be absolutely unpleasant. A band is beginning to set up, but Alec and Thomas say it is time to go.

“I only come here for the fish,” Thomas says. I wouldn’t believe him, but I know that he’s telling the truth because the Black Forest hardly ever even advertises the bands that they host in the Eugene Weekly. And the Eugene Weekly posts advertisements for “Yoga with Dave!” and “Overeaters Anonymous”. Bars like this are only good to come to if you need some serious introspection, some serious self-removal, or have some really weird friends.

 

The Black Forest is at 50 East 11th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97401.