Editors’ note: The opinions and ideas expressed in The Accidental Gentrifist are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook and belief of anyone else in the Ist network.

In 2002 I was a bartender downtown. I started out working slower shifts, and the bar was within walking distance from a handful of hotels. So I’d usually end up serving at least a few new faces.

Four or five Sundays in a row, I noticed the same gentleman sitting by himself, always in the same seat at the end of the bar. He was perfectly average: white male, early middle-age, polite, about six feet tall with a little paunch. Unobtrusive. In fact, the only odd thing about him was the heroic amount of whiskey the man could put down without staggering out the front door wearing his own vomit. Each Sunday, he easily threw back seven or eight double Bushmills on the rocks. Every time. Then waltzed out like he was going to testify before Congress. He was an absolute champ.

Remember your uncle Marvin? Your mom’s unmarried brother who drank a half case of Hamm’s and two-fifths of Beam every day of his life, and never showed a sign of it affecting him until that time he sobbingly tried to blow his brains out with a Daisy air rifle behind the garage? This guy could drink like that.

I know, I know, but don’t get me wrong—I was never one to over-serve. This guy could just put it down. Plus, of the little I knew about him, I knew he was from out of town, married, and I could rest assured he was only going to stroll three blocks to a hotel bed. Unless of course he was just killing time until his escort showed up.

Anyway, on the fifth (and what proved to be the last) night, I offered to buy him a shot as he paid his tab and got ready to take off. He looked at his wristwatch and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I just passed my deadline.”

Confused, I asked him if he had to get up early in the morning. If he was some kind of salesman or something.

“No,” he said, laughing. “I’m a pilot.”