Alibis
It’s happy hour at Alibis and I’m immediately bombarded with southern drawls and trans inclusion. There is about to be an impromptu watch party of the Miss USA pageant, and one of the MCs has a mic at the end of the bar, holding court with quips and jokes. The crowd seems joyful and familiar with each other, small but mighty. The patrons are almost exclusively white and mostly on the younger side.
Alibis has already put up Halloween decorations and there are bowls of candy on the bar. The walls are deep green painted wood, covered in Alibis paraphernalia and posts from past events. They host A League of Their Own watch parties and there is a poster displaying Alibis' 2022 Prom King and Queen. Like all good Dyke bars, there is a pool table and darts.
From the outside, Alibis is a nondescript black building, a trend I’m noticing particularly down south. Inside, it feels like your favorite dive with a queer flair. The bartender/owner rocks tight space buns, undercut, and a jack-o-lantern sweatshirt.
There is an extensive menu of non-alcoholic cocktails and beers, featuring Ritual Zero Proof. Low and no-ABV cocktails have been on the rise lately, and I appreciate seeing queer bars follow suit. There is also a solid beer list and even a coffee bar menu, complete with a diner-style coffee pot behind the bar.
The patrons are mostly dressed in the same kind of hyper casual we’ve been seeing the past few days; jeans, tees, and sneakers, but a few folks are dressed for the Miss USA watch party in bowties and body con. The two MCs are wearing a white sports coat and a red low-cut jumpsuit, respectively.
I would easily guess that half the bar is trans, and there are only 12 people here. Those are better stats than almost any bar I’ve been to so far, except for maybe As You Are. It’s a quiet Monday night, but everyone seems to be friends with everyone else, easily making conversation with whomever they are sitting next to.
Behind the pool table, the back wall is covered in chalk- signatures, sketches, even two detailed portraits of naked women. When given the chance, people will always leave their mark. They will always claim “I was here, I am making my mark,” even if that just means writing your name in chalk.
Outside the patio is a dusty dirt lot, fenced in from the neighbors, with cheeky signs serving as decor. The regulars all smoke together around a large table, complaining about the caliber of this year’s pageant. Apparently, these girls are not up to snuff from previous years. A large fairy land mural dominates the back wall.
The crowd is small, but they fill the space with friendly camaraderie. Tonight, this feels like not only a queer bar, but a trans bar, and I can feel my shoulders relaxing.
Another loner sits next to me outside, and I watch their Parliament burn long before they take their first drag, focused on their sketch pad. This bar feels like a landing zone on a sleepy Monday evening. People are friendly and comfortable, but it’s easy to be in your own world. It’s a slow night, and the bartender sits at the end of the bar snacking in between orders.
As the pageant commentary wraps up, the remaining handful of folks sit at the end of the bar together and chat. Everyone seems to know one another, comfortable simply existing together. Again, Alibis exemplifies the value of a bar as a community space, a place for people to come when they have nowhere else to go, or just want to know that they will be with friends. There is love and community present in every laugh and every smile.
The owner quips, “The rules change when I bartend, cuz I make the rules!”
She then pulls out a game called “I Never Have, But I Will,” basically a version of Never Have I Ever where you actually do the thing you’ve never done. The first card is “put a finger in someone else’s nose and then into your own mouth.” A patron completes this with the bartender, what pandemic? I laugh and the bartender gleefully shouts “Welcome to Alibis, we do weird shit on Monday nights.”
This is my favorite kind of bar, where it just feels like you're hanging out in someone’s house with all your friends, and there just so happens to be a lot of booze. Even though I am the watcher, I still feel included in the chaos, laughing at the increasingly ridiculous dares.
“Alibis has to be safe, it’s a safe space.”
Other cards pulled include licking someone’s thigh, sucking a man’s nipple, and my personal favorite, playing tic-tac-toe with condiments on someone's body. The tic-tac-toe board lays on the bar and pulls her shirt up, getting a shot of tequila poured directly into her mouth to prepare herself. The owner and another patron play a cut-throat game using mustard (the patron wins), and then carefully and lovingly clean up the mustard.
Everyone at the bar knows everyone else, but not only that, they all love each other, with a fierceness that comes from having to stand your ground and stake your claim. There is no sense that anyone doesn’t belong or is not welcome, if you have ended up at Alibis, you belong here.
Silly Dares: 7
Oklahoma City, OK
