The Ghost of Chilkoot Charlie's

(Note: Just a bit of hastily written prose about my most often visited watering hole in Anchorage. As seen through my eyes, meaning what's written may not, and probably is not, the actual case. And for what is true, there's always exceptions.)
There was a time, years ago, when you couldn't get into Chilkoot Charlie's (or "Koots" as the locals like to call it) on a Friday or Saturday night without waiting in line. Sometimes you might not even get in at all. And once through the front door, the wait to get a drink was just as long (if not longer) than the wait to get in; unless of course you had an exceptional amount of cleavage showing or happened to personally know the bartender. Moving through the crowd was as much a chore as it was an art form and the best performers knew you never stopped moving no matter who yelled at you for stepping on their toes. The dance floors would be so packed you could hardly call what happened on them dancing so much as it was just drunk, sweaty, and (mostly) clothed bodies rubbing against each other. And hey, if your ass was grabbed by a stranger, that was just the risk you took for being out there. There was a time, longer ago than it often seems, when Koots was the place to go on any given weekend night, whether you liked it or not.
But not anymore. These days it is merely a shadow of its former self. Some nights, usually for special events, the crowds might come again and lines may begin to form. But it never lasts for long and it's not uncommon to see the crowds leave as quickly as they came, in which you might hear a first time-goer say something like, "This place is world famous?", the disbelief in his voice anything but hidden. Or maybe you hear a long time patron walking out and telling his friend sorrowfully, "It just ain't what it use to be."
These days, even on its busiest nights, much of Koots remains closed down, only a few bars open to serve those still coming in. But there's no crowd to fight through and getting your drink from a bartender is almost as easy as pouring it yourself at home. There's a few older women on the dance floor, drunk and hoping to recapture their youth while a local cover band plays old songs they look to be bored of. A group of young military men might show up, hoping to pick up on the desperation of the older women and failing that, leave cursing the bar and the city. Occasionally some college kids will show up, order a drink, and then realize everything about the bar seems foreign to them; so they leave their drinks half full and catch a cab back to the bars they know downtown. Even drunker women stumble around the bar looking for anyone to take them home (except the military men, they can't be trusted) and then yelling at the men that refuse to even make eye contact.
And at the bar sit the regulars, people who've been consistently going to Koots for years. Some keep coming out of an odd sense of allegiance, the thought of going to another bar in town seeming almost criminal to them (I count myself in this group). Others come waiting for the day the bar becomes the place to be again, when they'll be able to tell stories about the slow times with pride to the new crowds. And there's some who come waiting for the bar to die, wondering what they'll do when those front doors shut for good. Finally, there's those that come because they know nowhere else to go; the fear of moving on attaching them to a bar stool that's indifferent to their presence.
There was a time, not so many years ago, when going Chilkoot Charlie's was an experience; sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always memorable. But these days, going to Koots is mostly out of habit, almost a chore, and at times a curiosity and possibly a study.