Reader Response to a Clean, Well-Lit PlaceIn 1933, Ernest Hemmingway wrote A Clean, Well-Lit Place. It's the story of two waiters working late at night in a cafe. Their last customer, a lonely old man who gets drunk, is their last customer. The younger waiter wants the customer to leave while the other waiter is indifferent because he is not in much of a hurry. I had a precise and differentiated response to this piece of literature because in my profession, I can identify with the two cafe employees. Hemmingway's dark tale is about overcoming late-night loneliness in a bright cafe. The customer who drinks cognac suffers, as does the older waiter. However, the young waiter cannot understand loneliness because he probably hasn't been very alone in his life. He mentions several times throughout the story that he wished he could go home to his wife, but the old man and the old waiter don't have a wife to go home to like he does. This story has a deeper meaning for me because I am often in a similar situation at work. For a little over three years, I have been a weekend bartender at an American Legion Club. I almost always work all weekend, from opening to closing, which sometimes turns out to be a torturous schedule. Like the café in Hemmingway's story, the Legion is a civilized place, often well lit and quieter than most clubs. Since members must have served in the military during wartime or have a relative who did, the patronage is often older and more respectful than that of the average bar. And because most members are older, they may not have family to go home to, or they may just be a little darker because their lives have been longer and harder than most. others. In many ways, they are a lot like the old man who sips brandy while hiding in the shade of the leaves of Hemmingway's cafe. And in many ways, I'm like the young waiter, raring to go. The young waiter seems selfish and inconsiderate towards others. At the beginning of the story, he doesn't know why the old man tried to kill himself. “He has a lot of money,” he says, as if that’s the only thing one needs to be happy. When the old man orders another drink, the young waiter warns him that he is going to get drunk, as if to evade his own responsibility rather than to warn the old man for him..