Life Approximately

Image Source: Houston Press

Pete Burdon was in the mood to get extremely fucked up and have a good time. It had been that kind of day/week/month, and sometimes a good drunk cured all. And if it didn’t, he would die trying.

He ordered a Schlitz and turned a five into quarters for the juke. He flipped through the selections until the record he was looking for, without realizing it, presented itself: Highway 61 Revisited. He dropped in his quarters and loaded the entire album.

“Like a Rolling Stone” segued into “Tombstone Blues”, and Pete sat in his booth rocking out to Mike Bloomfield’s guitar leads. He was early into the night and enjoying the feeling of liberation. Life was spiraling out of control: he had left Austin after Lila had left him, he didn’t know anybody in town and he wasn’t having much luck finding a job. Money was getting tight, and he was worried about making rent and eating.

But all those things would eventually work out, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. Tonight was all about blowing off steam and relaxing. Pete was aware of his habit for hanging on to his worst thoughts and letting them take over. But tonight he was just going to let it all go and have some fun.

After the up-tempo barrelhouse blues of “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” and “From a Buick 6”, the album slowed down and got surreal on “Ballad of a Thin Man”, with Dylan’s tin-pan piano and cryptic lyrics. Pete was working on a new Schlitz, and he felt the shift in mood.

He thought about Lila, wondering where she was and what he did to cause her to leave. He entertained those thoughts for a minute, then pushed them away. “Fuck her,” he thought to himself. “And fuck it all! Let it go and have some fun for a change!”

A fresh round arrived in time for “Queen Jane Approximately.” Pete was still feeling a bit wistful, in spite of his efforts, but he tried pushing it all away. “Pretty remarkable record,” he thought. “Not one, but two ‘I told you so’ fall from grace songs: ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘Queen Jane Approximately.’” He sang along under his breath:

Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

“Kind of like Lila after walking out on me!” Pete thought. He pictured himself in the Dylan role, taking Lila back after her fall and reckoning. “Like a repo man!” he sang to the tune of “Like a Rolling Stone,” melding the two songs into his own mission of redemption.

“God DAMN I miss her,” he suddenly said out loud. But the only reply was the clink of a fresh round on the table.

By the time the album closed out with the Spanish-influenced guitars of “Desolation Row”, Pete Burdon had given up all pretense of not giving a shit. Lila was on his mind and he couldn’t get her out. She had just walked out: cleaned out their apartment and left, with no letter and certainly no forwarding address. “Pretty cold way to operate,” he thought, or maybe said softly. “Just like that, she leaves? And I get no say? And no answers…SHIT…”

Pete realized he was pretty wasted, but he wasn’t quite done yet. The record had ended, and the bar was momentarily quiet. He called for his check, paid and walked out as a regular loaded the juke with old cowboy songs from Hank Snow and Buck Owens.

He staggered a bit on the sidewalk, righted himself and stopped at the general store for a quart of Old Milwaukee. Schlitz was bad, and Old Milwaukee was piss in comparison. But this was not a night for high standards.

The train whistle blasted through the late-night small town calm like an explosion and an invitation card. Pete found himself shuffling toward the trestle. “Yeah, GREAT idea!” he thought. “Drink a cold one on the trestle, stare at the river in the moonlight for a bit. It would be beautiful!”

“As beautiful as that BITCH Lila!” Pete yelled at the stars. “Yeah, how does it FEEL?!? TO BE ON YOUR OWN!!!! With no diRECTON HOME TO ME!!!” He downed the quart and threw it against a tree, loving the sound and feel of the smash.

Pete got to the tracks and walked out on to the trestle. The moon was huge and shimmering on the river in oblong orange crescents. He thought he felt the bridge vibrate just a touch, but the thought didn’t register compared to thoughts of THAT BITCH who’s BOUND TO FALL Lila.

He had to piss desperately, so he unzipped, whipped it out and held on to the steel while letting go.

Half-way through he looked right and thought he saw a pair of fuzzy lights side-by-side way down the tracks. The light on the lower left soon enough melded into the light on the upper right, and suddenly it was one headlight, and the bridge was vibrating like crazy.

The other side of the trestle was not at all far off, but Pete couldn’t get himself to start running. The light was so hypnotizing, so calming while it was so terrifying. He kept staring at the light as it got closer and closer and the whistle blew, louder than anything he had ever heard in his life.

The blast of the whistle finally snapped Pete out of his dreamscape, and he started performing mental calculations. He only had another ten feet to run to cross the trestle. On the other hand, the trestle was only ten feet above the river, and it wasn’t very wide. Pete could barely swim, but he could swim just enough.

He thought, amazed at his ability to slow down time and fight off his drunken fog to do so, of that line

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

and he clenched the outer edge of the trestle wall and made the decision that would likely mean the rest of his life…

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Barfly

2 AM
3rd Avenue Madness
City that never sleeps is
wide awake and roaring

Pressed tin ceiling
brass and wood and neon buzz
Mets on the tube above the bar

Friends at the bar
billiards and beers
patio on the
20th St side

I am home
with these friends
at this place
on 3rd Avenue

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Room To Let

Image Source: Vivian Maier

I guess it ain’t too nice to say, but there’s already talk goin’ round Mulroney’s about how long The Grunt gonna be able to keep this one. Like say the last time I mentioned him, he ain’t exactly the most respectable or reliable type. But I’m holdin’ out hope.

I heard about this room to let ‘round the bar. Sven The Scrub – we call him that because he’s just over from Oslo an’ he’s scrubbin’ the floors of Mulroney’s – was gonna take it, but I talked him into lettin’ The Grunt have it, out of seniority and all like that. It was perfect for the old guy: a basement level job, meanin’ he only had to worry ‘bout climbin’ down three steps, not up five flights of steps. An’ the rent was enough that even The Grunt, who does nuthin’ but grunt work around a bar for drink money, could make it. Maybe with a little help, but he could make it.

An’ I – an’ I think I speak for everyone that ever sat ‘round that bar – was willin’ to help. A presence at the bar like The Grunt, you take care of him. Sure, he come back from the Great War all shell-shocked, an’ he aint’ been the same since. But we all know him, an’ we know he’s got a heart of gold.

In fact, because of all the talk – an’ The Grunt he don’t know this, so don’t go sayin’ nothin’ – we got a collection goin’ round for a few months rent. So maybe nuthin’ happens but The Grunt come into Mulroney’s an’ does odd jobs an’ sings for his supper. An’ maybe he blows a race or two at Saratoga. Well, if that’s all that happens, he’s got it nice in his new apartment for a while, an’ we got stories for the whole time, so it’s worth it to us, see? A guy like The Grunt, you wanna keep him ‘round, an’ you wanna take care of him much as you can.

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You Get All Kinds Here

Photo Source: Lisette Model

I had never seen Tom so worked up, an’ if you’ve ever spent any time around him, you’d know that that’s saying a lot. He’s the kind got something to say about everything from the sun rising to the sun setting, an’ once he starts, you can forget about getting a word in edgewise, if you had planned to do so. Lot of people walking by see the little guy getting all worked up making a point, pointing and flailing, they think he oughta be sent down to Bellevue. But those of us who know Tom know that that’s just how he is. He ain’t got a hurtful bone in him. He’s just got strong opinions, an’ he ain’t afraid to speak ‘em, is all.

It was one of them terrific cold mornings, the kind where the wind come howling across 44th an’ makes lighting a smoke or even holding on to a cup of coffee murder. I had started selling papers to the morning commuters heading to an’ fro Grand Central when Tom come strolling up Lexington Ave. Just seeing him I could tell that he had probably walked the 40-odd blocks from one of his favorite flop dives on the Bowery, an’ he was hot as a pistol.

For the obvious reasons, we call him “Tiny Tom.” On a good day he comes up to my hip. But what he don’t have in size he makes up for in heart an’ Moxie. I heard Tiny from across 44th. “can’tbelieveitcan’tbelieveitcan’tbeLIEVEitCAN’TBELIEVEIT!” he kept muttering, flailing his arms an’ almost jumping every few steps. He almost slipped on a patch of ice on one of his little leaps, in fact. I knew I was in for a little what-for as soon as Tiny got across the street, an’ I wasn’t disappointed.

“You ain’t goin’ beLIEVE what happened at Slim’s!” Tiny yelped as he leaned in on a fire hydrant next to my stand and picked up a Herald Tribune. “The Sub tried to turn the joint into a cabaret lounge!”

Now, like I said about Tiny, he ain’t got a hurtful bone in him. He’ll talk to anyone anytime, an’ he likes finding out what the other guy knows. In fact, one of the reasons he likes Slim’s so much is the clientele. It’s on the Bowery, so they get all kinds’a people what would be called bums an’ couldn’t get in a lot of places in other parts of town. Negroes, Chinese, guys that dress up like dames…Slim’s got ‘em all, an’ Tiny will talk ‘em all up. Like I said, Tiny may look like he’s got a screw loose, but if you know him, you know him, an’ you know he likes everything an’ everyone an’ wouldn’t hurt a flea.

What Tiny DON’T like is having things change so much so’s he’s caught off guard. When that happens, an’ esPECIALLY when it disrupts his routine at the bar, if you catch my meaning, he ain’t very happy. Slim is there most nights, but sometimes he takes a night off to dry out. On those nights The Sub – he’s Slim’s cousin, in case you don’t know – runs the joint, an’ The Sub has some crazy ideas.

“So I’m sittin’ there at the bar,” Tiny went on as the morning rush started to pick up. “The Sub is pourin’ drinks an’ slingin’ hash, an’ I’m talkin’ up The Tudor, an’ we’re all havin’ a grand time. An’ you know what that crazy son of a buck Sub does next?!?”

“Go on,” I says.

“You ain’t goin’ beLIEVE what that crazy Sub does next. He steps outside, an’ before we know what’s goin’ on he an’ another fella are rolling in a piano!”

“A piano?!?” I ask.

“A piano!” Tiny says. “All of us regulars, we’re sittin’ at the bar an’ our jaws drop. An’ The Sub, he goes ‘Surprise! I thought the joint could use a little livening!’ An’ I’m thinkin’ to myself, ‘livening?!? THIS place needs livening?!?’ An’, as if on cue, y’know Freddy, guy dolls himself up and calls himself Frieda? Well, he’s there, an’ he gets up an’ yells ‘Oh, what a GRAND idea!’ An’ he sets himself down at the piano, an’ he starts singin’ an’ playin’ them old Tin Pan Alley songs like ‘Down by the Old Mill Stream’ an’ ‘Swanee!’”

The sun was fully up, an’ foot traffic was getting heavier, an’ Tiny was on a roll. “An’ that piano didn’t do too damn much ‘livening’ in the joint, since Frieda was the only one listenin’ to it, an’ he was PLAYin’ it! I managed to hold on for about an hour, an’ then I couldn’t take it no more an’ I left an’ went o’er to McGirk’s. Imagine that! ‘Livening!’ An’ you know me. I really like Slim’s. It’s a good, honest, respectable joint, an’ you get all kinds here. People is people, an’ I like people a lot.” Tiny paused for the first time, just for a moment. “But I don’t want alla THEM kinds – the kinds that make all that racket ‘livening’ up the joint!”

Tiny stayed around ‘till I was done selling my papers, an’ then he and I went our separate ways. I went down to get a drink on Bleecker later, an’ passed by Slim’s on the way. Slim was back at the bar, an’ so was Tiny. An’ the piano was on the sidewalk collecting snow an’ garbage.

The Importance of Being Self-important

Image Source: Brooklyn Citysearch

“You couldn’t herd me into Times Square for New Year’s Eve at gunpoint,” Ray said.

He was surreptitiously checking himself out in the mirror behind the bar at the Vanderbilt. Ray and Clem were belly-up at the bar, nursing their first hangovers of the year with Ommegang Abbey Ale, blistered peppers and house-made jerky. Outside it was an unseasonably warm 55 degrees, but it was a winter wonderland of scarfs and knit hats in the nearly empty Brooklyn restaurant.

Ray had made a few mental notes from the Ommegang website just for a moment like this.

“Damn, 8.5%,” he said. “And you can really taste the licorice and fig notes. Anyway, no way on Times Square for New Year’s Eve. I hate mid-town enough as it is. Maps flying out of every pocket, gawkers clogging up the sidewalks…imagine being packed in with all those mouth-breathers? Getting pissed on, standing for fifteen hours? Hells no.”

Clem took a sip, hoping to taste the fig notes, and, failing that, dragged a pepper through the paprika and salt.

“Couldn’t agree more. What did you end up doing?”

“Well, it may have been even worse than that,” Ray said. He made sure to leave a nice big pause for Clem to jump in to.

“Do tell,” Clem said.

Ray was pleased to pique the curiosity of his band-mate.

“Y’know Dan and Jane, right? Well, Jane’s sister’s friend Dani just moved to town from Greenwich to study journalism at NYU. I didn’t have anything else planned, so I went with Dan and Jane to Dani’s apartment-warming party. Girl is, like, nineteen, and daddy is paying her rent on her one-bedroom on 44th and 9th.”

Clem was outraged at this little tidbit.

“Are you friggin’ shitting me?”

Ray was riding a wave of indignity.

“Yeah, and this place was mint. Pre-war building, hardwood floors, original fixtures, flat-screen. So not only am I mere blocks away from…” Ray scrunched up his nose like getting a whiff of a fart in an elevator “…Times Square, but I’m also surrounded by Dani’s journalism school friends, who are all rich, barely-legal assholes. Assholes blathering on about their bylines, and blathering about nothing, and actually WATCHing the goddamn ball dropping on TV! I was actually subjected to Ryan Seacrest, fachrissakes.”

“Jesus,” Clem said.

“Yeah, seriously,” Ray said. “I just stood in the corner all night, and kept going outside for smokes, over and over again. I got some good notes for a short story I’m working on, but c’mon, seriously? That shit gets old after a while.”

“You should have stayed home,” Clem said.

Ray thought about that for a second, before taking a pull of his ale.

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to come off like an asshole, you know?”

He grabbed a slab of jerky, tore into it like a shark devouring chum, and returned to his reflection in the mirror as the sun descended over Brooklyn for the first time in the new year.

Ladies Night

Photo Source: stockimagine

A grand total of three people were in O’Malley’s on the Wednesday before Christmas: the bartender and two ladies, both wearing Santa hats, at the bar. A solitary string of Christmas lights, half of which were burnt out, hung over the bar, and Def Leppard and Whitesnake blasted from the juke.

Upon our entrance, the Santa hat on the left propped herself up a little on the bar and screamed, “LAAAAAAAAADIES NIIIGHT!!!!” in a voice that would shatter her glass if it wasn’t plastic. Clearly these two had been there for a while. We grabbed a table a seemingly good distance away and buried ourselves in the menu.

But Santa hat left was feeling friendly. She turned half-way around on her bar chair, leaned over the back and yelled over, “Happy LAAADIES NIGHT!!! Whas’your names?!?”

Shit.

My regular pub was unexpectedly closed, so we headed across the street to O’Malley’s as a Plan B. I was with three friends from high school, and our plans for a quiet evening of catch-up were rapidly being thwarted. I gave a fake name, and the rest of the table followed suit and returned to our menus.

But it was all over.

Santa hat left continued, “Thish ish …(chuckle)… Donna an’ I’m…(cackle) Vixen!”

Santa hat right piped up at this, “No you’re not! Member?!? Member what you was gonna say?!?”

Santa hat left, her memory suddenly restored, returned to her original plan. “NO! NO!!! I’m….(uncontrollable giggling)…MRS. CLAWS!!! REEAAWWWW!!!” she said, slicing the air with her “paw” and teetering a bit further over the back of her chair.

It was all over.

I buried my nose in my menu, wondering not if, but how long it would be, before they were at our table.

It wasn’t long. As soon as I looked up, Donna and Mrs. Vixen Claws were settled in, plastic tumblers and plastic pitcher of macro-swill in tow. Were it not for the extra weight and wrinkles, these two could have been in our Class of 1991 yearbook. Maybe they were. Our table suddenly carried a halo of cheap beer, CVS perfume and desperation.

We tried to ignore them, but it was all over. All we could do was try to get out of the vice grips Donna and Mrs. Vixen Claws had on our forearms and turn our eardrums away from their howling cackles.

It was almost too late when I noticed that Mrs. Vixen Claws was holding up a plastic sprig of mistletoe. As soon as I saw it she was leaning in, and she got me on the side of the lip with a hot, soaking wet kiss and a death-grip bear hug. I somehow managed to do a cut move out of it, like a receiver ducking a tackle, and backpedaled away from the table. With that distraction were all able to get up and walk out, coats in arms but otherwise unscathed.

Never got to see the Ladies Night specials on the menu, but judging by the condition of Donna and Mrs. Vixen Claws, I’m betting there was a good deal on domestic pitchers…

Diamond Vision

Originally Published 08/24/2011

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It was a typical Saturday afternoon at Kelly’s: Cards/Cubs on the tube, Old Style on tap and in pounders, armchair analysis going around the bar. Tim and John, both Cubs fans but, more broadly, both baseball fans, were arguing the game on the TV and the games already played.

“Okay, you’re tellin’ me the Cards are more universally beloved than the Cubs?” John asked Tim, mocking his jaw falling to the bar.

“I’m not saying more beloved!” Tim replied. “I’m saying more historically significant!”

“What in THE hell you talking about?” John spat back. “Hack Wilson, Ron Cey, Ernie Banks! Hey, let’s play two! Harry friggin’ Caray and Wrigley Field!”

“Yeah, well Harry Caray was the voice of the Cardinals first, ya know!” Tim replied, proud at scoring a point. “And think of this: the St. Louis Cardinals changed the game twice.”

“Twice?” John asked?

“Twice.” Tim affirmed. “First, Branch Rickey – the man who later signed Jackie Robinson, no less – was the Cards General Manager, and he developed the farm system and spring training. Used to be a ballplayer would go home after the season and spend the winter drinkin’ and gorgin’. Rickey put ‘em to work in the hot sun before the season to get ‘em in shape. An’ he developed the farm system and hid his best prospects low in the system. Used to say that every small town in America in the ‘30s had an A&P and a Cardinals farm team.”

John was suitably impressed. He knew about the influence of Rickey, of course, but hearing it from Tim was revolutionary. But there was more to hear. “Okay, that’s once. How did the Cards revolutionize the game twice, smartass?”

Tim knew he was about to deliver a roundhouse to the chin. “Okay, think about this. In the course of twenty years – less than a generation – the Cardinals went from being one of the most fiercely segregated teams in the game to one of the most fiercely integrated teams in the game.”

John just stared at his friend.

“1947. Robinson breaks the color line with Brooklyn. At the time St. Louis was the farthest stop west and south in both leagues, and the closest thing to a home team for the deep south. Those were the Cards of Harry Walker, Whitey Kurowski, Enos Slaughter and Joe Garagiola. Some of those Cards agreed to boycott games against Robinson and the Dodgers. Slaughter and Garagiola, in spite of his later sunny persona on the Today Show, were notorious for spiking Jackie, race baiting, all that crap.”

John continued to stare, disgusted and fascinated in equal measures.

“1967. A mere two decades later. Tim McCarver, Orlando Cepeda. Roger Maris, Bob Gibson. Steve Carlton, Curt Flood. Total integration and a team that was completely there for each other.

“Think about that. Twenty years! It happened in Chicago, but not as dramatically. Sure, Ernie Banks was first for the Cubs in 1953, and the Cards integrated in 1954. But the integration of the Cards was absolutely unprecedented, and frankly one hell of a great American story.”

John was absolutely dumbstruck and silent. Kelly’s grew quiet, the most prominent sound being the play-by-play on the tube.

“You win!” he said, turning back to his beer and a slick 6-4-3 double play live from Wrigley.

One More For The Road

Originally Published 03/14/2011 06:11:19 AM

Photo Source: Jessica Beebe

It wasn’t a big deal, just another Saturday night at the 20/10 Club. They called it the Hindsite, ‘cause 20/10 was hindsite, or some shit like that. Anyways, we was sittin’ at the bar drinkin’ Schlitz and ‘gansetts and fuckin’ off like always. Playin’ darts ‘n shit. When all of a sudden a fuckin’ guy looks like an accountant or something comes in.

Fuckin’ guy was wearin’ a suit, overcoat and hat, so he stood out soon as he come in. Ya know? An’ get this: the guy orders a fuckin’ Martini! Can you imagine that shit?!? A fuckin’ Martini! Did ya notice where you was at, guy?!?

So The Accountant sits at the bar, looking like he was about to fart or puke or somethin’. And me an’ Sully, we’re tryin’ to hold our laughs in. And it ain’t easy, with this fuckin’ character in the joint, ya know? Sure, we had loaded up the machine with nickles, so it was loud as shit in there, but still, the guy’s fuckin’ SITTin’ right there.

We’re bettin’ on what kinda car he’s got outside under our breaths: fuckin’ Cadillac, probably, right? So it goes on like that for a whiles, and then…

Seriously, you ain’t gonna beLIEVE this shit! Fuckin’ guy asks if he can use the phone cause he’s gotta call his wife and tell him he’s fuckin’ lost here in this town! Like his car broke down or some shit like that. Like the bar is a fuckin’ TELEphone booth, right? Ya’know? So he asks Doobie behind the bar if he can use the phone.

And Doobie was already pissed off at this character, ordering a fuckin’ marTINI like a little pixie, right? So Doobie tells the guy there ain’t no phone. The bar phone is fuckin’ SITting in plain view by the cash register, but Doobie says there ain’t no phone.

And The Accountant, he ain’t too happy with that answer, right?!? So he raises a stink about that. Like, “There is a phone right behind you, Sir! I’m a paying customer! I’m lost! I need to use the phone!” and shit. Blah, blah, blah.

And me an’ Sully, we’s already had a few ‘gansetts, right? So WE ain’t too happy with HIS answer. So I stand up an’ say “Ya gota fuckin’ PROBlem with there not being a phone in here?!?” Maybe we ought to find you a phone outSIDE!”

And The Accountant, he says he ain’t got no problem, he just wants to get out of here and go home. Like he’s all fuckin’ mighty and ready to leave us poor trash behind, right? So his answer pisses me off and I club the motherfucker ‘cross the head with my pool cue, right?

And The Accountant falls in a fuckin’ heap, like he’s a sack’a potatoes or somethin’, an’ he starts CRYin’, like a little fuckin’ GIRL and whining how he’s gonna get a lawyer an’ shit. An’ he’s gonna SUE me and fuckin’ Doobie for pain and distress an’ shit.

Ya believe that shit? Big shot Accountant fuckin’ pissing his pants like that? Ova a slap? Shoulda seen what we could of REALLY done to that fuckin’ guy!

So by this time Doobie’s had fuckin’ enough, right? So he PICKS UP the Accountant by his belt hooks and fuckin’ THROWS the guy out on the SIDEwalk! The Accountant is lying on in a snowbank crying and bleeding, and the snow is getting more and more red. And here’s the best part! And Doobie steps back into the bar, fixes up another Martini, comes out and fuckin’ THROWS it at The Accountant and yells “Here’s one more for the road!”

We ain’t seen the guy since. Can ya imagine that?