Nobody Bats a Thousand (2 page)

It’s funny, but whenever you think about an old job, all you seem
to remember are the good things;
the fun, the highlights, the surprises, the oddities, and the lessons learned. You
seem to overlook the down sides;
the boredom, the drudgery of serving and being polite to people you despised, and the agony of doubling back to do the morning shift after closing the bar down just hours before. Not to mention the torture of having to work with hangovers so bad they turned eight-hour shifts into nightmares that seemed to last for years. So I have fond memories of that first gig. Even though I was a quiet, naïve kid, and all the old-time regulars, which were nearly everyone who walked through the door, gave me hell, and tested me every chance they could.

Bobo’s
Keyboard Lounge
was the name of the place, and sure it was basically the same basic job back then as now, legally dispensing a drug to people who would probably be better off without it, but the more I pondered the more I realized how things have changed. Change stretched over so many years it had crept up on me almost unnoticed. Back then when the Pill was first in vogue, and before sex could kill you, recreation sex with ne
ar strangers was rampant. Often
times women, if they liked your looks, would give it up, probably quicker than they should with little or no questions asked, giving every Joe Schmo who didn’t look completely demented or deformed the chance to feel a little like Elvis. Also back then, low-grade cocaine was expensive, respected, and exotic, and people
drank
. Drinks were a buck, and people
really
drank. I saw the most respected businessmen in town drink quarts of booze every night, just being sociable,
then
they’d go home, get up early, go to work, and take care of business without missing a beat. In retrospect, I realize how strong those guys were and how differently things were viewed. Back then if some guy got busted for his second or third drunk driving he was just given a good slap on the
wrist,
and it was just another thing to joke and laugh about. Just as was the nightly, late-night brawl between the same loving married couple who suddenly turned psycho and hateful after a few too many drinks, or some poor, out-of-control, drunken soul punching out his best friend over an argument about fishing poles or the best color to paint a car

everything was forgotten the next day, and life went on.

Now, though all the alcoholic
rounders
in front of me at Al’s were probably the best the respected drinking community currently had to offer, they were milquetoast compared to their barroom ancestors I’d dealt with years before. The lineage of those erstwhile regulars, that hardcore, resilient, socially successful, functional-alcoholic breed was watered down and dying, a shattered piece of history, and for some perverse
reason I felt more than irresistibly nostalgic. I felt saddened and somewhat empty.

Just then, as these maudlin sentimental thoughts were rummaging around my brain, in walked this skinny cat about six-foot-five and a hundred and ten pounds with dark eyebrows, short bleached hair, and a big hoop earring in his left ear.
He was probably ten or fifteen years younger than the next youngest in the crowd which silently stopped and turned in unison to stare at the newcomer, much like the restaurant scene in
Easy Rider
.

The kid walked up to me without looking around.  “I’m doing sound tonight. Where do I set up?”

“What you got?” I asked.

“Not much, I was told the room was small.
Two small stacks, two amps, two preamps, an equalizer, and my main board.”

I nodded like I actually knew what he was talking about and pointed across the lounge to the door of the banquet room.

“There’s a small stage in there. Do what you got to do. This isn’t going to be real loud is it?”

“Not bad,” he said before he turned, went back outside, and returned making the first of several trips using a handcart to haul in these speakers and amplifiers that looked like they had a thyroid condition.

Delores was at the waitress station patiently waiting for my attention.

“Mrs. Milton says this doesn’t taste right,” she said with a tenuous look balanced between disgust and despair. 

“So, what else is new?” I said, referring to Mrs. Milton, who invariability sent back as tainted the first of the two Manhattans she consumed every early evening in direct, disciplined agreement to the three tall Beam and waters Mr. Milton allowed himself before the old couple shuffled off.

Most of the time these two sharing a table didn’t appear to even
know
each other let alone
like
each other, but they’d been together long enough to experience it all as a team: the last part of the Great Depression; the full span of the Great War (neither of which seemed too great from my perspective); their kids, suckled, raised and released; and a house fully paid for on the road to retirement. They’d done all you can do to live the American Dream and now had nothing left to do but hang around out of curiosity to see which one would drop dead first, but in the interim Mrs. Milton got her jollies by always complaining about her first drink no matter how I prepared it. This used to bother me until one time, out of
frustration,
I dug into my bag of tricks to pull out something I still use to appease the old bag. “No problem,” I told Delores as I took a fresh rocks glass, dumped in the old drink and added a few ice cubes. Delores smiled, added a fresh cherry and a new red stir straw, made the delivery to a smiling Mrs. Milton then got the hell away before the old chronic whiner could come up with another complaint.

“Damn! I just don’t believe it, how could I lose every single roll?” bemoaned the mystery roller between Manson and Mason to the amusement of the five other players he’d just again won the honor to sponsor. After I delivered the drinks the mystery man slid what remained of his money towards me. “I can’t believe this shit,” he said. “I’m on my way to the store to pick up some cat food and some sausage when I run into and get kidnapped by these two jerks,” he indicated Manson and Mason, who were both grinning and giggling like jerks. “One minute I was being cool, behaving myself, and enjoying my day off, and now, a few hours later I’m sitting here drunk in a strange bar with phone change left from a hundred dollar bill.”

“Well, I
didn’t charge you for that one.
” I pointed to his drink (and I hadn’t because he was short and I didn’t have the heart to ask him for another three-fifty). “It’s like, buy forty, get one free,” I said, and I’m sure he was amused; he just didn’t show it.  Instead he asked me if he could use the phone.

I handed him the portable. He dialed, waited,
and then smiled as he started to speak
, “
Hey baby, what if I bring home some Chinese?”  His head bolted as he pulled the receiver fr
om his ear. He sat stunned,
pausing before
he set down the phone. “She called me a fuc
king son-of-a-bitch and hung up.” A
nother
pause. “You think she’s mad?”

“Just mean
s it’s time to roll for another.
” Fatboy slid him the dice cup. “Loser starts it up.”

“No way, these two jerks are taking me home or somewhere. Maybe the EZ motel is a better stop for me tonight. Come on,” the mystery roller commanded as he pushed his drink away and stood. He nodded to Fatboy, Randy, and Bobby Hill. “It’s been a business doing pleasure with you,” he said as he turned and headed for the door. 
Manson and Mason both snickered and, unwilling to sacrifice their winnings, gulped down their full glasses of vodka and grapefruit juice.

“You did it again, you dumb old shit,” Randy said to Fatboy. “You chased off the golden goose.
”

“Did not.”

“Did to.”

“Did not.”

“Did to.”

“What a sparkling debate,” I interrupted. “You two ought to turn pro, maybe get your own talk show.”

“Not with this old coot. You put him on
TV,
the first thing he’d talk about is the joys of sex with seventy-year-old women or something…”

“Would not.”

“Would to…”

A few minutes later I gave last call for Happy Hour. This stimulated a short round of frenzy that was quickly over, and during the next thirty minutes the room slowly started to clear.

Later, I was changing channels on the television when Big Al, sweating, a dirty apron around his waist, came in from the kitchen. The bar was almost empty now except for Jane and her three guys at the far end, and Fatboy and Randy next to the waitress statio
n. Al pulled out an empty stool two down from Randy
and plopped down, resting his big hairy forearms on t
he bar. “Give me a drink, Jimmy.” H
e looked to his right. “How’s wit you two guys?”

“Everything is just fine with me, Al. Doing good. Business
is good, so everything is good.
” Randy took a slow glance at Fatboy next to him then turned back to face Big Al. “Don’t judge me by the company I’m keeping, things just happen.”

“Hey Al,
there
gonna
be any naked women at this here show tonight?” Fatboy asked.

“That I wouldn’t mind so much, but there better not be any of those smash pits with that smash dancing.  I told Little Al that’s one thing that’ll really tick me off,” Al said, just on cue, as the soundman with the short, bleached punk haircut stepped up to the bar.

Big Al, in his best, thick-neck, natural, thug-like way, stared at the kid until the kid finally stopped trying not to notice and gave Big Al a weak smile and said hello.

“You in
the band?”
Big Al still hadn’t taken his eyes off the kid.

“No, I do sound.” H
e checked his watch. “The band was supposed to meet me here thirty minutes ago to do a sound check.  I hope we didn’t get our signals crossed.” He looked at me. “You got any matches?”

“All musicians are idiots,” Big Al said. “I’ve been dealing with ‘em most of my life. Some are complete idiots, some are just part-time idiots, but they’re all idiots just the same.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” the kid said, an unfiltered Camel dangling from his lips.

“So, what’s this band like?”

The kid sort of shrugged by wobbling his head. “They’re local, but I’ve only worked with them once before. The best way I can describe ‘em is that they’re grungy, but not really grunge, but still pretty gnarly.”

“They any good?”

“That’s a tough question. I’ve been doing this for over ten years.  I listen to ‘em all, but I don’t really listen to any. I love ‘em all, but I hate most of ‘em too, if you know what I mean.”

Big Al nodded his big head, finished his drink, and pushed the glass toward me holding his large stubby hand straight out with the palm facing me to indicate he was finished. He stood. “You want something to drink?” he asked the bleached-blonde kid.

“A coke?”

“Jimmy, give this kid a coke, and ask Little Al to come talk to me if you see him,” Big Al said before he walked back through the dining room to the kitchen. From the tone of his voice, most would anticipate a serious father-son confrontation, but I knew better.  You see it had taken Big Al nearly forty years and five daughters until he finally welcomed his male legacy into the world. I was sure this was the reason he seemed to indulge his namesake more than anyone else on the planet, and even if there was a dispute and a little screaming and a few personal threats, among Italians this was business as usual as long as there weren’t any major blows or bloodletting, so I wasn’t worried that there was any major problem.

The soundman took his coke with him into the banquet room, and I walked to the end of the bar to check on Jane and her little band of admirers. The fattest and loudest guy signaled for another round. Though I was twenty feet away making the drinks I picked
up
enough of their conversation with my rabbit ears to calculate that at least one of Jane’s new friends was a car dealer or wholesaler. Knowing she had rolled and t
otaled her car the week before,
she of course coming through u
nscathed
, I
figured that Jane figured her chances of soon driving a used Seville or Lincoln for free were about as good as most people estimate their chances of getting one matching number on lottery ticket. I quietly delivered the drinks and took the guy’s money as discreetly as possibly, so as not to interrupt and throw her off her game.

Bam! A dull thud was followed by a hollow clink.  Fatboy, who had just knocked over his beer, caught the bottle on the first bounce but still cou
ldn’t avoid a bit of spillage.
“Oh, shit! Hit it with my damn elbow.”

“Listen to this,” Randy said. “Talk about not taking personal responsibility, now he’s down to blaming his individual body parts.”

“Hey, don’t knock it, Fatboy, the last time I got arrested for public intoxication I told the cops I was sober but it was my shoes that was drunk. It didn’t work, but I had them going for awhile.”