The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims (156 page)

The Ruddy Nut Hut had pinball and darts. The Tall Folks Tavern had a pool table. Some nights, one place had toilet paper or cigarettes when the other did not. And in the hot summers, the drunks crossed that stretch of First Avenue as if it was someone’s back yard, as if the moving cars were harmless as swing sets or sandboxes, as if the twin bars were just neighbors’ picnics, welcome as any suburb.

Then Tommy didn’t pay his rent for eight months, and the Ruddy Nut Hut closed. All that autumn, Ellen’s customers left their drinks and stepped out of the bar for air, paced, stepped back inside again quickly, restless and irritated.

In December, the Ruddy Nut reopened with a hand-lettered banner that said
WALTER’S TOPLESS
. The front window had been painted black, and a sign hanging in it said, “The most beautiful ladies in the world.” On the door was a smaller sign that said, “The world’s most beautiful ladies,” and the final, smallest sign, which was really just a note, explained that Walter’s Topless would be open every day of the week. At noon.

Ellen had a nephew named Al. She had hired him to be her plumber, which meant that he was in charge of digging rotting lemon wedges out of the sink drains, and replacing the toilets that the young men sometimes tore out of the bathroom walls to commemorate great moments at the pool table. Al was nice to look at and easy to talk with. If he had been a girl, he would have been a perfect Tall Folks Tavern bartender. He would have been the kind of pretty that union guys are crazy for, and Ellen would have given him the Thursday evening happy hour shift. If Al had been a girl working Thursday happy hours, the carpenters and teamsters would have come in every week and
tipped the hell out of him for being so pretty. After Tommy left, Ellen spent most of her time with Al, and it was Al who went with her when she finally crossed the street to check out Walter’s Topless.

Ellen knew everyone drinking at the bar when she walked in that night.

“These are all my people,” she said to Al.

“And Tommy’s.”

“Tommy can’t really claim any of these people anymore, can he?”

It still looked like the Ruddy Nut Hut, except that the pinball machines were gone, replaced by a small stage with a wide mirror behind it and a long rail in front. There was one stripper dancing—a skinny girl with knees wider than thighs and a druggie rock star’s tiny hips. Ellen knew her, too.

“That’s Amber the junkie,” she said.

Amber smiled over at Al, and shook her chest at him. Her breasts were just nipples on a rib cage. Al smiled back.

“She’s terrifying,” he said.

“She used to come into my bar and drink rum and Coke all day,” Ellen said. “I used to try to catch her shooting up in the bathroom, but every time I’d go in there she’d just be brushing her teeth.”

“That’s almost grosser.”

“Almost.”

“You should put blue lights in the bathrooms. That’s what they do in fast food places. Then the junkies can’t see their veins and they can’t shoot up.”

“That’s a little bit mean, I think.”

“I like blue lights,” Al said. “In a blue-lit room I can’t see my balls.”

“Stop that,” Ellen said. “That’s not true.”

There was a girl behind the bar in a dark bathing suit. Ellen
didn’t know her. She had black hair with a serious center part, and the bathing suit was a practical one-piece, faded, with tired elastic and wide straps.

“She looks like she should be wearing flip-flops,” Al said.

There was a man behind the bar with her, and when he turned to face them, Ellen said, “Walter?”

He was carrying a case of beer, which he brought over and set on the bar in front of Al. He had a long beard, seedy and gray, like the beards of prophets or the homeless.

“Hello, Helen,” he said.

“Ellen,” she corrected. Walter said nothing.

“Don’t even tell me this is your bar now, Walter.”

Walter still said nothing.

“What the hell are you doing with a place like this? Nobody told me this was your place.”

“Sign tells it.”

“I didn’t know you were the Walter.”

“What else Walter is there?”

“I’m Al,” Al introduced himself. “I’m Ellen’s nephew.”

The two men shook hands over the case of beer between them.

“Walter?” Ellen said. “I’m not sure about the name of this place. You should at least call it Walter’s Topless
Bar
. Walter’s Topless sounds like an announcement. It sounds like you’re the one that’s topless.”

“It is an announcement.”

“I guess so.” Ellen looked around. “Tommy didn’t tell me he’d sold it to you.”

“It’s me.”

“I’m just surprised.”

“I don’t know how come. Sign says it plain enough.”

“Walter?” Ellen said. “Secretly, I always thought you were Amish.”

Al laughed, and Ellen laughed, too.

“I’ll buy you a drink on the house,” Walter said. “And one for your nephew.”

“Thank you, sir,” Al said.

“We’ll take two beers and some good Scotch,” Ellen said. “Thanks.”

Walter took two bottles from the case and pulled an opener out from inside his shirt, where it hung on a chain, like a heavy crucifix. He opened the beers, which were just short of cold, and put them in front of Al and Ellen.

Walter went to the end of the bar for the Scotch and Al said, “I haven’t called anyone ‘sir’ since I was twelve.”

“Walter can’t run a strip joint,” Ellen hissed. “He hates women. He never even used to come to my bar, because he hated women bartending. Jesus Christ, what a lousy joke.”

Walter came back with two shots of Scotch. Ellen drank hers and left the glass upside down on the bar. Al smelled his and set it in front of him carefully.

“Who’s your bartender?” Ellen asked.

“Rose,” Walter said. “My daughter.”

Walter and Ellen stared at each other in silence.

“Wow,” Al said. “I was thinking of asking for a job, but she’s probably staying, I guess.”

“I have three daughters,” Walter said, still looking at Ellen. “They all work here.”

“Are you going to drink that?” She asked Al, and when he shook his head, she put back his Scotch, too, and set the glass next to her own. “This is the funniest thing, Walter,” she said. “It’s so funny that Tommy didn’t tell me it was you. But good luck and everything, right?” Ellen took a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket and slid it under her beer bottle. “Make sure Rose keeps us happy down here,” she said, and Walter walked away.

On the stage, Amber the junkie was finished. She was sitting on the floor, buttoning up a man’s long-sleeved shirt. She looked as tiny as a third-grader. Walter changed the tape and
adjusted the volume, and another girl came up out of the basement and onto the stage. She had red hair in a braid from the top of her head, and without a lot of performance, she took off her bra and started bobbing lightly on her toes, as if warming up for a jog.

“We can’t compete with all this tit,” Ellen said.

“Sure we can.”

“This is such dumb stuff. Why should anyone cross the street for this stuff?”

“They won’t,” Al said.

“But if it’s just plain old tit they want, we can’t compete with that.”

“Polly takes her shirt off sometimes,” Al said.

“Yeah, but only when she’s really drunk. Then she cries and everyone feels bad. It’s not the same thing as this. Plus, Polly only works on Monday nights.”

“You’re right.”

“What if Walter tries to hire my bartenders to dance here?”

“They won’t.”

“If someone could get Polly to take off her shirt and look like she was enjoying it . . . that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

“A guy would pay for that,” Al said.

Ellen waved to a huge man as he walked in, and he came over and sat beside her.

“Wide Dennis,” she said. “Good to see you.”

Wide Dennis kissed Ellen and ordered a beer for himself and a Scotch for her. She patted his head and smiled. Wide Dennis had a head thick and faded as an old buoy. He had far-apart eyes that tended to lean randomly and outward, as if he were watching every corner at every time. He smelled like baby powder and spit, but he was smart enough to do something with computers that perhaps only two other people in the world could do, and he was paid well for this.

“Did you know this was Walter’s place now?” Ellen asked him.

“Just found out.”

“I always thought he was Amish,” Ellen said.

“I always thought he had a friend in Jesus,” Wide Dennis said.

Ellen laughed. “Remember Willy? Walter’s brother?”

Wide Dennis rolled his eyes.

Ellen said, “Willy could put his whole fist in his mouth, remember?”

“He put his whole damn near fist in my mouth a few times.”

“I don’t know that guy,” Al said.

“You’d know him if you saw him,” Wide Dennis said. “He’ll be the guy banging someone’s head against a Dumpster. Talking real loud.”

“He was a hell of a talker,” Ellen said. “Listening to Willy tell a story was like getting stuck behind the school bus. If anyone was going to open a damn strip joint in that family, it would be that bastard Willy, not Walter.”

Wide Dennis took a dollar bill from his pile of change and went up to the stage. He handed the dollar to the redheaded dancer. He said something to her as she took it, and she laughed. Ellen ordered two more beers, and when Rose brought the bottles over, Ellen asked, “What do they say to those girls, usually, when they give them money like that?”

Rose shrugged and walked away.

“Can’t shut that girl up,” Ellen said. “Just like her Uncle Willy.”

“Usually they tell her she’s beautiful,” Al said. “They tell her she’s a great dancer or something.”

“That’s sweet.”

“You used to strip. You remember how it is.”

“Not in a place like this,” Ellen said. “Not professionally. Just
in the beginning, at Tall Folks. Just to get people in there.” Ellen drank her Scotch. “It worked; that’s the truth. Some of those people still haven’t left. Actually, some of those people are in here right now. Can’t remember anyone ever handing me any money for it, though.”

“How’s my boy Tommy been doing?” someone behind Al asked. Ellen looked around her nephew and smiled.

“Hello, James.”

“Hello, Ellie.”

“Where’ve you been, James? We miss you.”

James waved at the stage. There was another dancer up there now, a tall black girl who was swaying, with her eyes shut. They all watched her for a while. She swayed and swayed, slowly, as if she’d forgotten where she was, as if she thought maybe she was alone. They watched her for some time and she didn’t do anything more than sway, but nobody was in any hurry to look at anything else. The redheaded girl gathered up her things and crossed the stage behind the swayer.

“Oh, my,” James said. “Will you look at that?”

“Which one?” Al asked.

“All of them! Everywhere!” James smiled. He had a front tooth missing, from where Tommy had fallen down on him one night and James had hit the floor with his mouth.

“Do they let you sing here?” Ellen asked.

James shook his head. He used to come to the Tall Folks Tavern and stand under the light by the cigarette machine to sing. Ellen would turn down the jukebox and threaten the circus into some kind of silence, and they would all listen to James. He used to dress for it, too, in a found suit, dress socks, and sandals. He looked like Nat King Cole but sang better. The light above the cigarette machine shadowed his face just right. People used to cry. Even sober people used to cry.

“How’s my Tommy doing?” James asked again.

“He’s so fat now you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Always was a big man.”

“Now he looks like a monk. Drinks like a fish, still.”

“Like a monkfish,” Al said, and James laughed and hugged him. James was wearing a leatherish coat that looked as if it had been made out of pieces of car seats. Patches of brown and gray and darker brown.

“I do miss Tommy,” James said.

“And we miss you,” Ellen said. “Stop over. Make the time.”

James nodded toward the swayer on the stage.

“We’ve still got girls across the street, honey,” Ellen said.

James did not even nod this time, and Ellen whispered into Al’s ear, “I want my people back.” He squeezed her hand.

Ellen got up and went to the bathroom, which looked the same as it always had. Above the urinal, it still said, “I fucked your mother,” and in a different pen below it said, “Go home, Dad. You’re drunk.”

Ellen put on lipstick and washed her hands without soap or paper towels, which she was used to. Under the mirror was the oldest piece of graffiti in the place, a decade-long joke. “Top Three Things We Like Most About Tommy,” it said. “#1) He’s not here.” There were no listings under numbers two and three.

“Ha,” Ellen said out loud.

She stayed in the bathroom a long time, ignoring a few quiet knocks and one quick pounding at the door. When she finally came out, the dark-haired girl with the serious center part was standing there. They smiled at each other.

“Rose,” Ellen said.

“I’m Sandy. Rose is my sister.”

“You look like sisters.”

“We all work here.”

“I heard that. It’s like a cottage industry. It’s like a bodega,” Ellen said, and when Sandy did not answer, she added, “I’m Ellen.”

“I know.”

The two women looked at each other. Sandy was wearing a bathing suit like Rose’s, but she had shorts on.

“How’s business?”

“Great,” Sandy said. “And you?”

“Great,” Ellen lied.

“Good.” Sandy smiled. “That’s real good.”

“Are you waiting for the bathroom?”

“I’m just sort of standing here.”

“Do you know my nephew Al?” Ellen pointed down the bar. “He’s the cutest boy here.”

“He sure is,” Sandy said.

“He told me the other day that he’s been in love with me since I used to push him around in his baby carriage.”

“Wow.”

“Do people fall in love with the girls in this bar?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“I don’t think they do,” Ellen said. “I think they just like to watch.”

“I don’t guess it matters,” Sandy said.

“Your dad doesn’t even like girls. Excuse me for saying it.”