And I danced with
11-year-old Brooke Shields
Monday 11/13/06.
Pouring rain, temperature in the mid-60’s.
Kenny is eating the steak and spinach salad, except that it’s not
spinach, it’s mesclun. The bar hasn’t had spinach since the E coli scare a few
months back. “Spinach me!” Kenny cries, in the immortal vein of Homer Simpson
yelling “Fugu me!” Instead of playing CD’s, Kenny is listening to JACK FM, the
sound of the 80’s, which is currently playing Bananarama. Kenny, Marita, Ketel
Mike and I all reminisce about hobbit-sized British girl groups, while Marita
does today’s Times crossword puzzle.
MARITA: Kenny, you’ll know this. Blank
Yang Twins, hip hop.
KENNY: Ying Yang Twins. God, give me
something hard.
ME: Like Fu-Schnickens?
KENNY: Oh my God! Oh my God! You know
them?!? I haven’t heard those guys in years!
ME: I have their CD somewhere.
Probably next to MC 900 Foot Jesus.
KENNY: Oh my God! Oh my God!
JACK FM is now playing Donna Summer, and Ketel Mike is
complaining. He redoubles his complaints when “I Feel Love” segues into “Disco
Inferno.” Kenny asks, “How can you not like Disco Inferno?” And Ketel Mike
replies with the immortal words: “I was at the opening night of Studio 54.”
Like that’s an answer. Or like this gives him the right to, well, do and say
anything he wants. Or, as Kenny says
under his breath, “And no one was talking to you THEN either.” The line becomes
the running joke of the night. “Where’s my drink?” “I’m sorry, I was at the
opening night of Studio 54.” “Why is my meal cold?” “I was at the opening night
of Studio 54.” “There’s lipstick on this glass.” “I was at the opening night—”
“No, really,” says Marita, “I hate to be a bother, but there’s lipstick on this
glass.” “It’s not yours?” Kenny asks. “I don’t wear lipstick,” Marita says.
‘Maybe it’s Anita’s,” I say, “it looks like her color.” “No, it’s way too red,”
Kenny says.
And then the penny drops and Kenny and I look at each other
and we say “Oh shit” at exactly the same time. “What day of the month is it again?”
“It's the 13th.” “Oh shit.” “Did anybody go downstairs last night?” “No,” says
Kenny, “because DOMINIC was in charge of it.” “Oh man.” And then Sarah has
dashed through the door. “Try your taps,” she says, “the ones downstairs are
all flat.” Marita holds up the lipstick-stained glass. “Fucking Dominic,” says
Kenny. “Randi’s heading downstairs,” Sarah says, and I say, “I’ll go help—I’ve
done it before with Dominic, and you need a guy doing it or it won’t work.” I
don’t get an argument, because we all remember the hell night when Randi tried
to do it alone. Whatever haunts the basement, it really has it in for women.
“The Guinness is still good,” says Kenny, having tried all his taps, and Sarah
snorts, “Of course it’s still good—they’re leprechauns.” And down she and I go
to the Keg Switch.
The
Keg Switch
Back in the late 90’s, a guy named Bobby Abraham started
dating the crazy Vander daughter (Amy), and because he fancied himself as a
musical impresario, he parleyed that relationship into permission to use the
upper basement of the Naughty Pine, where all the kegs were switched out, as a
kind of grungy punk rock music venue on weekends and Monday nights. Called The
Keg Switch, it only lasted for about 15 months, until Giuliani’s Civility Campaign
killed it—that, and the threat of an astronomical noise violation fine. During
those 15 months, Abraham started up a record label called JD Records, for
Juvenile Delinquent, and recorded a number of the concerts live for potential
CD release. He also rented out studio space and recorded over 60 different
versions of the song “I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)” for a compilation CD.
All of which was going to be paid by Amy Vander, because even though he picked
up tabs for dinner and dressed like a man
who had cash to burn, Abraham was a perennially-broke smooth-talker who figured
that Amy (being the crazy Vander) would not only front him the money he needed,
but bail him out when his bills came due. What he didn’t know was that Amy was
only crazy until it came to money, at which point she turned into an
incredibly attractive cross between a forensic accountant and a rabid coyote.
She took Abraham for everything he had, including the record company; then
broke off their relationship and filed a restraining order against him. The
words is, Abraham is currently out in Hollywood trying to make it as a film
producer. And as everyone knows, Amy Vander is still just as crazy when it
comes to guys, but at least nowadays she has them vetted financially after the
first date. And the Keg Switch? It’s still there, but the kegs that used to
line the walls have been moved to the west end of the upper basement. Because
if they’re anywhere else, then they go flat. Because of the ghosts.
A-haunting we will go
The current theory breaks two ways—there are either two
ghosts, one benevolent and one angry, or one ghost who flips back and forth
between the two like a three-year-old kid on a sugar high. As for the identity
of our spectral regular (I’m in the one ghost/two moods camp), there are as
many theories as there are people who know about it. There are a number of
people who have died in the Naughty Pine, but except for the blonde who keeps
shedding her ectoplasmic hair in Booth 113, none of them have stuck around to
fiddle with the taps or screw with the beer around the 13th of every month. And
even these visits have been recent, comparatively speaking; they started up a
little over two years ago. Ned Shay’s theory is the one that makes sense to me:
if ghosts and poltergeists are basically a combination of spiritual force and
electrical energy, then somebody walked into the bar one night whose personal
energy signature was like an extension cord, and the previously dormant and
powerless ghost plugged itself into him or her, and now—even though that person
is gone—the connection remains, jump-starting itself around the same phase of
the moon every month. Unless a certain ritual is performed, said ritual being a
step-by-step replication of what Dominic did the first time this happened.
So down to the Keg Switch Sarah and I go, where Randi is
waiting, and we do it by the numbers. Step 1: unhook the taps from the current
kegs which have all gone flat. Step 2: spill beer from the flat Hoegarden keg
along the west wall of the upper basement, soaking both the floorboards and the
bricks. Step 3: line up the flat kegs in a pyramid shape along the south wall
(4-3-2-1). Step 4: connect fresh kegs to the taps in a specific order, which is
written down on a piece of paper taped to one of the ceiling beams. It takes a
good ten minutes, even with three people doing it, but when we’ve finished, the
ghost should be appeased for another four weeks.
When we get back to the street, Randi hangs outside and has
a cigarette and I keep her company while she smokes it. She tells me about
firing Dominic, and talking to Sunday. Evidently Dominic was also fooling
around with Jynah (duh), who told Randi that Dominic and Sunday had been
snogging at the Ace Of Clubs and I had not only seen them, but talked to them
as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Which was why Randi had
confronted me a few nights back. (Which already seems like a month ago.) It was
only when Randi and Sunday “got real with each other on the roof,” as Randi
says, that she learned the truth. “I should also learn to stop trusting certain
people,” Randi says. I’m assuming she means Jynah, but she could also be
talking about Dominic. Or herself.
The hero takes the fall
When we go back in, Sarah gives us a thumbs-up: the taps are
working fine. I head upstairs, where Kenny has poured me a fresh pint. Fifteen
minutes later, when Ketel Mike leaves, Kenny says, “Hmm—I wonder if he used to
leave Studio 54 at 8:30?” The next 90 minutes are pure torture, as Kenny is
dying to get this place closed by 10, and is totally pushing Eric to drop
checks everywhere at about 9 PM. But people keep coming upstairs because the
downstairs is mobbed. This is the other thing about the upstairs bar. We are
kind of the trash bag for the downstairs bar. If they don’t want to handle it,
they send it up to us (and yes, I say “us” because I feel like I have a vested
ownership interest in this place). Since the Pine has no hostess station, the
second floor is at the mercy of whoever is serving the window tables near the
door, and whoever is stationed at the east end of the bar. If Jynah doesn't
want to work, and Sunday is fed up with assholes, then everybody gets waved
upstairs. And the irony of all this is that
Kenny continues to bitch about the Vanders closing the place before the holiday
season kicks in. “They decided to go Grinch on all of us,” he cries. “Who does
that? Who the hell does that? Hey—Merry Chrstmas, suckers, good luck looking
for a job!” So he's complaining about not having money coming in, but he’s also
complaining about people with money in their pockets coming upstairs to spend
it in his bar when he wants to go home. It’s just so wonderfully human.
During this rush, the Professor comes up, just as Sarah
calls on Line 1 to tell Kenny that the Prof has been cut off downstairs. This has happened
before, and Kenny usually allows the Professor to have one drink and then leave,
but for some reason, he’s not doing that tonight. Maybe it’s Kenny’s annoyance
at not being able to close early; maybe it’s a premonition. For whatever
reason, he hands the Professor a water when he asks for a scotch. And the Prof
does not like that at all.
While they’re going at it, Marita is getting
ready to head out herself.
MARITA: Don’t tell John, but I may be
going to Reservoir.
ME: Okay.
MARITA: Just don’t tell John.
ME: Like we talk all the time.
MARITA: You know what I mean.
ME: No, really -- I mean we talk
all the time. It’s always the same thing -- thirty seconds after you leave,
he’s up here grilling me. “Okay, where’s she going tonight? I know she told you
not to tell me, so tell me. It’s Reservoir, isn’t it.”
Marita laughs. And then we hear THAT SOUND—you only have to
hear it once and you never forget it—the sound of someone falling down the 22
steps (and one landing) from the upstairs bar to the downstairs floor, followed
by the deep THUMP of a body hitting the closed door.
People who don't believe in teleportation have never moved
during an emergency. There is no passage of time or sense of space. One moment
you're sitting and drinking; the next, you're fifteen feet away—with no memory
of moving, with no sense of the passage of time—one moment here, one moment
there, like a jump cut in a movie, like life threw a switch and you went from There
to Here in the time it takes to blink. One moment, Marita and I are sitting on
our stools, Kenny is pouring a Sam Adams Octoberfest, and Eric is taking an
order; the next, the four of us are at the top of the stairs, looking down at
the bottom of the stairs, where the body of the Professor is crumpled against
the closed door.
For one eternal moment we’re all thinking the same thing:
he’s dead. He broke his neck and he’s dead. And then we hear a laugh coming up
from that crumpled heap, and the Professor’s arms and legs stretch out, the
arms shoving up against the floor, the legs bending to take his weight, and
he’s standing there without even a bruise on him, waving up at us and saying in
a peevish teacher tone of voice: “That’s what you get for giving me water!”
Then he turns, sways a little—will he topple against the wall? No—and staggers
out to the street.
There’s another time jump, and the four of us are on the
outside deck looking down onto the street as the Professor is weaving his way
south towards Washington Mews, where he lives. I think I’m the one who starts
it, but we all end up laughing hysterically and shaking our heads. “God smiles
on fools and drunks,” I say. Words which will come back to haunt me twelve
hours later.
Alcohol: Guinness (4)
Jameson (1)
Ghost ritual: 1
All the bands I saw at The Keg Switch: The Necco Wafers
-- Knock Knock Who’s There
-- No Soap Radio --
They Came From Cordura -- Emoticon
-- The Box Jumpers --
Everything That Uncle John Needs
-- The Band That Time
Forgot -- John Dillinger and the Public Enemies -- But Wait There’s More --
The Britney Spears Meltdown
-- James Brown’s Body --
Xtra Olive and the Dirty Martinis
-- The New Black --
ESAD -- Umgowa
-- Bend Sinister --
Birth School Work Death -- The Faceless Suits -- The Palmer Method --
Mt St Helens -- John Company -- Lucky Lindy --
Your Brain On Drugs -- Nolan Ryan and the No-Hitters --
Short Back and Sides -- The Quarterback Controversy --
The Powder Monkeys -- The Missouri Compromise --
This Fresh Hell -- The Educated Fleas -- Repeat And Fade -- Sonic
Whores -- The Little Foxes -- Edna St. Vincent Van Gogh --
Gut-Wrenching Loss -- Walk Into This -- The Humarock
Bonfires -- The Doohickeys -- The Juicyfruits -- The Four
Flashcubes -- Humbert Humbert and the Underage Girlfriends
Copyright 2016 Matthew J Wells
1 comment:
OMG! You really have turned into a complete, fully engaged, died-in-the-wool New Yorker!
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