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I’m sure the Morrissey brothers paid money to stay open, but they had some strong connections beyond the money they paid, ties to the local political clubhouse.
They didn’t water the booze and they poured a good drink. Wasn’t that as much of a character reference as any man needed?
Ford was in the White House, his presence oddly comforting if not terribly convincing. A fellow named Abe Beame was in Gracie Mansion, although I never had the feeling he really believed he was mayor of New York, any more than Gerry Ford believed he was president of the United States of America.
Does it matter? I don’t suppose it does. If it did I could go to the library and check the Times Index, or just hunt up a World Almanac for the year. But I already remember everything I really need to remember.
And today it's google.
was still drinking then, of course, and I was at a point where the booze did (or seemed to do) more for me than it did to me.
Armstrong’s had a jukebox with a nice selection of jazz and country blues, but Jimmy took it out early on and replaced it with a stereo system and classical music on tape. That kept the younger crowd out, to the delight of the waitresses who hated the kids for staying late, ordering little, and tipping hardly at all.
more suitable for long-haul maintenance drinking.
one time when an obstetrics resident from Roosevelt tried to ask him about his offerings. Tommy brushed him off with a joke. “No, I’m serious,” the doctor insisted. “I’m finally making a buck, I ought to start thinking about things like that.”
Tommy shrugged. “You got a card?” The doctor didn’t. “Then write your phone on this and a good time to call you. You want a pitch, I’ll call you
and give you the full treatment. But I got to warn you, I’m irresist...
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came across as a man who could do things, one too who could make quick decisions in midaction. Maybe he acquired that quality wearing a green hat in Vietnam, or maybe I endowed him with it because I knew he’d been over there.
I thought it was exciting enough the way it went down, but I guess it’s a lot more dramatic when you’re not there. Well, ten years after the 1916 Rising they say it was hard to find a man in Dublin who hadn’t been part of it. That glorious Monday morning,
when thirty brave men marched into the post office and ten thousand heroes marched out.
Skip was tense and remote, I sat at the bar and tried to ignore the man standing next to me without being actively hostile. He wanted to tell me how all the city’s problems were the fault of the former mayor. I didn’t necessarily disagree but I didn’t want to hear about it.
Bourbon is an old boy ready to let the animal out, ready to let the nasty show. Bourbon is sitting up on a hot night and not minding if you sweat.”
They told me not to leave town. You believe it? My wife’s dead, the Post headline says ‘Quiz Husband in Burglary Murder,’ and what the hell do they think I’m gonna do? Am I going fishing for fucking trout in Montana? ‘Don’t leave town.’ You see this shit on television, you think nobody in real life talks like that. Maybe television’s where they get it from.”
I want that for me and for the people I do business with and for my relatives and Peg’s relatives and all the wonderful people who voted for me. You remember the old ‘Amateur Hour’? ‘I want to thank mom and dad and Aunt Edith and my piano teacher Mrs. Pelton and all the wonderful people who voted for me.’
The stairwell held cooking smells, rodent smells, a faint ammoniac reek of urine. All old buildings housing poor people smell like that. Rats die in the walls, kids
and drunks piss. Cruz’s building was no worse than thousands.
Billie Keegan told me Skip was looking for me. “Everybody’s looking for me,” I said. “It’s nice to be wanted,” Billie said. “I had an uncle was wanted in four states. You had a phone message, too. Where’d I put it?” He handed me a slip. Tommy Tillary again, but a different phone number this time. “Something to drink, Matt? Or did you just drop by to check your mail and messages?”
“A minute ago you loved this life.” “Was I the one who said that? You know the story about the guy bought a Volkswagen and his friend asks him how does he like it? ‘Well, it’s like eating pussy,’ the guy says. ‘I’m crazy about it, but I don’t take a whole lot of pride in it.’
expecting Tommy, or not expecting him but not thinking straight, confronting the burglar, people did that all the time, not thinking, outraged at the invasion of their home, acting as if their righteous indignation would serve them as armor.
I had no illusions about my ability to glean vibrations from the room or the clothing or the furniture. Smell is the sense most directly hooked into the memory, but all her perfume did was remind me that an aunt of mine had smelled of that same floral scent. I don’t know what I thought I was doing there.
“Billie,” she said, “do you know how you can tell that Mr. Scudder is a gentleman?” “He always removes his lady in the presence of a hat.” “He is a bourbon drinker,” she said. “That makes him a gentleman, huh, Carolyn?” “It makes him a far cry removed from a hypocritical scotch-drinking son of a bitch.”
He was freshening my drink. I didn’t remember drinking it. I said, “You know, my trouble is I can’t go home.” “That’s what Thomas Wolfe said, ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’ That’s everybody’s trouble.” “No, I mean it. My feet keep taking me to a bar instead. I was out in Brooklyn, I got home late, I was tired, I was already half in the bag, I started
to walk to my hotel and I turned around and came here instead.
You’re a guy, a human being. Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn’t want to
be alone when the sacred ginmill closes.”
“Don’t you know the song?” “What song?” “The Van Ronk song. ‘And so we’ve had another night—’ ” He broke off. “Hell, I can’t sing, I can’t even get the tune right. ‘Last Call,’ Dave Van Ronk. You don’t know it?”
“My place,” he said. “You’ve got to hear this record.”
You’re gonna love this song, Matt.”
“Dave Van Ronk. You know him?” “Never heard of him.” “Got a Dutch name, looks like a mick and I swear on the blues numbers he sounds just like a nigger. He’s also one bitchin’ guitar player but
he doesn’t play anything on this cut. ‘Last Call.’ He sings it al fresco.”
“A cappella. That’s what it is, a cappella. As soon as I stopped actively trying to think of it, it popped right
into my head. The Zen of Remembering.
And so we’ve had another night Of poetry and poses And each man knows he’ll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes. The melody sounded like an Irish folk air.
The singer did indeed sing without accompaniment, his voice rough but curiously gentle.
And so we’ll drink the final glass Each to his joy and sorrow And hope the numbing drunk will last Till opening tomorrow “Jesus,” Billie said. And when we stumble back again Like paralytic dancers Each knows the question he must ask And each man knows the answer
And so we’ll drink the final drink That cuts the brain in sections Where answers do not signify
And there aren’t any questions
I broke my heart the other day. It will mend again tomorrow. If I’d been drunk when I was born I’d be ignorant of sorrow
And so we’ll drink the final toast That never can be spoken: Here’s to the heart that is wise enough To know when it’s better off broken
walked home with the song’s phrases echoing in my mind, coming back at me in fragments. “If I’d been drunk when I was born I’d be ignorant of sorrow.” Jesus.
couldn’t remember putting it back after the last drink of the night, but then there were other things I couldn’t recall either, like most of the
walk home from his apartment. That sort of miniblackout didn’t bother me much. When you drove cross-country you didn’t remember every billboard, every mile of highway. Why bother recalling every minute of your life?
I’d ever felt that bad without having drunk the night before, I’d have gone straight to a hospital. As it was, I stayed put and treated myself like a man with an illness, which in retrospect would seem to have been more than metaphor.
Our accountant’s armed
with what he calls a Jewish revolver. You know what that is?” “A fountain pen.”
“He treats me fine, you know. He’s a good man. He’s got his faults. He’s strong, but he has his weaknesses.” At a fellow police officer’s wake, I once heard an Irish woman speak thus of the drink. “Sure, it’s a strong man’s weakness,” she had said.
The Feds? You mean they could have them all along and be preparing a case and in the meantime we’re paying ransom to somebody who hasn’t got shit.” He stood up, walked around the desk. “I fuckin’ love it,” he said. “I love it so much I
