RODAK

GERRY GOES TO YONKERS

A STORY

            I was sitting at the bar of the Glenside Pub, staring without prejudice at a shot of Jack and a nip of Bud.  The Glenside was my home bar, my social club, my cathedral and sanctuary.  It was nearly mid-afternoon, July.  The ninety-degree heat radiating off Bainbridge Avenue, and the tepid draft from the overworked and inadequate A/C above the front door, would keep me inside until evening came and the white hot sun rolled off the edge of the Bronx.

            Eamon, the day man, was at the far end of the bar, mentally fused to this afternoon’s episode of Divorce Court, unbothered by customers.  My sole cohort for this midday bout of self-medication was old Johnny Butz, and Johnny had been unconscious for going on two hours, silently filling the room with the unmistakable effluvium of end-stage alcoholism. 

            It was a bet Johnny wouldn’t be with us for Christmas this year.

            Suddenly becoming judgmental, I directed a silent curse at the booze awaiting my attention on the bar.  I shouldn’t drink you fuckers, I threatened.  I shouldn’t study death no more.  But I knew that I would, and that these wouldn’t be the last.  Not even close.  Such thoughts came upon me several times a day without lasting effect, often accompanied by similarly meteoric pledges to quit smoking.

            It was nearly three o’clock, and soon the Irish construction workers would begin to swagger in, dust covered and thirsty, buying rounds.  Stage two of my daily routine would commence.  It would take me where I needed to go.

            Without warning a hard clap on the back nearly knocked me off my stool, and I heard the hyperbolic, idiot laugh of Gerald Dunahey close behind me.  Wake up!  You coulda been a dead motherfucker, Gerry howled.  Wanna do some blow?

            I reminded Gerry that I had never turned it down and summoned Eamon away from the tube long enough to buy Gerry a Heineken, which was part of the ritual.  I tossed back my shot of Jack.  There was no point in nursing my medicine now, for king coke had arrived to give legs to my drunk.

            I grabbed my beer off the bar and we retired to the back.

            The back room contained a few wobbly straight-backed chairs, a coin operated pool table and a battered dart board.  The wall paper, which depicted duck hunting scenes embossed in green against a cigarette stain sky, was peeling away from the borders of holes punched in the plasterboard walls by the butt ends of pool cues.

            Gerry tossed his shoulder-length hair back from his face with a practiced motion involving his entire body.  Due to a pronounced scoliosis, he walked with a list to port.  When standing still, Gerry gave the impression of peeking around a corner.

            Can you do me a solid, man, and let me hold five ‘til later? he asked.  Gerry produced half a joint from the watch pocket of the black denim vest that he was wearing over a black T-shirt proclaiming The Who.  Keith Moon.  Rock’n’Roll Heaven.  He fired up the roach and passed it over to me.  I got me a deal goin’ down, he said.  My boy’s up in Yonkers right now, but I need five to keep me in some brews ‘til he gets his ass back down here.

            I passed the joint back to Gerry, dug into my jeans and pulled out my loose bills.  Unemployment money, mingled with my wife’s earnings.  I peeled off a five.  No problem, Ger.  Good, he said.  I didn’t think so.  Let’s do that blow. 

            Gerry leaned down, pulled his knife out of his boot and flicked it open.  Carefully unfolding the paper packet containing the coke, he dipped the point of his blade into the little hill of snow and held it up under my left nostril.  Go, Bobby, he said, and I snarfed it up.  Then he did himself. 

That’s some good toot, man.  Let’s shoot some stick, he said.

            I dug into my pocket again, this time for a quarter to retrieve the balls from the table; also part of the ritual--I paid for the game.  I’ll spot you two balls, man, Gerry said, and then you’ll have two more than you walked in here with.  And he threw back his head and let out his characteristic, semi-hysterical howl.  Nothing weird about Gerry, I thought.  I could no longer feel my front teeth.  Gerry’s stuff was better than usual.  I don’t need your fuckin’ two balls, I said, chalking up a cue that still had a hint of tip left on it.  Lag for break?  Naw, you rack, you break, man, Gerry said.  I’m gonna kick your flat ass, man.  Gerry didn’t like to rack the balls any more than he liked to pay for them.  For a dollar, man, he said.  No,  for a drink, I answered.  For a beer. 

Okay, he shrugged.  It’s all your bread anyway.  Again, the laugh.

            Gerry wielded his knife a second time and did my other side.  Then he did his own, twice.  So, break, motherfucker, he said. 

            I finished racking up the balls, rechalked my cue, and bent over the table to break.  I should’ve let him spot me those two balls, I thought.  I knew that Gerry was capable of drinking on me all night long, if he stayed sober enough.  But the chemical highball oozing through my bloodstream had saturated my confidence receptors, steadied my nerves and focused my concentration.  I ripped off a magnificent, crashing break that sent the one ball like a cannon shot into the right corner pocket and the rest of the rack screaming from the rails like maniacs off the rubber walls of a fire-bombed nut house.  Two more balls dropped, another solid and a stripe.  I was already chalking up for my next shot, doing my best so-you-were-gonna-spot-me-two-huh? version of the old pimp roll, when I realized in utter dismay that the cue ball was trickling inexorably toward the left side pocket.  The fucker dropped in like a ton of shit.  Scratch! Gerry howled.  Get it up, man!  Where’s my fuckin’ Heineken?  You lose, you rack!  And he threw back his head and roared with schizophrenic abandon.

            After suggesting what Gerry could do with the thick end of his cue, I headed back out front to get us another couple of beers.

            In the time we had spent in the back room things had begun to pick up at the bar.  Johnny Butz now lay on the floor, next to his dislodged uppers, snoring contentedly in the midst of a litter of crushed cigarette filters, bottle caps, and fumbled coins.  Jimmie O’Sullivan, who was a dead ringer for Jerry Jeff Walker, had arrived.  So had the Foley brothers, Sean and Morris.  The three of them were pounding down shots of Hennessey brandy in their work clothes, making up for time lost to toil, and cracking jokes in thick rural brogues that were nearly unintelligible to a Yank like myself. 

            Now close enough to the end of his shift to get shit-faced himself, Eamon was matching the boys shot for shot and buying back every second round, in order to pump up his tips. 

            Sean Foley spotted me standing at the bar before Eamon did.  Bobby, yeh hairy hoor yeh!  How they hangin’? he bellowed. 

            Terminally cool, I surveyed the group through Dirty Harry eyes.  If Morris is buying, I’m having a double, I suggested to Eamon. 

If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle, drawled Morris.

            I asked Eamon for a Heinie and a nip and tossed him two bucks.  Well, I’d love to stand here and match wits with you bog-hoppers, I said, but I’ve got to go back and take Dunahey off the table. 

            As an afterthought, I got another shot of Jack from Eamon, and tossed it down, pausing a moment to measure its effect before backing it up with a sip of Bud.  Bobby, you wouldn’t make a patch on Gerry’s arse for a pool shooter, said Sean by way of encouragement.

            He was correct, but I flipped him the bird anyway.

***   ***   ***

            Two hours and five rounds—at my expense—later, I was back at the bar, cursing the drunken arrogance that had persuaded me to take on Gerald Dunahey at the game of eight ball.  I was by now so drunk that my cheeks were numb and I realized that I was peering through one eye to keep from seeing double.  But I kept drinking beer, oblivious to my surroundings, and shortly time ceased to exist.  I had finally achieved release.

***   ***   ***

            By the time the room came back, there was only darkness in the diamond shaped window high up on the front door.  There was two bits and a half a beer on the bar by my elbow.  I hoisted the bottle, took a good swig, and nearly gagged.  Room temperature.  And with a butt in it.  As I swung around on the revolving stool to determine with whom I would be celebrating the remainder of the evening, I sipped the dregs through nearly sealed lips, straining out the tobacco shreds with my front teeth. 

            I heard Gerry’s voice, amidst others.  He was standing over by the juke box, in the center of a discussion that appeared to be gathering some heat.  Naw, man, I heard Gerry say.  The kid just fucked up, that’s all.  You got nuthin’ to fuckin’ worry about, man.  Tomorrow, bottom line.  Don’t be fuckin’ with my head now.  You know me, man!

            I suddenly remembered the five that I had slipped Gerry earlier, realized that I now had need of it, and mentally kissed it good-bye.

            Gerry’s protestations were being delivered to a local heavy called Big Joey--a.k.a., Joe the Albanian.  Joe was not the best bet among the neighborhood wise guys to offer up patience and understanding when inconvenienced by your personal fuck-ups.  Big Joey had one of his boys on each of Gerry’s elbows: the Iceman, who looked like a teenage albino version of Boris Karloff, and Ago, who would have looked perfectly natural hanging from the spire of the Empire State Building, swatting at biplanes.  Maybe we gotta step into my office and talk this over, my friend, Joey said quietly.  And the four of them headed for the back room, Gerry jerking along like a lamb whose ass was being nipped at by three humorless herd dogs.

            I glanced over my shoulder to see who was now behind the bar.  It was a part-time fill-in guy named Kevin, who was deeply engrossed in washing, dipping, and rewashing the same rocks glass, over and over.  It was obvious that Kevin had judiciously allowed his attention to wander back to County Kerry.  No help there.  I kissed my ass good-bye.  I was going to have to take Gerry’s back alone, or slink out of the bar right now and wake up in the morning with the label “pussy” branded on my forehead.

            Even half-sober I was no brawler, and I hadn’t been sober in a week.

            Feeling just like Ethel Rosenberg, I slid off my stool, swayed, grabbed the edge of the bar for support, and began to stagger towards the back room. 

            Before I had taken four steps in that direction, somebody hit the lights and the back room went black.  Almost simultaneously came a loud crack, like the report of a hand gun, followed by a dull thud and a low moan. 

            Jay-sus, Joseph and May-ry, Kevin muttered behind me, they’ve kilt the poor bastard!

            Moving briskly, but with practiced cool, Joey and his boys loomed up out of the darkness.  When they got to me, Joey pulled up short.  You want some of what you’ buddy got, asshole?  Joey asked.  No thanks, man, I’m trying to quit, I managed.  Yo, numb-nuts! Joey barked at Kevin.  Give this asshole a beer on me.  Asshole, keep you’ drunken mout’ shut.  It sounded like sage advice.

            Joey and his boys then made an eagerly anticipated exit.

            Rejoicing that I had been suffered to live, I hurried into the back room to determine if anything salvageable remained of Gerry.  I groped around for the light switch, afraid of what I would see when I flipped it on.

            Gerry was slumped in a chair, legs sprawled out in weird directions, perfectly motionless.  Next to his head was a fresh hole in the plasterboard, the result of a miss.  Blood was streaming down Gerry’s face from the slit on a lump that was emerging from the center of his forehead.  The lump had the exact circumference, and was nearly the same color, as the red rubber knob on the butt end of a pool cue.

Gerry’s left eye opened, just a crack.  Bobby? he croaked painfully.  Get me a priest.  The eye closed again.  Naw, man, Gerry sighed.  Fuck the priest.  I got to go to Yonkers.