almost okay

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARTY SHERMAN
"It Must Be Happy Hour Somewhere"

When I went into The Bar after work yesterday I sat between a couple of guys that were already there drinking away the afternoon. I was able to maintain an empty seat between myself and each of them, ordered a pint of Newcastle from the bartender and settled in to watch the Tigers play the Angels, the sun streaming through the place and also shining brightly on the TV screen as they played an afternoon game in LA. The guy on my left was a regular, who I've seen nearly every time I've ever been in there regardless of the day. The other guy was taller and unfamiliar to me. They were having a light hearted discussion on the relative ease with which they and their buddies were able to buy alcohol when they were underage, the tall guy claiming that he could buy in New York when he was only fifteen because of his height and long hair. Both of them had prematurely bald friends who could purchase with ease. I stayed out of the conversation, but when the regular left, the tall guy started talking to me directly, didn't seem to take the hint that I didn't really feel like talking. After a few sentences I realized that he was much further along the drunk trail than I was at the time, me barely being into my second pint. I mostly nodded absently at his comments and watched the Tigers, but he just kept blabbing on and on, forcing some responses.

“I godda go to class at six,” he told me. “I work all day and I godda go to school at night.”

“I don't know how you do it,” I said. I didn't want to know what he was studying.

“I'm studying legal,” he said. “I'm gonna be a paralegal. I like it. It's a lecture tonight.”

“Good luck with that, man,” I said. “I always had a hard time with lectures anyway. If I'd drunk beer just before class I probably would have gone to sleep.”

“I had an Irish coffee for my first one,” he gently slurred. “Maybe that'll kick in later.”

He ordered another pint of black and tan. I ordered another Newcastle. Since my favorite bartender was working the day shift, my plan was just to sneak in as many as I could before six then hit the road. She looked amazing, her hair braided in pigtails that hung down around her face on either side and pointed directly at her boobs. As she walked around, her flesh became liquid and the breast flesh took on a life of its own.

“Yep, I godda crappy job that I work for fifty hours a week then I go to school for sixteen more,” said the guy. I looked at him finally, took a good look at his hazy brown drunken eyes, saw a rough face with a nose that looked to have been broken a couple of times and vertical scars on his upper lip, chipped and broken brown teeth that corresponded with the scars as though he'd suffered a beating or two at some point in the past. His crappy job probably didn't include health insurance, and I was guessing that if it did, it definitely didn't cover dental. His hands were rough and the nails had a line of grime under them. He needed a shave. “Not that I can't support myself,” he went on. “But I work with a bunch of kids and nobody wants to do anything. If anything breaks I have to fix it. Sometimes I have to call the maintenance guy if it's something I can't fix. He's a crusty old bastard.” He was wearing a red shirt that had a car wash logo embroidered over the heart. When I first came in I guessed that if might just be an old shirt that he'd picked up second hand, or something from a former job, but it was becoming clear that it was his work uniform.

“So you work around here?” I asked.

“Car wash up on Woodward between Thirteen and Fourteen,” he said. “Today in the same half hour I had two Red Wings come in. Two.” He held up two fingers, the backwards peace sign. “Stevie Yzerman and Larry Murphy. I said to Stevie, 'There's no need for you to pay Mr. Yzerman', and Stevie says to me, 'Please, it's not neshessary...here give this to the workers', and he handed me a ten. Hey, I'm a worker, knowhatImean? Ha ha.”

“No shit,” I said.

“Yeah, that Yzerman's a nice guy,” he said.

“I would have thought those guys all lived in Grosse Pointe or something,” I said.

“Nope, Birmingham, West Bloomfield,” he said. “I had Scotty Bowman come in once and he was driving this big Mercedes and didn't even know how to put it in neutral. I tried to help him but he said something to me, and I'm like 'hey, you're a good coash but I'm not one of your players. Knowhatimean?'” The flood gates had opened and this guy wouldn't shut up. The bartender came by and asked him if he wanted another beer. “I think I've made a decizhun...I'm gonna blow off class.”

“I'm not going to let you do that,” she said. “You have to go.” I think she was just as tired of him as I was.

“Are you American Indian?” he asked her.

“Nope, I just didn't know what to do with my hair today. Actually it's a mess, but everybody likes it. I've been getting compliments all day.”

“You definitely have that Pocahontas thing going on,” I told her.

“Is that your nashurl color?” asked the guy.

“My hair is dark chocolate brown,” she said proudly, as though she'd practiced thinking about what color her hair was, came up with a perfect description for it. “I dye it black.”

“So is it about the color of mine?” asked the guy. “Becuzh I'm part Sishilian and I just wonnerd if it was the color of mine. Are you Italian?”

“Irish and German. I get my dark hair and olive skin from the Irish side. They were from the Black Hills and there was some gypsy mixed in there.”

“Gypsy,” I said, “I knew it. I can see the gypsy in you.”

“I'm Irish, too,” said the drunk guy. “McConnaughey, Like Matthew McConaughey but with two 'n's. My dad shez Matthew's 'n' challenged, knowhatImean? Ha ha ha. When I was in shcool, nobody could pronounsh it.”

“Your families were probably rival clans,” I said. “I'll bet you two are actually sworn enemies.”

By that time I'd drained my second pint. It was five-thirty. “You guys want another one?”

“I'll have one more,” I said.

McConnaughey twirled his glass around with a loose wrist. “I'll go to class, I'll jush be late.”

She brought two more, then went back over to the other end of the bar. I watched her with lustful fascination as she worked and moved, couldn't take my eyes off her as she stood down on the end talking to her girls and laughing, serving drinks more frequently as the bar began to fill up a little. Just above the waitress station was a skylight panel that allowed the late afternoon sun's rays to stream in and light the bartender's face up with a golden glow. The same shaft of light threw sparkles through the stacked glasses and bounced hot highlights off the stainless steel wash basin and fixtures, outlined the waitresses that stood there momentarily to pick up their orders with a warm sunny aura. It was a beautiful sight, and it took me a while to figure out where the sunshine was coming from. I realized that McConnaughey was mumbling something.

“...knowhatImean?” he said.

“Sorry, man, I got distracted by the gypsy girl.”

“Hey, itsh unnerstannable,” he said. “I get dishtracted by her, too."

“So what did you shtudy in shcool?” McConnaughey slurred. I had forgotten he was even there.

“Oh, uh, art,” I told him. “I have a completely useless degree in painting from a hundred years ago.”

“Cuzh I like art,” he said. “I shtudied graphic dezhign. I godda Ashoshiatsh in graphic dezhign. I'd really like to draw cartoonsh. I have people that I knew in grade shcool come into work and tell me, 'hey, I shtill got that cartoon you drew in shcool'. I'm fladdered but it doezhn't pay anything, knowhatImean? Ha ha.”

“Yeah, it's hard to get paid for it,” I agreed. “I've been doing a cartoon for a record collecting magazine for ten years. I've been lucky. It doesn't pay a lot, but not bad for that kind of thing.”

“You colleck recordsh?” McConnaughey said. “Me, too.”

“Yeah, I must have five thousand or so,” I told him.

“Me, too. I shtarted buying tapesh, too. I'm alsho a muzhishun. I've got so much shit... a P.A. shyshtem, boxesh of tapesh, and I only have a three bedroom houshe. My roommate laughsh at me when I tryan fin' shumpthin. Like a dumbash I jush threw all the tapesh in a boxsh. I was tryinna fin' an Adrian Belew tape becuzh we were lishening to Zhappa and I wannid him to hear Adrian Belew. I play guitahr, too, so I wannid him to hear Adrian Belew, knowhatImean?”

“He's the guy with the guitar that had a flexible neck, right?”

“That wazh jusht a prohp,” McConnaghey informed me.

“Right,” I said, “but that's the guy, right?”

“King Crimshun and he played with Zhappa. I shaw him with Zhappa in nineteen-sheventy-five. It was great... everybody wazh like, how old is thish, but I shtood right there nexsht to the shtage, knowhatImean? Ha!” McConnaughey was starting to get pretty drunk, his sentences becoming unintelligible. He went to the can and came back. “So where you shay you live?” he asked me.

“I live in Oak Park, Ten Mile and Flynn area,” I told him.

“Yeahbut what shtreet?”

“Saratoga.”

“Oh, Sharatohguh. Thash down by Greenfiel', izhn't it?”

“No,” I said, “by Coolidge.”

“But between Greenfiel' an' Cooligzh, right?”

“East of Coolidge. East of Flynn.” I told him.

“Cuzh I ush't to work for a trash pick up company that had a contrack with Oak Park,” McConnaughey said. “I probly picked up your trash wunsh. It'sh all mob owned, you know, trash companiezh, car washesh, money launderersh. All run by the mob.”

“I use to work for a pinball arcade in college that was owned by Bally's,” I told him. “Same thing.”

“Trash companiezh, car washesh, pinball arcadzh...”

The bartender came by. It was ten before six. “You gentlemen mind cashing out with me. I'm going to be leaving.”

“Gentlemen?” I said with a grin.

“You'll be happy to know that I use the term very loosely,” she said.

“You'll be happy to know that I appreciate that you use the term very loosely,” I said with a smile.

We each paid up, McConnaughey and I, and the new girl came on at six. I was done, but when she asked McConnaughey if he wanted anything, he twirled his empty glass and said, “I'm thinking of a black and tahn.”

“Does that mean you want one?” she asked.

McConnaughey nodded.

“Well, I have to roll. I've got shit to do,” I said to him. “Good talking to you.”

McConnaughey stuck out his grimy hand. “I'm Shteve,” he said. “Good talkin' to you, too.”

“Marty,” I said.

“Nysh to meet you, Mardy.”

After a quick piss I was out in the afternoon sun, digging the warm weather that's crept in between the cold rainy days this spring. I stopped and had one more at another bar, dug the sunshine there as the Tigers dropped the game to the Angels in the bottom of the 10th. The sunshine was still working its magic on me as I finished up my beef vegetable soup, drank a few more cans of Blue while I listened to the 'Death Proof' soundtrack some more. That Joe Tex song just blows me away...

I've been pushed around. I've been lost and found. I've been given 'til sundown to get out of town.

I've been taken outside and I've been brutalized, and I've had to always be the one to smile and apologize.

But I ain't never in my life before seen so many love affairs go wrong as I do today.

I want you to STOP and find out what's wrong, get it right, or just leave love alone.

Because the love you save today maybe will-l-l-l be your own...

I listened to it three times in a row, sang along, got low with Joe and held that final note all three times.

The soup finished up around nine o'clock, spiced with lots of cracked pepper, a palm full of oregano and some chopped fresh cilantro at the end. It was superb.

My cell phone rang just after I left The Bar and was walking to my truck parked a block away. It was seven-thirty. It was Robert. I decided to answer it. “You know it's well past my usual quitting time,” I told him without so much as a 'hello'.

“I know, Mart,” said Robert. “I'm just checkin' on you. Everything go okay today?”

“Just fine,” I told him. “I had to buddy up to the mechanic over there and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, you know. He's not a bad guy, though. I did my best to do some P.R.”

“Alright,” said Robert.

“Hey, since I got you on the phone, I need a favor.”

“What's that?”

“I need you to bail me out of jail. Ha ha ha.”

Robert laughed. “No problem, brother. Where at?”

“I'm not sure yet.”

Robert laughed some more. “Take it easy out there, brother.”

“I will,” I said. I was sitting in the truck by then. “I'm heading home.”

“Well, I just was calling to check on you,” Robert said again. “I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Later,” I said.

“See you then,” said Robert.