She didn’t answer, being busy inhaling fumes from her flaming Pousse Café au Vinnie, her eyes closed in ecstasy. I headed toward the rear of the cave, through the throng, my suit stinking of bourbon, my head beginning to throb from the noise, the smoke, and the thought of Jimmy getting busted. I had the brief sensation of being on a three-day pass in Hoboken.
The restroom doors were marked SETTERS and POINTERS, in true Kit Kat Klub style. I shoved the POINTERS door open. A heavy wave of urinal disinfectant engulfed me. I began to relieve myself.
“Are you cruising, honey?” A tall guy in a velvet suit was washing his hands and smiling at me over the urinal divider.
“Wrong number, Mac,” I barked, zipping up my zipper decisively.
“Well, you don’t have to get huffy about it,” he sniffed.
I plunged back into the club, crouching low, my old Infantry skirmish line move. A sailor reeled into me, splashing beer all over my coat.
“Out of the way, fuckhead,” I clipped, giving him an elbow over the kidney.
A giant moth-eaten moose head hung over the bar, an obscene red balloon extending from its mouth like some grotesque swollen tongue. It bore the legend HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE AND ALL. The moose wore a fireman’s hat.
I stepped over Vera, who slept peacefully amid the feet.
“How’re you doing, Barbi?”
There were two more empty test tubes in front of her. I tried to open the conversation again, yelling over the din of the band, who were back in the saddle. My eyeballs felt like raw sores from the smoke. My throat ached from yelling. Bowling balls careened around the inside of my skull.
“What have you been doing since we graduated?”
She didn’t answer, but stared sullenly into her drink.
“Yep, those sure were good old days, back in high school. Remember the time that Wilbur Duckworth, the drum major, was spinning his baton and …”
“Oh, will you shut up, for Chrissake.” She began to cry softly.
“What’s the matter, Barbi? Did I … ?”
“She needs another drink, buddy.” Vinnie shoved another flamer at her. She blew out the fire and sucked the drink down greedily. Her hair hung limply over her forehead, her eye makeup streaked down over her cheeks.
“Barbi? Oh, Barbi? It’s getting late. Maybe we …”
I held up my wristwatch. It read eleven-thirty-five.
“Our reservation at the Starlight Roof is …”
“I wanna drink,” she muttered, “order me a drink. I wanna nother drink.”
I waved my hand. “Vinnie, oh, Vinnie. Another regular for the young lady, Vinnie.”
“I had it already made, buddy.” He moved down the aisle behind the bar as if born to it.
Somebody nudged me from behind.
“In case you change your mind, honey.” I knew that epicene voice. I turned and he slipped me a matchbook.
“My number’s inside.” He slinked away, his hips swaying. My head throbbed even harder. Was this the brave new world I had been dreaming of all those years in Company K?
I took a hefty belt of Kit Kat Klub bar bourbon. It hissed down my throat. My eyes watered, but I needed that drink.
Something tugged at my foot. I looked down. It was Vera, with a broad smile on her doughy face.
“Yes, Vera?” I asked as politely as I could under the circumstances.
“Happy New Year. Happy New Year …”
She snoozed off.
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Barbi. It’s getting later, and we’d better …”
“Poor Jimmy,” she sobbed, “busted again. Poor Jimmy …”
I stared up at the moose. His swollen tongue drooped in the fetid air. Zoot swayed behind his bass as the band worked its way through the Dizzy Gillespie fake book.
Watch out for women who know the musicians, and kiss bartenders. I had just created a Life Principle.
“Hit you again?” Vinnie held up the bourbon bottle.
“I wanna nother drink …” Barbi’s forehead touched the bar. I flung out another twenty. Vinnie picked it up.
“That’ll be thirty-two fifty,” he smiled.
“Jesus!” She put away fifty bucks’ worth of Pousse Café au Vinnie. They must be seven bucks a hit!
“Heh heh … of course, of course.” I fished around in my wallet for another twenty. The roll was getting skinny, and we hadn’t gotten anywhere near the Starlight Roof.
I made up my mind right then and there. I slapped a twenty down on the bar and drank off the last of my bourbon. Vinnie brought back the change, and I shoved a five spot toward him. He nodded. Barbi sat with her head lying peacefully on the bar. Vinnie laughed.
“Keep an eye on her. She can be mean when she comes to.”
“Yeah,” I lied, pretending that I knew all about how mean Barbara was when she came to. You don’t want to sound like you’re not in the club. Jimmy sure as hell knew, and Zoot, and probably Vera. Now I knew.
I stood, carefully avoiding stepping on Vera’s knees.
“Let’s go, cheerleader.”
“I wanna drink,” she muttered sleepily.
“Come on.” I grabbed her under her armpits, pulled her off the stool, her legs rubbery as noodles.
“See ya, Vinnie,” I hollered into the din, propping Barbi up against the wall with my shoulder. “Play good, Zoot.” Zoot silently extended five, giving his cool musician’s benediction.
I dragged Barbi through the crowd, past a guy wearing a paper Napoleon hat, a lady blowing a horn into a guy’s ear. Someone yelled “Happy New Year!” after us as I lurched out into the icy street, half-carrying, half-dragging Barbara, who now was bent in the middle like a folding beach chair.
“Come on. Stand up.”
“I wanna drink,” she snarled, digging her heels into the caked snow. “Where we goin’?”
“Out, for Chrissake. Out of that hell hole.”
She began to struggle. Jesus, she was strong, and with two gallons of booze in her.
“I wanna DRINK!”
“Come on!” I yanked her toward the Olds.
“I WANNA DRINK!” she shrieked, her voice echoing off the empty store fronts.
“Now come on, you’ve had enough.” I tried my Sweet, Understanding voice.
“You son of a BITCH, if JIMMY were here he’d get me a drink!” She started to cry again. “Jimmy’s busted …”
The cold did nothing for my headache, which was now working itself down the back of my neck. I wrenched the car door open and shoved her in. She instantly popped out.
“I’m not goin’,” she giggled.
“Yes you are.” I pushed her back in.
“No I’m not,” she giggled again.
Oh, God, I’m going crazy. Who the hell is this broad?
I finally got the door shut, after tucking her foot in and scooping her shoe out of a snowdrift. I darted around to the other side of the Olds like a flash, before she could escape again. I swung the car out into the street, past the Kit Kat Klub, just as Vera came staggering out onto the sidewalk.
“Happy New Year, Vera!” I hollered as she sat down on the curb.
Barbara had slumped against me, her head lolling back on the seat. She hummed drowsily.
“Barbi, that was some joint. Boy oh boy, that was some joint.”
“I sure could use a drink …” Her voice was slurry, the words slipping and sliding over one another. I flipped on the radio. The roar of an immense crowd boomed out.
“The ball has just gone down. It is now the New Year. Happy New Year, everyone, from coast to coast we bring you the celebration of New Year’s in Times Square …”
Horns blew; whistles, bells.
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot …
And never brought to miiinnd … ?”
Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians blew in the New Year. Barbi flopped over on the seat, sound asleep.
“… and days of Auld Lang Syne …”
The Olds bored into the night. I kn
ew what I had to do.
“I’m gonna be sick …” Barbara struggled upright. “Gonna be SICK!”
Oh no, now what? On top of everything else. Happy New Year, buddy.
“UUuurrrrrppp,” she retched violently. Oh, my God, the old man’s new seat covers!
Within seconds all fifteen or so of the deadly Pousse Cafés au Vinnie had erupted over us.
“And now we switch you to Chicago, and the Ambassador Starlight Roof, where Lester Lanin is ushering in the New Year. Take it away, Chicago.”
The elegant crowd applauded; the tinkle of fine glassware and polite music filled the car.
God, they should have switched to the Kit Kat Klub for Zoot and the boys, and maybe a cheer or two from Vera.
“Gonna be sick again–uuuuuuurrrrRUP.” Another shuddering retch, followed by more of Vinnie’s regulars. She passed out, sinking to the floor amid the swill.
We arrived at the rectory at last. Staggering up the walk, I carried her as best I could, considering how slippery she was, limp as a sack of washrags. Hitting the doorbell with my elbow, I propped her up and tried the knob. The door swung open. I shoved her into the darkness. She landed with a squashy thud. I closed the door, quickly, silently.
“uuuuUUUUUUUPP!”
She was still at it. It ain’t my problem now, Reverend.
I fled into the night. Seconds later I was back on the highway.
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and …”
The icy air blew in through the open window. It felt good. A New Year. My great new life was well under way.
“Judas Priest, what a gallimaufry!” I bellowed my favorite W. C. Fields quotation, from The Bank Dick, in my W. C. Fields crotchety voice as I roared out of the tunnel. I thundered up the curving ramp, taking deep, gulping swallows of air rich in hydrocarbons and the smell of burning rubber that always hangs over the Jersey meadows.
I was back in Gasser’s brave new world, or was it Huxley’s? Or Orwell’s? Or Johnny Carson’s?
Behind me, the towers of Manhattan reached high into the gathering summer twilight, touches of purple and gold. The Empire State Building, so achingly familiar, was black against the sky.
I glanced down at the temperature gauge. It was back to normal. The crowd in the Dodge Charger boomed alongside. The Scarlet Knights were heading home. My radio burst into life. It was Frank Sinatra, WNEW’s Chairman of the Board, lamenting his lost “good” years.
I snapped it off.
“A very good year …” I sang. For forced marches in the rain, for K rations at dusk, for swabbing latrines, and plucking chickens in the mess hall. It was a very good year.
I laughed, lighting up a stale White Owl as I headed into the velvety blood-orange sunset hanging over the Jersey Turnpike.
The night wind blows softly
over the restless land
The smoke of time
The chalk dust of the classrooms
of memory
To the waterbed of desire
perchance to dream
Perchance
to plot
to scheme
The selling platers struggle on
the race never done …
Never won.
Oh, America
Sweet Bird of Mendacity
a field of golden linemen
Joints of grass.
Call me Ishmael,
Call me Cronkite,
The PEQUOD is lost at C.
Farewell.
JEAN SHEPHERD
AL’S GRASS SHACK BAR & GRILLE
PITCAIRN ISLAND, 1981
About the Author
For many years a cult radio and cabaret personality in New York City, Jean Shepherd was the creator of the popular film A Christmas Story, which is based on his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and has become a holiday tradition on the Turner Network. He was also the author of The Ferrari in the Bedroom. He passed away in 1999.
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