Sometime in New Haven Part 2

Whitney Barn (top) and neighboring Eli Whitney Boarding House

SOMETIME IN NEW HAVEN
The Story of the New Haven
Berlin Survivors

Part II

“Hey, Rory, what can I get for you?” Michael asked as he tossed a cocktail napkin in front of my favorite seat at the Fitzwilly's bar.
“A draft; a Tuorg,” I said as I lit a cigarette and positioned myself so I could see the host station just to the right of the door. “How’s it going for you? It seems like you have a pretty good crowd here for a Monday afternoon.”
“Yeah, Monday happy hour has been pretty good, but there are a few pricks here I could do without,” Michael said. “You see that asshole at the end of the bar, the one waving over here?”
“Yeah, I see him,” I said, as the Billy Joel album "42nd Street" played in the background.
“A real fuckin’ big spender,” Michael said. “He throws large bills on the bar while ordering drinks trying to impress his friends, but he practically grabs the change from my hand to jam it back in his pocket. You know when it’s time to leave, he’ll only leave a buck behind as a tip. These people crack me up.”
“Bartender, excuse me. Hey, buddy, over here,” the guy was yelling, drowning out the conversations of about a dozen or so other people at the bar.
“I’ll ignore him for a few minutes,” Michael said. “So, did you work this morning?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, Bill Bruford is playing at Toad’s tonight.”
“Oh yeah? I thought he was dead or something,” Michael said. "He did some phenomenal work with Crimson. Amazing!"
“Excuse me, bartender, what’s your name?” the guy continued to yell.
“I better get to him before he drives me to violence,” Michael said.
Michael left at the perfect time. As soon as I started scoping out the front door, Sara walked in for her night hosting shift.
She was beautiful; she had wicked Irish looks, complete with freckles, bouncing auburn hair and blue eyes that were capable of piercing and comforting all in one glance. She threw me a smile and a wave as she headed up the stairs. I melted, but managed a wave back.
“Why don’t you just go up and talk to her,” Jack said as he grabbed the bar stool next to me.
“I’ve talked to her on quite a few occasions, mostly small talk though,” I said. “What am I supposed to say? Hi, I’m a cook, I have no car and I live in an animal house. How about a date?”
“It works,” Jack said. “Look, you just can’t buy lines that good. Besides, I thought you were a poet, you’re just cooking so you’ll have some spending money.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Hey, Jack, what will it be?” Michael asked.
“I’ll have a draft,” Jack said.
“Hey, a cook’s convention. How’s it going fellas? Mind if I grab a cigarette?” Brian, a waiter, said as he grabbed my cigarettes off the bar before I could answer. “I need to get a quick nicotine fix before anyone gets seated in my section.”
“Brian, with all the money you are pulling in here, and you’re always bumming cigarettes,” Michael said, placing a beer in front of Jack.
“I usually have cigarettes, I just forgot them today,” Brian said. “Toss me some matches, Mike.”
Michael walked over to the register to grab some matches.
“If either of you cookies are looking to cop any coke, I have some great stuff,” Brian said. “I was doing some last night and felt so mellow that I popped the sun roof out and drove into the country, letting the cold air. . .”
“Geez, cocaine, that sounds so exciting,” Jack interrupted in a monotone. “And my name is Jack. Not Cookie.”
Jack hated cocaine. I, on the other hand, remained undecided, so I did dabble in it on occasion. This would not be one of those occasions, though. Working as a cook paid considerably less than working as a waiter, so I was choosy when it came to what drugs I bought and when I bought them. I usually wouldn’t buy cocaine.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” I said as Brian grabbed the matches.
“Oh, Jack, I met John Marshall the other night; he said he was a friend of yours,” Brian said.
“He stops by the house sometimes,” Jack said. “He knows some of the people I live with.”
“He seems like a really cool guy,” Brian said.
“Seems like it,” Jack said, although we actually thought John Marshall was an idiot.
He was fun to hang out with sometimes, but usually he ended up loud and obnoxious.
“Man, we were busy as hell last night,” Brian said. “Did either of you work? The kitchen crew was humping back there. I ended up making a bundle. I don’t know how you boys do it. I wouldn’t do that.”
Brian quickly headed to the door to smoke my cigarette.
“So, Jack?” I asked. “How the fuck do we do it back there in the kitchen?”
“Just knowing I will never end up like Brian is enough for me,” Jack said. “Besides, it’s a much better situation in a lot of ways because the people are cooler and we can listen to whatever music we want.”
“I hear you,” I said.
“People like Brian, man, I don’t know,” Jack started. “All he talks about is coke. How wonderfully yuppie. But coke doesn’t really deserve to be called a drug. It pales next to real drugs.”
“Oh, it works sometimes,” I said.
“If someone wants an infusion of mellow, they can do it with music,” Jack said.
“The same can be said about any mood, not just mellow,” I said. “Music can do it all.”
“Yeah, I just hate cocaine,” Jack said. “Booze and pot. I think those, and of course acid, are probably the only drugs worth doing. For everything else, we have music.”
Jack and I would take great pride in the fact that we could suggest music to fit certain moods. If a few of us were in Jack’s room, we could say something like, “You know, I had a miserable, hectic day and really need to settle down and get back to earth.” It would then be up to Jack, or whoever’s room it was, to put something on the stereo that would set the desired mood.
David, one of our housemates, would joke that we administer music in the same way a doctor would administer drugs.
“So, did Dick leave?” Michael asked as he came over to check our beers.
“Who, Brian?” I asked.
“Brian, Dick, same thing,” Michael said. “He thinks he’s a big man because he got a piece of his dad’s money, a nice BMW and he always has cocaine. I can’t be bothered with people who have such an inflated view of themselves. I mean, I couldn’t live like that. When the cocaine is gone and the car is wrapped around a tree somewhere, what are you left with?”
“Yeah, but Michael, what do you really think?” I jokingly asked.
“Yeah, I should really open up,” Michael said. “Actually, I never had any trouble speaking my mind. If you think I’m wrong, be around Brian when he has a couple of drinks. And if you get a few shots in him, forget it! Instant asshole! I’ve never seen anyone who can’t handle shots like that kid.”
“Bartender,” the guy at the end of the bar started again. “Set up my friends here.”
“Speaking of assholes,” Michael said. “If he grabs the change from my hand again, I’m going to fix him. Watch.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting sir,” Michael said. “What can I get for you?”
Michael made the drinks and set them up in front of the guy and his four friends. Just as expected, he tossed out a $20 bill and, as Michael was handing him back his change, he grabbed it and jammed it into his pocket.
Michael smiled and placed some glasses on the rack at the end of the bar when he glanced over at us and gave us a nod.
“Excuse me, sir,” Michael said. “I think you dropped something. It looks like you dropped something.”
“Oh,” the guy said, looking at the floor in front of him. “I don’t see anything.”
“I’m sure you dropped something,” Michael said. “It looked like money. I thought it was a five dollar bill.”
“Really?” the guy said, this time moving a barstool to get a better look at the ground.
“Maybe it dropped in there,” Michael said, pointing to a three-foot high plastic trash can a few feet away at the end of the bar which is usually used by the wait staff to throw away napkins and empty ashtrays, and generally toss away anything nasty left on the tables, like the mash potato mountains–or sculptures–some people make during dinner conversation before putting their cigarette out on it as they leave.
“Are you sure?” the guy asked.
“I could be wrong,” Michael said. “But it looked like a five dollar bill. Maybe a ten.”
So the guy, complete with white shirt and tie, reached into the trash can.
“You know, Michael’s a man who has a real handle on his job,” Jack said.
“Sure enough,” I said.
“Well, Rory, we ought to fly if we are going to meet the other guys at Rudy’s,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I saw Ronnie earlier but I haven’t talked to Aragon yet,” I said. “Last I heard we were all meeting at Rudy’s to have a few warm-ups prior to the Sire farewell jam.”
“I think Ronnie and Aragon are already there,” Jack said.
We rifled down our drinks and waved good-bye to Michael, although he was still busy with the guy at the end of the bar. I glanced over to the host station, but Sara wasn’t there.
“It must be in there; keep looking,” a straight-faced Michael said to the guy who was now elbow-deep in discarded, tobacco ash- and ketchup-stained cocktail napkins.
“So, did you hit a few classes today? I asked Jack as we started down the block to Rudy's.
“No, I spent some time at the libraries, Yale’s and the town’s,” Jack said. “I would love to live in a library. Imagine having all that information and all those stories available whenever you wanted.”
“I would rather live in Brian’s Guitars; or Cutler’s record shop,” I said. “Actually, I don’t know where the fuck I would want to live. I guess the house we have is pretty good. I just feel like I should be doing more.”
“More what?” Jack asked.
“More writing and more learning how to play music,” I said. “Maybe I should just go to school. I don’t feel I’m doing anything that has a future. I’m 24-years-old. I just don’t want to do nothing while I’m waiting to do something and then realize there is no something to do.”
“Maybe it’s time we hit the dairy farm in New York,” Jack said.
While stationed in Bitburg, Germany, we talked once of someday trying to find the dairy farm John and Yoko Ono Lennon owned in upstate New York. We figured we could ask John Lennon for music lessons and work the cost of the lessons off as farm hands.
The idea sounded crazy on the surface. But, what would we really have to lose besides bus fare to New York? Besides, we both loved John Lennon, which is why we probably would never invade his privacy like that.
John Lennon, to us, was probably the most truthful rock and roller out there and he always had balls enough to say what needed to be said at any given time. He threw himself out there for any issue he believed in.
“Hey, did you have the new Lennon album on this morning?” Jack asked. “I wasn’t sure if I heard it coming from your room or if I was just dreaming.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I had to hear ‘Starting Over’ one time before work. I think the album is starting to take hold.”
“It cracks me up that some people don’t like it because there is so much Yoko on it,” Jack said. “Like it’s some sort of new revelation that Yoko would be featured on a John Lennon album. It’s like they never heard ‘Sometime in New York City’.”
“Fuck them,” I said, although there were times while listening to Lennon’s music that I wished there wasn’t as much Yoko on it. It never stopped me from listening to the music, though.
“Have you thought about whether you still want to play after Aragon leaves?” Jack asked.
“Sure, I guess, although I don’t see us playing as often as we are now; not 'till I take some lessons,” I said. “And I don’t think we could ever call ourselves ‘Sire’ with Aragon up in Boston.”
“You know, there is a way we could still play as often,” Jack said. “I keep running into this guy Buddy. He is a phenomenal blues guitarist. He sometimes plays on the steps of the Yale Rep. Other times he just sits there chain smoking staring at his guitar case. He wants to find a few guys to play with while he goes through his ordeal.”
“Yeah, and what’s the ordeal?” I asked.
“He’s trying to kick heroin.”
“That’s insane,” I said.
“No, it’s perfect because if he plays with us there is no pressure for him to play out,” Jack said. “And in the process, we’ll learn the blues, which is perfect because if you know the blues you can play anything.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Just think about it,” Jack said. “He wants to play for hours on end while kicking the shit. He’s dying to play with people. He's convinced this is how he will shake the habit!”
At Rudy’s, we grabbed a couple of bar stools and ordered two Schaeffer bar bottles. I was a little miffed there was already a couple at my favorite spot: the table closest to the front window.
Between talk, cigarettes and sips of beer, I tried to figure if there was actually a table–or a chair even–I never sat at during my many visits to Rudy’s. There might have been a few tables, however, that I didn’t carve my initials into. The wood tables and wood trim along the walls were packed with carved initials. There were so many carved initials in the walls, tables, and bar that it was actually difficult to find new spots for initials.
It didn’t seem like the couple sitting at my table were going to leave anytime soon, so we stayed at the bar.
One thing I liked about Rudy’s, aside from the comfortable atmosphere, was that there was always a good mix of people–young and old; students and workers. There were always guys there who were probably going to Rudy’s since before I was born talking with people who were just barely legal drinking age.
Every once in a while, someone would walk in and start scanning the walls looking for the initials they carved years ago. Most remembered Leo, the regular bartender, and they would usually tell some great stories about their time in New Haven.
Rudy’s, which has an enlarged, autographed “Doonsbury” comic strip that mentioned Rudy’s by name hanging above the bar, was billed as “The Friendliest Place in Town.” Who ever came up with that tag was right.
I was getting a little upset about playing that night since it would be our last time together. One thing I learned from five years in the military is people often say they will keep in touch, but they rarely do. Another thing I learned was how to say good-bye. Aragon and I, though, had an agreement that we would only say “Good-bye.” And nothing else. No bullshit. We had each other’s address.
“I can’t believe you boys started without me,” Aragon said as he walked over to the bar. “You should at least have a shot of Jack Daniels waiting for me.”