We knew the place better than we knew our homes,
Each scratch and warped spot on the bar,
Each tear and repair in the old-school upholstery
On the ageless stools,
Each story behind the bats, jerseys, boxing gloves
And the other souvenirs whose origin and the stories behind them
(A man of the world, old Pop McLafferty would say of himself,
Though the only time he’d been outside Elk County
Was a desultory two-year hitch
Spent in one of Mother Army’s more decrepit West Texas camps)
All being of dubious authenticity;
Take those gloves, Pop would say, Got ‘em in Cuba one time.
Belonged to Hemingway, ya know.
He and the old Dodger pitcher, Hugh Casey,
They’d spend all day shooting clay pigeons
And drinking cases of Hatuey Beer 'n go home
And beat the living hell out of each other with those gloves
Until Papa’s missus couldn’t take the splintered wicker no more,
And though we knew **** well he’d bought the gloves
At the Sally Army thrift store up in Coudersport,
We kept our own counsel,
As we’d bent elbows and spewed ******* there
Since we were old enough to drink
(Earlier, in fact, as we ran with Timmy McLafferty,
Who later inherited the place,
The largesse of death being the only way
He’d ever have the wherewithal to own a bar)
And the place remained a constant
Through all those things we’d failed or had failed us
(Girlfriends, wives, parents, even our spots on the line
Once the Montmorenci shut down.)
This night, then, was no different than most,
The normal rituals being observed,
Most of them at the good Timmy’s expense,
As his positions both behind the bar
And in the cosmic order mandated such,
This particular evening the determination having been made
By unanimous ballot that Timmy had never, in fact, been kissed
(Not as preposterous a notion as one might think,
As he had made the transition from “hefty” to “fat *******”
Quite some time ago.)
He’d taken our potshots with the good-natured stoicism
That were part and parcel of his character and his role,
Until he piped up—C’mon fellas, I was engaged at one point.
We’d responded with any number of speculative notions
As to said fiancée’s deficiencies and possible species,
Until Timmy said, with borderline belligerence,
Look, I’ll show you a picture,
At which point he produced a creased three-by-five snapshot
Of a blonde who looked very much like a 1980’s –issue Ellen Foley,
Thus occasioning speculative comparisons
Between Tommy and Meat Loaf,
With the subsequent rumination
As to what this poor girl would have tasted
Had she stuck her tongue down Tommy’s throat
In Paradise-By-The-Dashboard-Light fashion
(The consensus being Subway BLT, varied flavors of Cheetos,
And three-hour old Tullamore Dew.)
We’d expected, naturally, that Tommy would laugh along with us,
But he slammed a tray of glasses down on the bar with such force
That one or two of the glasses liberated themselves
And shattered noisily.
He’d gazed at us with the pure, holy fury
Which usually proceeds the mother of all riot acts,
But he apparently decided that there were pearls and swine
And there was no sense mixing the two.
Why should I waste any more time on you sonsofbitches,
Buncha ******* can’t see past the bottom of your glasses anyhow,
And with that he stalked into the back,
Ostensibly to grab mixers or pretzels
Or some **** thing, and we sat still as church mice for a moment,
Until someone looked at the TV, and said ******* Sixers,
All upside and never deliverin’ the goods,
and we nodded in agreement in the manner of those
Who do not see, hear, or say anything untoward.
