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Night 10: Black's Bar and Kitchen
Having a month of dining, carte blanche, on somebody
else's nickel is a mixed blessing, probably not unlike
the average 15-year-old boy's fantasy of hooking up
with a nympho. Sounds great in the abstract, but...
The rain continues relentlessly and I'm not in a rush
to get outside.
So Black's is the place for me tonight because I'm
feeling, frankly, a little… film noir. I'm
on edge, see, but I can't say why. The sky is spiteful,
spitting down rain. My windshield wipers can hardly
keep up — slap, slap, slap, slap. There's not a
dog on the street. It's empty on Woodmont, but I got
no change for the meter, not even a dime. Who cares?
I slam the door and walk away, pull up my collar around
my chin. My hair is soaked.
I step inside Black's and nothing breaks my mood. There's
lots of smiling faces around me, but what do they know?
They're young still, they just haven't learned. It's
good and dark, which is fine by me. I ask to be sat
at a single; I order a double. The drink is good, it
burns going down, which is just what I want. Guy in
the booth behind me is talking about sheet metal, perfect.
Billie Holiday sings, "I Cover the Waterfront."
How did they know?
I scan the room; it's mostly empty. The rain brings
out only the hardest or most tender hearts. There's
an old photo in my booth — a fishing camp, the
'30s, bunch of guys standing around, fish, smokes, you
know the story. This place is like that, yeah, 1930s
Michigan, Upper Peninsula. A little E. Hemingway (a
little J. Peterman).
Then I see him. Well, well, it's been quite a while.
He's across the room, and he's with a blonde. Not a
blonde who would make a bishop kick a hole in a stained
glass window, but a blonde. Younger. I watch them awhile,
on the sly. What's between them? Hard to read the body
language. He could be telling her all about me. He could
be trying to sell her used Xerox equipment. It's hard
to tell, but I really don't care. That was a while ago,
and it wasn't love, it was fun.
I've got to eat — and run. I opt for the crab
cakes. They're good. Too good to eat as quickly as I
do. I pay up and give the kid a good tip. The rain is
coming down now in buckets. I slip in some Sinatra to
carry the mood and head back toward the city. I don't
stay too long in one place these days. That line about
the bishop kicking a hole in a stained glass window?
I cribbed it from Raymond Chandler. Just in case you
care.
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