“Why’s he do dat?” the green-godawful-snot-nosed kid axed.
“What?”
“Dat shit whiff da fancy schmancy clothes ’n shit.”
“It’s his way,” I said. “There’s lotsa ways to do the shit.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, the kid, “but it’s 1972, fer chrissake, and I’m sittin’ at the Iron Horse Bar in Penn Station at 5:30 in the morning and this guy
“This guy sits down nexta me.”
“Yeah? So?” I say.
“So the whole goddam bar is empty, and he sits down nexta me. At five fuckin’ thirty in the morning.”
“And?”
“Yeah. Well.
“He’s all dressed up-all, and it’s not even sunrise, annit’s fuckin’ Penn Station, man, an’ this guy’s dress like tuh the Nines and I’m sippin shit whisky and he hails the barmaid. Says, ‘Gimme a
triple rail vodka inna pint beer glass. Fill it with rocks. An’ gimme a water back.’
“The barmaid, that gal, her name was Shari, she worked the morning shift from five to noon.
“I knew her name cuz I’d get lit before catchin’ the Metro to Balto ever’ Monday morning.
“She knew the peacock beside me. Cuz he was an a.m. barfly.
“Like me.
“I guessed an ad jockey’d get on the first train into the city, to grabba coupla before woozing off to work on Mad Ave.”
“Your point?”
“It was early spring then.
“Sunny and not too cool.
“And this guy had on a Chesterfield overcoat. Thick as elephant hide. Black as coal.
“Outta side pocket he pulls a glass jar of Brioschi.”
“A whatty?”
“Brioschi, you asshole. It’s an antacid, you flaccid bastid.
“The pour into a cuppa water, watch it fizz, and drink it up shit. Like Alka-Seltzer.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Yeah, well, he sits the Brioschi jar on the bar. Shari plops his triple Vokka on a paper swatch in that pint glass, anna ‘nother pinta water back, and this crazyassmotherfucker uncaps the jar, pours three tablespoons of Brioschi into the beer glass fulla Vokka ’n rocks, tops it off with the water back, and stirs the shit with his right index finger.
“Fuckin’ glass is goddamn Mount Vesuvius!
“Vokka fizzy all over the tile floor. Foam blowin’ up tuh the wall cabinets. Jesus! Shitawmighty!”
“Yer just plain crappin’ down my hole,” I say.
“Nope.”
“Did he drink it? The fizz?”
“Yeah. One great guzzle.
“And he hoovered the stone counter.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
