My associate says he cant make any money off me because I cant play the piano. I cant play the piano because you and your pug Irish friend broke my hands. I owed this associate a sum, so now my associate is looking for you two to collect what I owe.
I bet, I said.
My associate is to come by here right before midnight, Cannonball grinned, and the clock above the rows of glass and liquor shouted out five to twelve and I had to think, was I a real posy in bloom? Yes. And my luck was only getting worse; worse, joe, worse. Like magic, it had become morning. We found Seamus near his apartment on the corner of Broadway and Wilson. From down the block, I could see he was standing out front in the snow, smoking, and his big, misshapen nose was mashed and bleeding. He was holding his ear, which was swollen as big as a stone, and for some reason, standing there in the snow, he was smiling.
What happened to you now? I asked. Number Twelve?
Nope. I ran into Cannonballs associates. They took what they think I owed them.
How much was that?
My wristwatch and my wedding ring.
That was it?
Yep. they're strictly small-time. I think one of them is going to have to learn to breathe through his ears from now on, but they got what they wanted.
Is that why youre smiling?
Nope. I got a telegram from Shirley. She's moving back to town, she says.
I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what to think.
I just sent her one back. I told her, in my book she's still o-key.
I nodded. I thought my good friend here might be truly crazy.
I got something else, he said.
9
It was in the back of the trunk of some automobile down the street, a white Ford, another one he had borrowed or stolen. Cold and desperate, we all stood around behind it and watched as Seamus inserted the key and the rear panel sprang up.
It almost made me cry, what I saw. There, beside a spare tire and a soft blue blanket, was a single red sparkle drum, just one, a floor tom, with its silvery legs and all.
I didn't know what to say.
It was all I could afford, he whispered, the one. I was gonna try and buy one at a time, but they sold the rest before I came back. I shook his hand and smiled, glad like usual, that he was my friend.
The city seemed to be very pleased with itself then, cool and silent and steady. We went to go get some coffee and eggs at a place on Wilson. As we were walking, I looked up and caught a snowflake on the corner of my eyelash, it just landed right there, and to me that was as good as any good luck wish. It was then I noticed that the snow was falling. It was really falling.
MARTYS DRINK OR DIE CLUB
BY NEAL POLLACK
Clark & Foster
The guy at the end of the bar was dead. Carlos had seen dead guys before, so he knew. They usually didn't get many customers in Ginnys, especially not before 5:30, which was when Carlos had started his shift, slapping the mop around the pool table: A couple of bikers had gotten into it the night before, leaving the usual dried residue of blood, saliva, and Leinenkugel. Tonight, the guy slobbered in and took the stool by the window. He sat hunched, not out of some deformity, but just overall weakness, his hair long and gray and greasy under the Cubs hat, his eyes brown and wide and blank, staring at himself in the mirror, or maybe through the mirror, at something beyond.
Get you something? Carlos said.
No answer. Carlos set the mop by the pool table and walked through the hutch. The guy had flakes of dry snot on his mustache, which was as peppered and unkempt as his hair. He gave Carlos a little nod, though even that looked like a struggle, and raised his right hand familiarly. Carlos thought this was strange, since hed never met the guy before. The hand shimmered turbulently.
You want a drink, man? Carlos said.
Whuhhhhhh, the guy said. Wiiiiiiiiiii.
Carlos spoke wino. He reached under the bar, pulled out a little tumbler, flipped a few ice cubes into it, and added a double shot of well whiskey. When a guy was this far in the bag, brands didn't matter.
Run a tab?
Ahhhhhhh, said the guy.
All right, Carlos said. Thats two seventy-five.
The guy folded his arms on the bar and put his head down into them, without taking a sip of his whiskey. His jacket slid halfway off his shoulders. Screw it, Carlos thought, Im not gonna shake this dude down. He can pay me when he wakes up.
A half hour later, the guys arms slid off the bar. He hovered there on the stool for a second, arms flopping, before momentum pitched him forward. He bonked the bar; he tipped sideways and then he fell, his head hitting the bottom rail before he stopped, facedown, fully sprawled, on the floor. There wasn't any blood, but Carlos still didn't want to touch him. Carlos called the apartment upstairs.
Ginny, he said. Youd better get down here now.
Then he noticed the business card. It had fluttered across the room, settling under the jukebox. Though he knew enough to stay away from the body, this he decided to touch. He walked across the room and picked up the card. It said,
MARTYS DRINK OR DIE CLUB
PHILOSOPHERS, STATESMEN, MEN OF CHICAGO
Johnny Quinn, Treasurer
Below that was an address, and Johnny Quinns signature, in a shaky hand, and then underneath that, in red lettering, all caps:
MEMBERSHIP EXPIRED
The red letters smelled strong, like theyd recently been applied with a Sharpie. Carlos was no better detective than he was a bartender, but he guessed that this dead guy was Johnny Quinn. And he definitely knew Martys.
In those days when the city gave real estate breaks to connected developers like stocking stuffers, there were two types of neighborhood bars: those that understood and cared about the changing landscape, and those that didn't. Ginnys fell in the latter category, one of the few leftovers from the 1960s hillbilly takeover of Uptown that had sent everyone else fleeing except for the most committed members of Students for a Democratic Society. Ginny had basically given up around 1987, when her sister died, and now she was one code violation from the end, which would happen soon enough. By this time next year, a mid-scale seafood restaurant would be serving up nineteen-dollar swordfish steaks in this spot, and Ginny would be sleeping on her sons foldaway sofa in Schaumburg.
Martys was the other kind of bar.
When hed been alive, Marty Halversen operated his place with a sense of whimsy. If any other working Chicago bar had once been a speakeasy, the newspaper reporters and Wild Chicago producers hadn't discovered it yet. Marty had liked to boast that his liquor license was the third issued by the city after the end of Prohibition. Hed put the license over the bar, in the same frame with a picture hed taken of Capone drinking in his basement. By the time Marty left, those days of potluck Sundays, sponsored basketball teams, and neighborhood golf outings were fading, but the new owner, a neighborhood kid named Scott Silverstein, spoke just the right mix of regular-guy sympathy and monied schmooze to keep it going. He loved giving tours, showing cameramen and tourists Capones secret cashiers booth, the trap door to the basement, and the old still that hed preserved so well.
At night, the place filled with actors and bankers and lawyers, anyone willing to dress down a little and appreciate original fixtures and tin ceilings but also willing to spend five bucks on a weiss beer. The regular crowd still gathered to drink with Scott and raise a glass to Martys memory and the glories of what once had been. The old patrons still had their corner of the bar. Scott could put in all the kitschy lighting he wanted. They owned the bars soul.