SQUIRRELY. John Mahoney
know if I resented Birdie for coming between me and John, or if I was just jealous that John had a girlfriend. As I was taking my crumpled bills out of my pocket I heard an old lady’s voice behind me.
“Young man, this is the express lane. Eight items only. You have eleven. Can’t you count?”
“Yes, I can count. Can you count?”
“Of course I can count,” she said.
I held up the one finger that’s universally offensive. “Then, how many fingers am I holding up?”
I was glad John let me use his car. It was freezing out. As I drove to the gas station I realized if I were ever to find a girlfriend I would most definitely need my own car. I could probably afford basic transportation on my present salary, but if I wanted a decent car I would have to do one of two things: either get a better paying job, or cut back on my beer drinking. Or maybe I could find a girl who had her own car and didn’t mind chauffeuring me around.
Somehow I made it through that night’s work. When the wind picked up it felt like twenty below zero. When I first got to Vietnam it was so hot I thought I’d never get used to it. But when that cold wind was blowing through my undershorts I would’ve given anything for one hour of southeast Asian torridity. Lucky for me I had John’s car for the drive to Henry’s.
I arrived at Henry’s at ten fifteen; ten minutes earlier than usual. I parked John’s car right in front of the bar, and place his oil change receipt on the dashboard. He owed me twelve bucks. I made sure the car doors were locked before going into the bar.
I was greeted by many familiar faces, but the one I wanted to see most was absent. I wasn’t surprised. There would be fewer and fewer times when John would occupy the stool next to me. No more of me stealing his change off the bar and using it for the jukebox. No more of him tipping his cigarette ash into my beer. No more shoulder punching, crotch grabbing, mother insulting camaraderie. No more tar beach. And it was all his girlfriend’s fault. Birdie. What a stupid name.
At around one in the morning I had had enough. I bought two little bags of cheese crackers and put them in my jacket pocket. Outside, I bunched my jacket around my neck. My eyes immediately began to tear from the cold. I stood by John’s car searching every pocket for the keys. Did I leave them on the bar? After a minute or two I found them, or rather I saw them—snug and secure in the ignition.
I figured I had enough anti-freeze in me to make the walk home. And I only had to stop three time to let some out.
Chapter Three
On Friday evening, two days after Christmas, Bill pulled into the gas station. He was home from college for Christmas break. He had called my house and my mom told him where I was. I was too busy to talk to him for any length of time, so we agreed to meet at Henry’s after I closed the station. I told him to contact John so we could have a reunion and drink ourselves blind. Before he left he congratulated me for getting a job.
Business slowed down after seven o’clock to about one customer every ten minutes. But it seemed every time I lit up a cigarette some idiot needed gas. Charlie didn’t want anybody smoking around the gas pumps, so by the end of the night there were a dozen or so one-drag cigarette butts in the office ash tray.
At 10:00 I was walking briskly toward Henry’s. I was hoping John would be there without his shadow. The last time I saw John without Birdie was the week before Christmas. I had gone to Shop-Rite to buy a big bag of peanuts and a box of cheese crackers, and I saw him sweeping the floor in the produce aisle.
“You having a party?” John asked me.
“No. I feed this stuff to the squirrels.”
“You shouldn’t feed the squirrels,” John warned. “They become pests. They’ll hang around your house just waiting to be fed.”
“But I like squirrels,” I said. “They’re my friends. I know this sounds crazy, but I think sometimes they talk to me.”
“You are crazy.”
Then John invited me to join him and Birdie for church services Christmas eve.
I said to him, “What’s this going to church jazz? I thought the only church you knew was the Church of the Holy Draught.”
“Well,” he said meekly, “Birdie wants me to go.”
I didn’t know what to say to him, but words like Birdbrain and Birdshit sprang to mind.
When I arrived at Henry’s it took several moments for my senses to pierce the cigarette smoke and raucous din. But much to my delight, there at our favorite bar stools—in front of the girls’ bathroom—sat John and Bill. There was no Birdie in sight, but I think John was telling Bill all about Birdlegs when I snuck up behind them and mashed their shoulders together.
For the rest of the night we talked and laughed, and drank and laughed, and smoked and laughed. It was just like old times, before college and the Army, before girlfriends and jobs. The only difference was, in the old times we had to do our drinking in a Staten Island bar because we weren’t old enough to drink in New Jersey.
At 2 AM, Big Ed announced it was time to close. When Henry closes the bar he’ll say something like, “I have to close now, okay? Everybody has to leave now, okay?”
But when Big Ed closes he just says, “Out, now!”
John, Bill and I stood out on the sidewalk in the glow of Henry’s Christmas lights, discussing what we could do for an encore. Saturday night was only seventeen hours away. None of us had to work. The only logical thing would be to meet at 7 PM at Henry’s. Bill agreed. John said he would be there, but Birdie couldn’t come. (As if that disappointed me.)
I said, “What’s the matter? Is she waving the red flag? Is her Aunt Flo in town?”
I was glad John was going stag. Actually, Henry’s Bar was stag almost all of the time. Hardly any girls, married or unmarried, dare set foot in a place where records are kept for the longest and loudest fart. We had some serious drinking to do and we didn’t need any female interference. I was equally pleased that Bill had the good sense not to bring a girl to Henry’s.
On Saturday night Bill showed up with two girls.
Susan was from Millburn; Nancy was from Maplewood. They were classmates of Bill’s who had telephoned him in the afternoon, asking for a get-together somewhere, anywhere. So jerky Bill picked them up and brought them to Henry’s.
I sat between John and Bill, and the girls sat on Bill’s left. I said “Hi” to them when they first came in, but for the next hour and a half I spoke only to my two friends. Then the girls said they were hungry, and that was after Nancy had polished off three small bags of Cheese Doodles.
Bill suggested we go to O’Leary’s for hamburgers and fries. O’Leary’s was a bar not far from my house. It was a little classier than Henry’s, catering to the elite of Orange. The elite in Orange was anyone who didn’t wear a flannel shirt all the time and knew enough to take off their hat when entering a restaurant. I didn’t go to O’Leary’s often. It was a nice place with good food, and a game room with pinball machines and a pool table, but it lacked the belching, chug-a-lug coaxing, flatulent ambience of Henry’s.
John had to bow out. He had the pitiful excuse of having to get up early to go to church. So me and Bill and the two fun wreckers got into Bill’s car. I don’t know how this happened, but I ended up sitting next to Nancy in the back seat. Susan sat very close to Bill in the front. I sensed danger.
It was a short trip to O’Leary’s and I didn’t say much to Nancy. Mostly I just answered her questions. When Bill mentioned I had been wounded in Vietnam, Nancy asked how.
I replied, “You don’t wanna know.”
“But you’re all right now, aren’t you?” she asked, with soulful eyes.
“Oh, sure,” I said, “I’m normal now.”
Nancy