Balling the Jack. Frank Baldwin
skin shows: “It’s not just the women you degrade, Tom. It’s yourself as well.”
It’d be one thing if they gave me a little show once in a while, since I’m not getting much myself these days. Our rooms are wall-to-wall and there isn’t a concert hall in the city with better sound. Lord knows I’ve treated them to a few duets. Either they don’t fuck at all, though, or they’ve figured out how to do it without a sound. Knowing Molly, she finds the whole business too messy.
What kills me about her is she could be a real babe if she gave a hoot. Her face is out of a soap commercial, country-fresh, and she’s built okay, too. A little wide in the seat, maybe, but nothing a few laps in the park wouldn’t cure.
She’s not interested in a few laps in the park, though, or a few rounds in the sack, for that matter. Molly is one of those girls … well, you know the type. Baggy sweaters, big skirts all the time, combs her hair straight down. Keeps away from a razor, if you know what I mean. Just makes no effort at all. One of these days I’ll have to surprise her in the shower to make sure she’s got the goods down there.
She’s no charmer in the personality department either. Just after she moved in I made the mistake of telling her that with a makeover and some new clothes she could be a real hot number. She’s been one long sermon ever since.
Molly by herself I could handle, but she got the ring in Mike’s nose early and the way she leads him around now is sad to see. First it was music appreciation, then pottery workshop. Now it’s cooking class, and after the last one he’s making noises about going veggie. Next thing you know I’ll have a juicer on my hands.
I tried to clue Mike into my feelings, in my subtle way. Last week was his birthday and I bought him a dress. I think that got to him. He’s been real quiet ever since.
Tonight, though, they’re not my problem. If I’d lost the bet and were stuck in for the weekend we’d probably have it out. But I’m flush, and even the two of them can’t kill my mood.
“Hi, guys. How are the flicks?”
“Nonpareil,” says Molly. “Both of them beyond reproach.”
One of these days she’ll learn to speak plain English.
“From your demeanor I assume you won your bet. This would mean you’re not in for the evening.”
“I did, and I’m not. Meeting Dave at Finn’s to check out the new band. How about it? Can I interest you two in some rock ’n’ roll?”
“Hardly. We’ve got quite the day ahead tomorrow. Though I shouldn’t speak for Mike.”
“What do you say, guy? I’ll have you back by dawn.”
“No thanks.”
He doesn’t look at me. Must still be sore about the dress. Oh well. If I thought they’d come along I wouldn’t have offered. I shower, change into my shorts and Mets T-shirt, and head out the door.
FRIDAY NIGHTS in this city are for the young. They shouldn’t let anyone over thirty out of their apartment. Walking up Second Avenue, an Oil Can in my hand and eight hundred bucks in my pocket, the evening spreads before me like a feast. On the menu tonight is everything you get out of bed for: friends, women, music, drink. From a block away I can see the sign for Finn’s: a neon leprechaun sitting on a shamrock, drinking from a frosty mug. I kill my beer and arc it into a trash basket on the corner. Look out tonight, Manhattan. You’ve met your match.
Liam Kennedy, the manager of Finn O’Shea’s, takes off his shades as I enter and looks hard at me.
“Well, Tom? Are ya carryin’?”
“Thanks to the Phillies.”
He breaks into a grin and grabs my hand. “That’s it, lad! Man after me heart. I’ll tell the waitresses—they’ll keep the pints coming.”
“Thanks.”
These are good days for Liam Kennedy. A year ago, Finn O’Shea’s was just a solid Irish bar like a hundred others in town. A few dartboards, a jukebox, a couple of brogues from the old country pouring drinks. One of five in the O’Shea chain, kept in business by the soaks and the rough Irish illegals, who roll in after work or before work or because they can’t find work. When the recession hit, all the bars felt the pinch, and Papa O’Shea laid down the word: The one with the lowest receipts in six months was out of business. Leave it to an Irish boss to pit his own against each other.
Kennedy knew he was in trouble. Two of the O’Shea bars are on the Upper East Side, milking the yuppies. One is in the Village, milking everybody, and the other is in Hell’s Kitchen, pulling in the Garden crowd and the Jersey high school kids through the tunnel. Finn’s, though, is stuck here at Twenty-first and Second. It’s not uptown, it’s not downtown, and it’s not midtown. Liam was getting his ass kicked.
He tried going to the other managers to see if they could put up a united front. Pool their receipts, maybe. All for one and one for all. They told him to get lost. Said we don’t make the rules, Kennedy.
Up against it, he hit on the idea of pulling one of the dartboards on the weekends and sticking in a band. He booked some real morgue acts at first, old geezers strumming guitars, singing “Danny Boy” and “Kathleen,” barely keeping themselves awake. Even the alkies couldn’t listen to them. Liam needed a new sound, and as luck would have it, it walked right in his door.
One day, four scruffy guys showed up at the bar clutching a demo. They called themselves the Coffin Ships, after the boats that brought so many Irish to the New World. Looking at the tiny stage, the bums slumped over their drinks, they must have started to wonder why they came. As for Kennedy, he wasn’t sure he liked the looks of them.
Neither party had a lot to lose, though. The Coffin Ships had been chased out of all the local bars in the Bronx for not singing “Danny Boy” and “Kathleen.” For them it was a chance to play inside, in Manhattan; hell, they might even let women in the bar. It beat the pants off a street corner on Fordham Road. As for Liam, what the hell. They had to be better than the last act, and they were cheap. He promised them all they could drink and twenty percent of beer sales above the average take. They promised to make a lot of noise.
By chance I caught them on their first night. Stopped in to confirm a dart match, saw them tuning up, and figured I’d give them a few songs. I didn’t leave until they locked the door on me. There were only thirty of us, half of them friends of the band, but once they took the stage they didn’t care.
The singer sang and played electric guitar. They had a guy on the uilleann pipes, a smooth sax, bongos, and a drum machine. They did great covers, and their own stuff was even better. Killer songs about drinking in the new country and missing the old. About fallen heroes, about workers uniting, about chasing tail. Songs funny and sad that kept you moving. I was swept along, into the second set, downing one pint after another. Jigging to the jigs, reeling to the reels, having a blast.
Late in the night they played the first strains of a song that sounded familiar but no, it couldn’t be, not here, not by a bunch of drunken micks. But it was! Bob Marley, “Get Up, Stand Up,” and damned if they didn’t hit it just right. At 3 A.M. they sent us out the door to “Anarchy in the UK” and we spilled into the street exhausted, excited, drunk, promising ourselves we’d be back.
Nothing beats finding a new band. One day they don’t exist and the next they explode into your head and are part of you. I bought the T-shirts and homemade tapes, learned all the words to their songs. Told my friends about them, passed out fliers, called the college radio stations. “What do you mean, you never heard of them? Don’t you guys do your homework?”
Each week built to Saturday night. We would stake out a spot by the bar and send drinks to the stage between songs. We plotted to get them into Rolling Stone. Word spread. Thirty people turned to fifty, to a hundred, to a line down the block, another set on Wednesdays, a doorman, a cover, and some real faces in the crowd. Record men, dealmakers. This band was the real thing, and