Con Ed workers—something about the uniforms, I guess. And whenever
they were doing electrical work or repairing a gas line in her
neighborhood, she'd come in the next day singing the praises of the fine
folks who kept our utilities running.
I got to know a steely-eyed Irish hood in his fifties who worked "with"
the pressmen's union, sometimes. When he had a big tune-up scheduled,
he'd recruit other regulars from the bar to go down to some warehouse or
printing plant and smack some heads together. One night he came in
with his right hand busted up terribly, the knuckles pushed back nearly to
his wrist, and a bone jutting horribly through the skin.
"Dude!" I said, "You should go to the hospital for that!"
He just smiled and ordered a round for the house, then a dozen oysters
and some shrimp with that—and ended up drinking and dancing and
partying until closing time, waving his bloody hand around like a merit
badge. His pal James, who'd worn the same fatigue jacket he'd worn in
Vietnam fifteen years earlier, liked to hang out by my shellfish bar,
telling stories. James was a West Village celebrity, never, to anyone's
knowledge, having paid for a drink. He lived off the generosity of others,
throwing a well-attended rent party once a month so he could pay for the
curtained-off illegal cellar cubicle he called home. James carried a
mysterious stainless-steel attache case with him wherever he went,
hinting that it contained the Great American Novel, the Nuclear Codes,
Unlimited Firepower. I suspected it was a few tattered copies of
Penthouse and maybe a change of socks—but smelling James, I was less
sure about the socks. He was a bright, sweet, apparently educated guy
from a military family. He'd been 86'd from half the bars in the Village,
but the place I worked put up with him as long as the customers were
willing to endure him. I admired his survival skills, his longevity, his
staying power. He certainly didn't get by on his looks. He'd just learned
how to hustle, instinctively—he didn't do it in a calculating way—he just
did what was necessary to stay alive.