The Grandfather Clock (8 page)

I rubbed my eyes. I was drunk. I was
supposed to drive to Florida in seven hours. And I was considering
quitting my professional job, for bartending in New Orleans. No
health insurance. No retirement. Just cold cash.

“
Four in the afternoon to
four in the morning?”

“
You get used to it. And
you can close early if it’s dead. When the service industry people
start getting off at one or two in the morning, this place gets
busy with good tipping people who don’t give you one word of shit.
I wouldn’t trade this job for one waiting tables in Commander’s
Palace.”

“
Tempting,” I
said.

“
And the women are
unbelievable,” he added.

“
Done,” I said.

“
I’ll call you tomorrow
and introduce you to the owners.”

I made my way to Erin and her three
plastered friends. The bar was filling up and I met more of Brian
and Dan’s friends. I was subjected to an initiation ritual of
sorts, involving shots of nearly frozen Jaegermeister and a lot
more beer as I was baptized into the service industry’s band of
brothers and sisters.

At some point, Erin and her three
friends slipped out the door. I didn’t know her last name or where
she was staying, but I was grateful for her brief friendship and
her unsolicited evaluation of my life.

Dan said I would get used to
twelve-hour shifts that ended at four in the morning. He didn’t say
how long that would take. Three weeks in, I wasn’t sure what day it
was. I was crashing at Brian’s apartment, since I didn’t have any
belongings, aside from a seven-foot clock that loomed in the corner
of his living room. There were only two events that stood out in
those first exhausting weeks.

They both happened on the Sunday after
I accepted the job at Ol’ Toons. I woke in my dingy hotel room to
my phone buzzing. Christie was sobbing, having learned that I knew
about her and Frank Murray. For an hour she apologized, and tried
to elicit some opinion from me other than that I didn’t care and
that there was nothing more to say. Finally I broke the news to her
that I was not returning. She got angry and threatened to keep all
of the furniture, which I then told her she could have. She said
she was going to throw all of my clothes away, and I said I wished
she wouldn’t but I couldn’t stop her. I planned to call Sam and
have him move my car. He’d have to get it from the airport for me.
I would want it in New Orleans eventually. I’d go back to St. Pete
and tie up loose ends soon enough.

The second major event occurred later
as Brian and I struggled to maneuver the clock up the stairs to his
second floor apartment. The brick, French-style building wrapped
around a corner, and butted against a mirror image of another
building that had a corner grocery store. It was just a couple
blocks beyond the crowds of tourists. The clock was manageable for
the two of us. Unfortunately, the stairway was so narrow that we
couldn’t carry it with one of us on each side, going up the stairs.
We each had to grab an end and one person had to walk up backwards.
To make the turn in to his apartment we had to turn it on its side.
That’s when it happened.

Inside the clock there was a hard
bump. I assumed it was the weights shifting, but it seemed larger.
It clacked against the glass door on the front of the main body of
the clock. Holding the base of the clock with one hand, I reached
up to hold the glass door in case it gave way. The weights were in
the bottom of the clock. Whatever was hitting the glass was
longer.

“
It must be the pendulum,”
I said. We edged around the corner and into the door. We laid it
flat on the floor between the coffee table and television. I wiped
my brow.

“
Nice clock,” Brian said.
“Does it work?”

“
It used to,” I said. “I
have no idea how to make it work. I’m not too worried about that
right now.”

Brian moved an artificial palm tree
that sat in the corner and slid the worn green love seat out of the
way. We gingerly leaned the clock upright. Again something thumped
hard inside. We shuffled it flush to the wall and I opened the
glass door.

Wrapped in cloth and tape was
something long and heavy, like the poker for a fireplace, only
fatter. Brian got a knife and I cut away the clear packing tape
that secured the cloth around it. I carefully unwound the cloth,
which started coming off in sections. They were old kitchen hand
towels that I didn’t recognize.

The object began to emerge. First the
silver bell-shaped end, then the flintlock, the trigger, and
finally the handle.

Brian stood wide-eyed with curiosity.
“Wow.”

“
Yeah,” I said. “No
kidding.” At the time I didn’t really know much about what I was
looking at.

“
That’s a big old gun,”
said Brian.

“
Yes it is.”

4

That Sunday was a big day. After
telling Christie that I was not coming back to St. Pete, and
finding an old musket inside the clock I felt obligated to call my
parents to tell them where I was. I was glad my mother
answered.

“
Hi Mom!” I said with
cheer.

“
Michael! Did you make it
home yet? Where are you?”

“
Well,” I said, “I’ve got
some news.”

“
Yes?” she said
hesitantly.

“
I’m in New Orleans. I
stopped to see a friend yesterday. And I got offered a
job.”

“
Um... wow. That’s
wonderful!” she said in a combination of shock and
relief.

“
Bartending,” I
added.

There was a pause. “Okay,” she said,
less enthusiastically.

“
I know, it’s probably a
rash decision, but I’m burned out at Globe Bank and that isn’t
going anywhere. I need a change of scenery. It’s just until I find
something I want to do, someplace that I want to go.”

“
Well, Michael,” she said,
her voice growing warm. “I think you should do what makes you
happy. But listen, I want you to take care of yourself, and don’t
get stuck. You can’t tend bar forever.”

“
I know, Mom,” I said. I
was still a kid to her. “Let me ask you a question on a different
topic.”

“
What is it?”

“
When we were moving the
clock, we found this old gun... this old musket. It was wrapped up
in rags inside the clock.”

“
You’re kidding,” she
said. “I remember my father had an old gun hanging on the mantle in
the house I grew up in over in Orange. He must have put it inside
the clock when they moved to Tustin. That was in the early
60s.”

“
Do you know anything
about it?”

“
Gosh no. I forgot it even
existed. I haven’t seen that thing since I was a
teenager.”

“
Do you want it?” I
asked.

“
Why would I want
it?”

“
I don’t know. Well, I’ll
hold on to it.”

“
You should take it on
Antiques Roadshow,” she laughed.

I smiled as she laughed. She sounded
good. I felt like my visit had helped, or maybe it just helped me
to not worry about her. I wrapped up the musket and put it back
inside the clock.

Dan was right. By week four, I was
beginning to acclimate to the irregular hours. On Monday through
Wednesday, I worked three twelve-hour shifts. My legs were getting
strong, my back and shoulders had stopped aching, and my hands were
nimble. I wasn’t Tom Cruise in “Cocktail,” but I could work the bar
efficiently. During the busiest hours, I had help from either Laura
or Melissa. Laura was a single mother, picking up a few days to
supplement her main job waiting tables at Red Fish. She was
younger, but careworn. She bantered just enough with customers to
make the tip, but she was in it for the money and worked
quickly.

Melissa was fresh out of LSU and she
had a jealous boyfriend who would sit at the bar for two or three
hours. He eyed me suspiciously. I made a couple of attempts at
friendly conversation with Sean, and when he didn’t play along, I
ignored him, which made him more paranoid. Melissa was pretty, but
she came to work dressed like she was going out, hair teased out,
too much makeup, and ridiculous shoes. She was actually a good
bartender when she wanted to be. Other times, she’d talk with a
group of customers for ten or fifteen minutes, and end up going out
with them when she got off work. Sometimes even sooner.

It was an easy bar to work. If you
wanted a frozen hurricane, take your business to another bar. But
gin and tonic? Beer? Shots? This was the place.

I usually picked up a few afternoon
hours on the weekend, but generally I kept a couple of days free to
recover physically. Strangely, tending bar for fifty hours a week,
I was drinking less than I had since I went to college. Getting off
at four in the morning, I was often invited for the after-after
party at someone’s place. But by then, most of the people I met had
been partying for hours and were totally smashed. I’d have a few
beers and watch people pass out, or hook up, and sometimes both.
More than once I’d find myself watching the sun come up, get some
breakfast, and go home and sleep until three in the afternoon. I
really started sleeping better when I got my own tiny hovel of a
studio apartment on Dauphine. I bought dark curtains and earplugs
for getting my day sleep in.

About a month and a half in, I flew
back to St. Pete. Christie graciously handed over my clothes, my
laptop, and I filled three boxes with books and other random,
mostly useless, items that were mine. I shipped them to New
Orleans. Sam greeted me with a mixture of disappointment and
happiness. He promised to come to New Orleans, and often. He
lamented the loss of his volleyball partner, but was glad that he
didn’t lose me to marriage. I drove back on a Sunday night,
arriving Monday morning. I was used to being up at night, and the
drive was a breeze without traffic. Now I had a seven-year-old
Honda Accord parked on the street. It was soon filthy and I only
used it once or twice a week.

I bought a cheap bike at a pawn shop.
One that I wouldn’t worry about getting stolen. It was a simple
existence. Every day was a different repeat of the one before. Off
days, I caught up on sleep. Each night at the bar brought a new set
of tourists, many of whom wanted to include me in their Big Easy
experience. The tourist crowd would give way to servers,
bartenders, musicians and hostesses as they got off work. I made
friends, but didn’t get close. Brian and Dan were my best friends
there, but Brian was playing his music and Dan worked when I
didn’t. On a rare occasion, I’d fire up a barbecue in my courtyard
and invite them over. We’d eat steak and drink Abita. Text messages
would flow in, and we’d decide who had the best invitation to do
something better. Dan always won that contest. He knew every girl
in town and, unfortunately, why they were someone you wouldn’t
date.

Every once in a while I thought about
Erin and the unceremonious end of our acquaintance. That way my
story. Missed opportunities. Whether it was a pretty bridesmaid who
thought I looked like a Hollywood star, or a successful advertising
executive with a wry sense of humor, I was not even getting their
phone numbers. To top it off, now I was a bartender. The one-night
stand was easy. Except, it wasn’t. A one-night stand that starts at
four in the morning is generally a medical intervention. “Drink
some water.” “Take some aspirin.” “Eat something.” I would wake up
in the morning, wanting to get out and do something, and there was
a hungover stranger in my bed whose phone was buzzing incessantly.
And that was the tourists. I quickly learned not to take anyone
home. The tourists were a mess, but the locals were hardcore
partiers. They’d suddenly call their drug connection, and start
going through my CD collection. To a twenty-two-year-old hostess on
Royale Street, a CD collection is vintage vinyl. I actually heard
the words, “Wow, you have Nirvana!” As if it were the White
Album.

This was not my effort to play the
field. Any bartender can take someone home. It was really my effort
not to be rude. I’d be in a situation where Brian or Dan was taking
someone home, and I was taking care of the friend. Or, I would
pathetically think I’d met another Erin, only to find another
Christie. A few months in, I gave up. I didn’t express interest in
anyone. It only made it worse, because these women were drawn to
the cold, disinterested man. That’s not a cliché. I wasn’t trying,
and girls liked that. In the same way, I always went for the girl
that wasn’t flirting. I knew I was on to something when my behavior
earned the admiration of Dan. He said it took him over a year to
stop banging his head against the wall of partying every night, and
jumping at every girl.

I was not too cool though. There was
something alluring about the parties, the late nights, and the
total lack of judgment in that world. No one cared that I lived in
what amounted to a 600-square-foot kitchen with a bed, or that I
opened 400 Rolling Rocks a day for a living. I counted. By four in
the morning, no one has the upper hand.

It was the Thursday afternoon shift
that became interesting. The bar hired a middle-aged man with a
P.E. coach mustache to play guitar. He showed up every Thursday
with a shiny case and tiny amp and microphone. It was probably
three o’clock in the afternoon when Robert was going through his
motions that I met Claudette. It was the first time I’d seen her.
She was not our typical customer. First, she ordered a martini,
which was fairly unusual, and was drinking slowly. Second, she was
in her fifties, at least. She had an accent that I initially
confused for Cajun. At some point, she walked up to Robert and put
a ten-dollar bill in his tip jar. She sat back down, smiled at me,
and said, “Listen.” Robert then sang a song in French. It was slow,
melodic, and pretty. I could see a tear gather in Claudette’s eye.
Then he played the familiar “La Mer.” People in the bar stopped to
listen. Claudette began to chat with me and a young guy sitting
next to her. She was from France, and had married an American. I
heard her say that her husband traveled, and she knew Robert from
another bar he played in. She had followed him to Ol’
Toons.