When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (15 page)

I crossed the street. The steel gate was drawn most of the way across the front of Armstrong's, and the white globe lights over the front were out, but light showed from within. I walked over to the door, saw that the chairs were on top of the tables, ready for the Dominican kid who came in first thing in the morning to sweep the place out. I didn't see Billie at first, and then I saw him at a stool at the far end of the bar. The door was locked, but he spotted me and came over and let me in.

He locked the door again after I was through it, walked me over to the bar and slipped behind it. Without my saying anything he poured me a glass of bourbon. I curled my hand around it but didn't pick it up from the top of the bar.

"The coffee's all gone," he said.

"That's all right. I didn't want any more."

"She all right?Carolyn?"

"Well, she might have a hangover tomorrow."

"Just about everybody I know might have a hangover tomorrow," he said. "I might have a hangover tomorrow. It'sgonna pour, I might as well sit in the house and eat aspirin all day."

Someone banged on the door. Billie shook his head at him, waved him away. The man knocked again. Billie ignored him.

"Can't they see the place is closed?" he complained. "Put your money away, Matt. We're closed, the register's locked up,it's private-party time." He held his glass to the light and looked at it. "Beautiful color," he said. "She's a pisser, old Carolyn. A bourbon drinker's a gentleman and a scotch drinker's- what did she say a scotch drinker was?"

"I think a hypocrite."

"So I gave her the straight line, didn't I? What's it make a man if he drinks Irish whiskey?An Irishman."

"Well, you asked."

"What else it makes him is drunk, but in a nice way. I only get drunk in the nicest possible way. Ah, Jesus, Matt, these are the best hours of the day. You can keep your Morrissey's. This is like having your own private after-hours, you know? The joint empty and dark, the music off, the chairs up, one or two people around for company, the rest of the world locked the hell out.Great, huh?"

"It's not bad."

"No, it's not."

He wasfreshening my drink. I didn't remember drinking it. I said, "You know, my trouble is I can't go home."

"That's what Thomas Wolfe said, 'You Can't Go Home Again.' That's everybody's trouble."

"No, I mean it. My feet keep taking me to a bar instead. I was out inBrooklyn, I got home late, I was tired, I was already half in the bag, I started to walk to my hotel and I turned around and came here instead. And just now I put her to sleep, Carolyn, and I had to drag myself out of there before I fell asleep in her chair, and instead of going home like a sane human being I came back here again like some dim homing pigeon."

"You're a swallow and this is Capistrano."

"Is that what I am? I don't know what the hell I am anymore."

"Oh, bullshit.You're a guy, a human being.Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn't want to be alone when the sacredginmill closes."

"The what?"I started to laugh. "Is that what this place is?The sacredginmill?"

"Don't you know the song?"

"What song?"

"The VanRonk song. 'And so we've had another night- ' " He broke off. "Hell, I can't sing, I can't even get the tune right.'Last Call,' Dave VanRonk. You don't know it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, Christ," he said. "You have got to hear it. You have by Christ got to hear this song. It's what we've been talking about, and on top of that it's the fucking national anthem. Come on."

"Come on and what?"

"Just come on," he said. He put a Piedmont Airlines flight bag on top of the bar, rooted around under the back bar and came up with two unopened bottles, one of the twelve-year-old Jameson Irish he favored and one of Jack Daniel's. "This okay?" he asked me.

"Okay for what?"

"For pouring over your head to kill the cooties.Is it okay to drink is my question. You've been drinking Forester, but I can't find an unopened bottle, and there's a law against carrying an opened bottle on the street."

"There is?"

"There ought to be. I never steal opened bottles. Will you please answer a simple question? Is Jack Black all right?"

"Of course it's all right, but where the hell are we going?"

"My place," he said. "You've got to hear this record."

"BARTENDERS drink free," he said. "Even at home. It's a fringe benefit. Other people get pension plans and dental care. We get all the booze we can steal. You'regonna love this song, Matt."

We were in his apartment, an L-shaped studio with a parquet floor and a fireplace. He was on the twenty-second floor and his window looked south. He had a good view of theEmpireStateBuilding and, farther down on the right, theWorldTradeCenter.

The place was sparsely furnished. There was a white mica platform bed and dresser in the sleeping alcove, a couch and a sling chair in the middle of the room. Books and records overflowed a bookcase and stood around in stacks on the floor. Stereo components were placed here and there- a turntable on an upended milk crate, speakers resting on the floor.

"Where did I put the thing?" Billie wondered.

I walked over to the window, looked out at the city. I was wearing a watch but I purposely didn't look at it because I didn't want to know what time it was. I suppose it must have been somewhere around four o'clock. It still wasn't raining.

"Here," he said, holding up an album. "Dave VanRonk. You know him?"

"Never heard of him."

"Got a Dutch name, looks like amick and I swear on the blues numbers he sounds just like a nigger. He's also onebitchin ' guitar player but he doesn't play anything on this cut.'Last Call.' He sings it al fresco."

"Okay."

"Not al fresco. I forget the expression. How do you say it when you sing without accompaniment?"

"What difference does it make?"

"How can I forget something like that? I got a mind like a fucking sieve. You'regonna love this song."

"That's if I ever get to hear it."

"A cappella.That's what it is, a cappella. As soon as I stopped actively trying to think of it, it popped right into my head.The Zen of Remembering. Where did I put the Irish?"

"Right behind you."

"Thanks.You all right with the Daniel's? Oh, you got the bottle right there. Okay, listen to this.Ooops, wrong groove. It's the last one on the album. Naturally, you couldn't have anything come after this one. Listen."

And so we've had another night

Of poetry and poses

And each man knows he'll be alone

When the sacredginmill closes.

The melody sounded like an Irish folk air. The singer did indeed sing without accompaniment, his voice rough but curiously gentle.

"Now listen to this," Billie said.

And so we'll drink the final glass

Each to his joy and sorrow

And hope the numbing drunk will last

Till opening tomorrow

"Jesus," Billie said.

And when we stumble back again

Like paralytic dancers

Each knows the question he must ask

And each man knows the answer

I had a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. I poured from the bottle into the glass. "Catch this next part," Billie was saying.

And so we'll drink the final drink

That cuts the brain in sections

Where answers do not signify

And there aren't any questions

Billie was saying something but the words weren't registering. There was only the song.

I broke my heart the other day.

It will mend again tomorrow.

If I'd been drunk when I was born

I'd be ignorant of sorrow

"Play that again," I said.

"Wait. There's more."

And so we'll drink the final toast

That never can be spoken:

Here's to the heart that is wise enough

To know when it's better off broken

He said, "Well?"

"I'd like to hear it again."

" 'Playit again, Sam. You played it forher, you can play it for me. I can take it if she can.' Isn't it great?"

"Play it again, will you?"

We listened to it a couple of times through. Finally he took it off and returned it to its jacket and asked me if I understood why he had to drag me up there and play it for me. I just nodded.

"Listen," he said, "you're welcome to crash here if you want. That couch is more comfortable than it looks."

"I can make it home."

"I don't know. Is it raining yet?" He looked out the window. "No, but it could start any minute."

"I'll chance it. I want to be at my place when I wake up."

"I got to respect a man who can plan that far in the future. You okay to go out on the street? Sure, you're okay. Here, I'll get you a paperbag, you can take the JD home with you. Or here, take the flight bag, they'll think you're a pilot."

"No, keep it, Billie."

"What do I want with it? I don't drink bourbon."

"Well, I've had enough."

"You might want a nightcap. You might want something in the morning. It's a doggie bag, for Christ's sake. When'd you get so fancy you can't take a doggie bag home with you?"

"Somebody told me it's illegal to carry an opened bottle on the street."

"Don't worry. It's a firstoffense, you're odds-on to get probation.Hey, Matt? Thanks for coming by."

I walked home with the song's phrases echoing in my mind, coming back at me in fragments. "If I'd been drunk when I was born I'd be ignorant of sorrow." Jesus.

I got back to my hotel, went straight upstairs without checking the desk for messages. I got out of my clothes, threw them on the chair, took one short pull straight from the bottle and got into bed.

Just as I was drifting off the rain started.

The rain kept up all weekend. It was lashing my window when I opened my eyes around noon Friday, but it must have been the phone that woke me. I sat on the edge of the bed and decided not to answer it, and after a few more rings it quit.

My head ached fiercely and my gut felt like it had taken somebody's best shot. I lay down again, got up quickly when the room started to spin. In the bathroom I washed down a couple of aspirin with a half-glass of water, but they came right back up again.

I remembered the bottle Billie had pressed on me. I looked around for it and finally found it in the flight bag. I couldn't remember putting it back after the last drink of the night, but then there were other things I couldn't recall either, like most of the walk home from his apartment. That sort ofminiblackout didn't bother me much. When you drove cross-country you didn't remember every billboard, every mile of highway. Why bother recalling every minute of your life?

The bottle was a third gone, and that surprised me. I could recall having had one drink with Billie while we listened to the record, then a short one before I turned the lights out. I didn't want one now, but there are the ones you want and the ones you need, and this came under the latter heading. I poured a short shot into the water glass and shuddered when I swallowed it. It didn't stay down either, but it fixed things so the next one did. And then I could swallow another couple of aspirins with another half-glass of water, and this time they stayed swallowed.

If I'd been drunk when I was born...

I stayed right there in my room. The weather gave me every reason to remain where I was, but I didn't really need an excuse. I had the sort of hangover I knew enough to treat with respect. If I'd ever felt that bad without having drunk the night before, I'd have gone straight to a hospital. As it was, I stayed put and treated myself like a man with an illness, which in retrospect would seem to have been more than metaphor.

The phone rang again later in the afternoon. I could have had the desk stop my calls, but I didn't feel equal to the conversation that would have required. It seemed easier to let it ring itself out.

It rang a third time in the early evening, and this time I picked it up. It was SkipDevoe.

"I was looking for you," he said. "You goingto bounce around later?"

"I don't want to go out in this."

"Yeah, it's coming down again. It was slacking off for a while there and now it's teeming. The weather guy says we'regonna get a lot of it. We saw those guys yesterday."

"Already?"

"Not the guys in the black hats, not the bad guys.The lawyers and the accountants. Our accountant's armed with what he calls a Jewish revolver. You know what that is?"

"A fountain pen."

"You heard it, huh? Anyway, they all told us what we already knew, which is terrific, considering they'll bill us for the advice. We got to pay."

"Well, that's what you figured."

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I like it. I spoke to the guy again, Mr. Voice on the Phone. I told old Telephone Tommy we needed the weekend to find the money."

"You toldTillary?"

"Tillary?What are you talking about?"

"You said-"

"Oh, right, I didn't even make the connection. No, notTillary, I just said Telephone Tommy, I could have said Teddy or any name with a T.Which suddenly I can't think of. Name me some names start with T."

"Do I have to?"

There was a pause. "You don't feel so hot," he said.

"Keegan had me up till dawn listening to records," I said. "I'm not a hundred percent yet."

"Fucking Keegan," he said. "We all hit it pretty good, but he'sgonna kill himself with it."

"He does keep at it."

"Yeah.Listen, I won't keep you. What I want to know, can you keep Monday open?The day and the night. Because I think that's when we'regonna move on this, and if we have to do it I'd just as soon get it over with."