“Hey you, Spartacus. Take it outside, asshole.”
The aggressor hesitates. One bouncer appears, then another.
I say, “This guy’s history.”
My customers want to get loaded and laid, and I ain’t serving holy water.
I sit back at the end of my 60-foot bar and eyeball the entries. Bloated from beer, I switch to cognac.
A stunning blonde walks in. I perk up. She’s better than beautiful — she’s cheap.
“Butch, send that young lady a squirt.”
He says, “Usual line?”
I wink.
I’m holding court with three regulars. I ignore her. Soon astonished by my indifference, she marches the length of the bar.
We swap amenities.
She’s as insightful as an oyster.
She tells me she’s Lutheran.
I say, “Oh, a follower of Martin Luther, huh?”
She snaps, “There’s not one black person in my congregation.”
“Butch, give us a couple of belts of Courvoisier.”
Many cognacs later, Pam blurts, “At 15, I fulfilled every young girl’s fantasy.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“I had sex with my best friend’s father.”
I smile like a child who has just been told his dad bought him a pony.
We fence verbally.
“I don’t go to motels.”
Yet, later, when I have the room key, she asks, “Did you get the Egyptian Room?”
*****
Monday afternoon at work, I’m sleeping when I awake to see probationary fireman Marty Santiago.
“What the f*** do you want?”
Veteran firefighters don’t talk to probies until they prove themselves.
“Bill, do you have three kids?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I go to a religious adviser. She said a heavy gambler I work with has three kids and needs my help. She’d like to see you.”
I scan the card. It reads: Trudy, 204 Street.
Written across it in pen, “7 p.m. Friday.” I stash the card in my shirt.
*****
My next shift is Thursday night, Friday day. Thursday night is slow, but Friday we catch a cockloft fire in a string of row-frame residences. A cockloft is the open space between a ceiling and a roof. Row-frames have common cocklofts. This allows oxygen to spread a fire like smallpox. We fight it for four hours.
My shift ended at 6. I need a shower and a beer.
Upstairs, the showers are full. I remember there’s a small shower in the weight room on the third floor. I start to shave, and there at my feet is Marty’s card.
What the hell’s that doing here? I never use this bathroom. Probies clean and mop these bathrooms every morning.
I’m secular, but I know about odds. This one’s a long shot.
The address turns out to be a Presbyterian church. The buzzer on the huge, foreboding doors produces a Catholic nun.
“You must be Bill.”
“Yeah, sister, but I’m shocked to see you. Since when does the church believe in fortune tellers?”
“Trudy has visions.”
In front of the altar, two chairs await. An overweight woman sits in one.
Trudy smiles and says, “You must be Bill. Sit. Do you mind if I hold your hands? It helps me see things.”
She clasps my hands, closes her eyes and begins to pray. After a few minutes of silence, I start to smirk. Suddenly, she shakes like an epileptic.
She chants, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Jesus.”
The smirk leaves my face. I need to get the hell out of here, but her hands are like vices. My body shakes along with my hands. Suddenly, her gyrations cease. Her eyes open.
She hesitates, then speaks slowly, “Someone is praying for you very, very hard. Do you know who it is?”
“My mother.”
“Praise God. Save God. Thank you, Jesus.”
Her eyes look toward heaven then fix on me, “You are a womanizer, a gambler and a drunk.”
I nod.
“You were in Vietnam, and your brother Timmy died in a fire.”
This sentence blocks my breath. How does she know this?
I nod.
“Praise God. Thank you, Lord, and thank you, Jesus.”
She pauses again, glancing upward, “Think back. Think way back. You heard something.”
I say, “No.”
She’s emphatic. “You heard something that upset you as a child — something. Think, think.” She closes her eyes. “Lord, please help him to think.”
My memory stings like a cracked whip. I remember a little boy, awake too early for school, who hears an argument.
A gruff voice yells, “You never wanted Billy. You never wanted another child.”
My mother says, “Why would I want another child after the way you acted when Timmy was born?”
In anger, my mother said I wasn’t wanted.
I never, ever thought of this before. Why am I remembering this now?
I say, “I remember something.”
“Thank you, Lord. Praise Jesus.”
Then, she stops praying and begins shaking, worse than before — violent convulsions. Not just her hands, her whole body.
She’s vibrating. I’m searching for an exit.
Suddenly, she stops.
Catching her breath, she stares at me and says calmly, “When your brother died, you blamed God. You swore to live a fast life. You disavowed your creator.”
I’m dumbfounded. I thought it was ironic that Timmy burnt to death and I run into 20 fires a week. I also know Vietnam taught me life is short.
She continues, “Lord, pray Bill stops gambling, stops drinking and straightens out his life. Let’s pray he sees your holy light.”
I’m chanting, “Amen, amen.” But I’m thinking, “I got to get a drink.”
Outside the church, I replay the incident. Was that on the level? Is there really a God? Is he trying to reach me, rescue me — for whom, for me, my mom? Why does my mother have to pray so much?
Sure, I gamble, drink and do too much drugs, but I don’t need prayers. I’m in control.
I look at my watch. The NBA starts at 7:30. I can bet a few basketball games then shoot out to Queens, pick up an eight ball and call Pam. I call my bookie.
“Fruity? Billy. What ya got in the NBA?”
I bet four games at a nickel apiece — two grand.
I need booze, and fast.
*****
At 2 a.m., I’m sitting in my office whacked. I crush a Quaalude and use a razorblade to meld it with lines of coke. The NBA games I bet went in the toilet.
I’m out $2,200 for the evening. Unfazed, I bet three games Saturday. More of the same — all in the shithouse.
Sunday, I bet six games. They all go south. Thirteen straight losers, and I’m down over 10 large for the week.
What’s going on? Ever since that bloody Trudy, not one winner.
Monday night, I call Fruity, “What ya got in the NBA?”
He says, “All-Star game tomorrow. No baskets tonight. … I got hockey.”
Disgusted, I pull the glass vial from my inside pocket and search my other pockets for the cut-off straw, “Hockey? Forget about hockey. I mean, shit, Fruity, use your head.
“What the f*** do I know about hockey?”
Bill O’Connor is a Vietnam veteran, former Bronx firefighter and pub and restaurant owner. He is a journalism major at UF and a standup comic. The irreverent and acerbic O’Connor performs free standup in Gainesville.
