Life Behind Bars Chapter 6

Chapter Six

If You Build It, They Will Come

Let’s face it, the true ambition in life is to find your significant other.  To find your true love, get married, knock boots as often as you can, and eventually raise some kids of your own.  After all, nobody gets out alive so if you don’t pass along your genepool to the next generation, your time in this universe is up!  It always amazes me that when you look close enough at the things you’ve accomplished or want to accomplish in this life, all comes down to getting laid. Which was exactly why Frank’s Bar and Grill came to be.

We were sophomores in high school and quite frankly not the coolest cats in the hallways.  Not that we were dorks or unpopular by any means, but we definitely needed something to push us over the edge from mediocrity to stardom.  Sure, we had started up the little bar in mom’s backyard, but it really only had space for a handful of delinquent teens.  We needed to expand and we needed to do it soon.

After an afternoon of doing whiskey shots from a stolen bottle of booze from my mother’s dusty liquor cabinet, talk of expansion began.  Citing a complete lack of funds and the complexity of the project, I was leaning towards the camp of keeping the old girl just as she was.  It was my dear old friend John who thought otherwise.  In an impassioned and brilliant speech, most likely brought on by the buzz of a 65-year-old bottle of the brown stuff and a half a packet of cigarettes, he convinced me otherwise.

“Don’t you idiots want to get laid?!  What you have here is a goldmine!  Your mother knows what you are doing down here and she just lets it go on without question! My mother would kill me if I tried to pull this shit at my house!  If we blow out this back wall and double the size, we can get a couple of couches in here...throw up a couple of hippie tapestries, get a good radio down here, scour up some more bar mirrors from garage sales.  Trust me gentlemen, if you build it, they will come.  Did you all hear that?  If you build it, they will come!”

Quoting of course from the movie Field of Dreams, John struck a chord in all of us.  We knew he was right.  We were at stardom’s door, and if we didn’t strike when the iron was hot, we would miss out on our opportunity.  I had known of an abandoned construction project over at the local school for a few years.  There were piles of pressure treated lumber that had been left to rot in the back lot of the school.  I never figured out what it was, perhaps some Eagle Scout’s project that went unfinished.  Quite frankly, we didn’t give a shit. 

We hatched a plan to “borrow” a truck to pull off the heist....it was John's dad's. It was need to know information, and he didn't need to know. We waited until the wee hours of the morning to make our strike. We recruited a few other FBG members and stowed them away in the back of the truck. 

Adjacent to the pile of lumber was a patch of woods about 50 yards wide.  On the other side were two baseball fields with a slender path connecting the field and the piles of lumber.  The plan was to circle the neighborhood until we felt the coast was clear.  Once we felt safe, we turned off the lights on the truck, jumped the side walk and made our way across the fields.  Once in place, we all jumped out of the bed of the truck and began pilfering wood as fast as we could.  Huffing and puffing up and down the little hill on the wooded path.  Once the truck could fit no more, three of us jammed in the cab and the other three hoofed it back on foot.  It was only a few blocks from my house.

We drove the truck right into the backyard and unloaded as quick as humanly possible. We didn't want anybody to see what we were doing, and luckily nobody did. We now had the lumber, and for the next few weeks we worked every day after school hammering and sawing away. 

We would forgo eating at school and pool our lunch money to buy shingles and sheetrock and whatever supplies we needed.  We now had the space to double our ranks, and wouldn’t you know it, John was right.  We built it, and they came!  We had a crew of girls to join in our adventures…none of it ever possible without the vision and the risks we took and the time and effort we put into doubling the size of our little watering hole.  It was known as the “great wood heist” and it would alter the destiny for all of us involved in one way or another.

It was the same concept 10 years after the moment of the great wood heist when I finally went out on my own.  Not having great success with the ladies, and not improving my odds by living at mom’s house I knew it was time for this little birdy to fly.  Debts were paid, savings were building and shifts were starting to find me.  

Earlier in the book I told you it was impossible to get a bar shift if you didn’t have experience.  It’s quite the opposite once you do.  I applied for a job at this fancy joint in Newton, NJ and immediately got the position, sight on seen.  The witch of Spring Street, a self-made Greek immigrant would be my boss.  While most hated and feared her for her brash and often heartless demeanor, I loved her. 

She was the only restaurant owner I ever met who actually knew what she was doing and wasn’t afraid to spend a dollar.  What I also knew was that if you worked your ass off for her and did a good honest day’s work, she respected you and went out of her way for you.  For yours truly, she did just that.

Above the restaurant she ran a flop house of New Jersey’s most prolific degenerates.  Forty rooms with a sink and shared bathrooms, and every Megan’s list offender and crack addict the state had to offer.  She was paid directly from the state, netting some 25,000 dollars a month to house a group full of the state’s burdens, often sold off from New York so Rudy Giuliani could keep the mean streets of Manhattan not so mean anymore. 

She had a golden cash cow, and she kept the dirt bags in line.  If you crossed the witch of Spring Street, you’d be out on the street living in a cardboard box.  It still amazes me today that she was able to retire without getting hit in the back of the head by a led pipe in the wee hours of the night. But she was a smart tough old broad who didn't take shit from anybody...like most immigrants to brave the new world she was an incredibly hard worker and was a survivor.

After getting a feel for who I really was, she too was amazed that all I wanted to be was a bartender.  She insisted on becoming a mentor to me and wanted me to learn how to run the degenerate hotel above.  She taught me the ins and outs of the real estate business, as she had now owned over 40 rental properties to go along with the 40 rooms upstairs.  She continued for the next few months trying to talk me out of bartending and into running her empire since her son wanted nothing to do with it.  

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Sage Advice...

If you walk into a place that looks like it has some questionable cleanliness issues, and there's no other place to eat for miles, order the chicken fingers and fries. "Freezer to Fryer" we would call those places. Cockroaches don't care for frozen chicken!

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One afternoon, while watching the latest bungling of George W. Bush on the television, an activity that became a favorite pastime of ours during the post lunch rush, she offered me a position to manage the hotel above.  Again, I began hemming and hawing about it because it just didn’t interest me in the slightest.  She decided to take me on a tour of the facility and offer me the headmaster’s apartment on the fourth floor free of charge as part of my compensation.  It wasn’t much to speak of, but it did have two rooms and a private bath…but most importantly, it wasn’t mom’s basement.  I told her I would think about it.

After a week or so I had decided it would be a good move.  Besides, Newton was filled with some white trash beauties, and for an educated chap such as myself, I was like fucking Einstein to them.  It would be like shooting fish in a barrel!  I patiently waited for the witch to come in, when we all began hearing a strange dripping sound.  Then, we heard what we thought was the floor above the dining room begin to creek.  Not before long, water started to slowly drip from the ceiling tiles, so we moved the tables away so the linens didn’t get soiled.

After a few minutes a huge crash was heard, then there was screaming.  I ran from behind the bar to see pipes, tiles and broken wood beams all over the floor where the tables we had just moved had been.  I looked above to see water spraying everywhere, and what had remained of the shower stall above.  Seen hanging were the arms of a human being as if being dangled from a cliff side.  I instructed the waitress to call 911 immediately, and I ran upstairs to pull the guy away from the edge before he too fell.  When I got upstairs, the witch’s son had already beat me to the punch as he happened to be up there repairing something else the degenerates had broken.

When all was said and done, it was a heroin addict who had overdosed and passed out in the shower stall.  His body covered the drain and the water filled the entire bathroom to the point where the floor collapsed under the extra weight.  Miraculously he didn’t drown, as the floor gave way before the water had covered his face.  From what I later learned this was not his first overdose, nor was it the first time he destroyed a bathroom.  I had decided to hold off another day or two for my final decision on the position.

When I did return a couple of days later for my next shift, I was amazed to see that the ceiling had been fixed and the dining room cleaned up as if nothing had happened.  I tried to bring up what I thought was the craziest lunch shift I had ever encountered, but everybody thought I was the crazy one…that was just normal operating procedure up in those parts…happens all the time!  Well, the decision at that point was made for me.  I was going to continue my bartending and turn down the offer from the witch.  It was nice to be thought of, and the prospect of running a hotel in a small town was enticing, but I wasn’t going to deal with that crap on a daily basis!

The witch was disappointed, but was happy to still have me around.  Even though my lunch shifts were poor at best, she was amazed to see how much money had been in my drawer at the end of each shift.  She was also happy to see her liquor costs cut in half.  It didn’t hurt either, that her bar was spotless and organized, and her liquor room and beer sheds were equally magnificent. 

She asked what I was doing different, why my drawer was making more money than the night shift.  Well, the answer was easy…I wasn’t a thief.  And thus my reputation as an honest bartender, and fixer of all things broken began to swirl around the industry. She was so happy with my work ethic and my inability to sit still and do nothing, she offered to help me find a place to live.  I told her about my experiences living in apartments and with roommates that had been colossal failures and that I wanted to buy a house, and she agreed.  

“Let’s find you a house, get you out of mom’s basement.”

So just like that the witch and I had begun a house hunt.  She had set me up with her money gal, her real estate agent, her lawyers…you name it.  The next few weeks were a blast, we would meet at the diner for breakfast and then run all over town trying to find a place that was just right for me that I could actually afford.  It wasn’t easy at the time, mind you, as the real estate market had ballooned to excess.  As a matter of fact there were only 10 listings in Morris County for under 200 thousand dollars, I shit you not.

Everybody in the place thought I was sleeping with her, it was hilarious!  They just couldn’t understand why this woman, who seemingly hated everybody, was helping me buy a house!  She never yelled at me, never scolded me, always took my advice about bar related things, and now she was running all around Morris County helping me, her day-time bartender, purchase a home.  

She knew what she had in me, and this was her little investment.  She knew if she could get me out of mom’s basement and into a house of my own, that I would owe her.  This would force me to stick with her restaurant for as long as it was still in business.  She had less than 10 years until retirement, and she needed me around to bring her to the promised land. 

Unfortunately, I had other plans.  After all, as great as her help and her mentorship was to me, I wasn’t making any money at her restaurant, there simply just wasn’t enough business up there in bumble fuck to make ends meet. I wish there was, because that was a pretty sweet gig up there, even if I did have to wear a tuxedo shirt!

Eventually we did find a home, a little shack in a mud hole known as Budd Lake.  There was white trash to the right of me, a heroin dealer to the left and a junk yard across the street.  Oh, and did I mention the motorcycle gang two doors down that partied every night of the week?

I overpaid for the house, it needed about 50 thousand dollars of work…but you know what?  It was fucking mine!  My own house.  All my old friends who scoffed at the idea of me throwing away my future to sling suds was either living in a crappy apartment or still with their folks…but me, I had a house.  My family who was disappointed with my choices up to this point…well, I had a house.  To all the girls out there who had broken my heart, or passed up on me because I was living with mom or didn’t have a real job…well, I had a fucking house!

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again…Lady Liquor has always been good to me.  There was only one thing left to do at this point…find me a wife, and find her fast.  In the meantime, another few shifts had opened up for me, and right in the nick of time.  My old boss from the newspaper days told me about an opening at his local watering hole down in Denville.  The night time bartender had been axed unexpectedly and they needed somebody on the double.  I was hired on the spot and was given four choice night shifts.  I was now working three bars and owned a fixer-upper house.

In two week spans, or a fortnight for you educated folks, I would have every other Sunday off.  In between I would work three doubles a week.  I had to know three separate menus, three different types of registers, three sets of bosses and crews to work with.  But I was zooming.  I loved every minute of it.  Money was coming in hand over fist, as I was pulling in over five grand a month cash.  I had to purchase a safe for my house, taking my neighbors into consideration.  Then there were nights I was so tired I would fill the waffle boxes in my freezer with cash because I was too lazy to open the safe.  I literally would crash on my bed when all was said and done. The best part would be weeks later when I forgot about my "frozen assets" while making breakfast and sometimes find a few hundred dollars stuffed away...off to the diner I would go on those days.

It was during this glorious time, where I began to realize that even though I was working in three different places that were all very different from each other, the cast of characters was exactly the same.  From the regulars, to the cooks, to the wait staff, to the owners.  It was the same fucking cast, every time.  Even when I thought back to the hotel bars and the wedding halls and putrid stinking fish market, it was all the same people, over and over again.  It didn’t matter what type of place it was, or where the place was.  It was the same cast of characters over and over again.  

Now I know I spoke earlier in the book about the types of customers you are going to see and experience…but I need to get more detailed about the actual characters at hand.  So before I drone on any more about my particular successes and failures, my triumphs and tribulations, or how I eventually swindled a girl not only into moving in with me, but eventually marrying me and having children, I will introduce you to the cast….

So without further ado, here are the people you will meet and have to deal with at every bar you will ever work or patronize…