Working the Bar in Beautiful Downtown Sodom & Gamora

Chapter        1

    At 28 years old, I had already been in the restaurant industry, the one thing that I could do as well as breathing, for twelve years. Cooking was so second nature to me. In 1985, after working as a waitress at the Crystal Inn for only a short time, my boss, trained me in her bar, because the dinner crowd was dying down. 
    Bartending was fun and exciting, and the tips were a lot better in the bar. Keeping up with all the drinks was easy; I was basically paid to talk. A lot of our clientele were Air Traffic Controllers. Many of them were memorable characters, (NO NAMES THOUGH).

    That was a lesson well learned. You have to know what is going on in your bar, and deal with it before it becomes a problem. And at the same time you can’t be a tattletale. If you talk about some of the things that happened in the bar, during your shift, then your shift could soon be empty. Customers do not want to drink at a place where they cannot feel safe. You could only talk about the things that everybody in the bar saw. If you, as the bartender, were the only person to see something happen your bar, it didn’t happen. PERIOD!

    THE CRYSTAL INN (1985), was a three-piece suit, kind of bar. Most of the clients were professionals and did not mind paying extra to insure the absence of the “Happy Hour Crowd” rowdy troublemakers. A Hungarian woman (Anna) owned the Crystal Inn with her husband. Anna was an extremely strong woman; she survived one of the Nazi prison camps along with her brother and her mother (Mama). Mama did all the cooking, but did not speak any English.
    I had a customer with occasional flashbacks to the Vietnam War. It was a little scary to look into someone’s eyes, and see that he was not there. It only happened once while I worked there, but I will never forget it. I don’t know if it was someone suddenly tapping him on the shoulder, or a certain fraise, but he was immediately transported back to Vietnam. I grabbed his arm from behind, and tried to distract him away from the guy he looked like he wanted to kill. He drew back on me as if he were going to hit me. I realized that was a huge mistake, and I ducked down as he struck air. I was never that stupid again.  He didn’t like to talk about Vietnam, but one time he told me, that Vietnam had made him more scared than he had ever been in his whole life. He was always afraid to go to sleep at night. 

    Another man would have frequent flashbacks, but I never witnessed them. He was a in a Vietnamese prison camp for two years. He was in a small bamboo cage, submerged in water so that only a few inches at the very top were open to the elements, the air, sun and rats. Occasionally, he would shoot up the roof of his car, (during a flashback), if a traffic helicopter would go overhead. He told me that he put dimes in his ears, so that he would always have change to make a phone call if he got in trouble.

    Two waitresses came in when they got off work at their restaurant-lounge (at the other end of town). One girl was the mistress of one of the married guys at my bar. She waited for that guy to leave his wife. I believe that she is still waiting. The other girl was really in love with a widower. He was still in love with his dead wife, and always wore black. She waited an awful lot of years, but he finally married her.

    One Air-traffic controller was kind of a lone wolf, he never sat with his back to the door, and he didn’t seem talk to his coworkers much. I think that he was something of a bookie on the side. One night he came in and was a lot more distant than usual, he was suspiciously solitude. When business slowed down some, I went over to sit beside him. I asked him what had gotten him so upset. Of course, he said, “Nothing!” I remarked NOTHING can’t make you this distant, NOTHING can’t make you drink like your on a mission from God and NOTHING can stop me from trying to help you. You can trust me with anything. Sometimes you don’t need advice, just telling somebody what’s going on inside your head, can take a huge load off your mind. He said, “Thanks but there’s nothing you can help me with. I said try me. 
    He told me he was in a bar in Cleveland, (earlier) before he came to my bar. He said that he was sitting at the bar next to another guy, on his right. A few minutes later, someone else came in and walked over to the other side of the man to his right. My client was minding his own business when. the next thing he knew, the third man shot the center man in the head, then left. 
    My customer looked at me and said, “Nancy, that guy’s brains were all over me!” I was too shocked on his behalf, to cry. He told me, “I can’t get it out of my mind!” I told him that he could drink as much as he liked, and that I would make sure that he got home safely. 
    He didn’t want any of his co-workers to take him home, nor did he want me to give him a ride. So I told him that we would worry about that later, and I bought him another drink. Then, (an hour or so later) when I had a chance, I went out to his car and ripped out his distributor cap and wires. This way I was sure that he was not going to drive anywhere. At closing time, he was the last to leave the bar. I walked him to his car, and told him, to please be careful. 
    When the car didn’t start, I told him what I had done. We only talked for a few minutes, and then he let me take him home. He was a real gentleman; and I drove him all the way to his house, and we never spoke of that night again.

    Many of these guys did not wear their suit coats into the bar, but there was one man, a sales man, who always wore his dress shirt, silk tie, vest, and suit coat, EVERYTIME. I don’t know what he sold, but I suspect that he was a very good salesman. He was very charismatic, and had a beautiful smile. He had sparkling blue eyes, and was every bit a gentleman. He taught me how to play backgammon. I got very good at it, but I never beat him. 

    I was allowed to play games, cards or just sit and talk as long as the customers were happy. Sometimes you can get a customer to stay longer, and spend more money, if he is having a good time. Nobody wants to sit at a bar all by himself, with nobody to talk to. However, if you entertain him, pay attention to him and make him feel like every idea that he has is a good one, he will sit for hours.

    One gentleman got a brand new car, a Z-28 IROC. After showing if off to all of his friends, he asked me if I wanted a ride. I said, “Yes!” and we were off. We drove down the back roads for a few miles to the middle of nowhere, and then he slammed on the brakes. After coming to a complete stop, he got out of the car. I was a little scared and very confused. Everyone saw us leave together, so I was not concerned for my safety. Then he went around the back of the car, to my door. He opened the door for me, and then said, “It’s your turn to drive!” 
    This was the most expensive car that I had ever seen. I looked at him and said, “Are you nuts? I am not going to drive this car!” He said, “Why not?” I said, “What happens if I have an accident? “You’re not going to have an accident,” he assured me. “Someone could hit me, No! No! I can’t!” I repeated. But I told him that I was very greatful for the offer, and we went back to the bar. 

    The owner of The Crystal Inn was a Nazi Prison Camp survivor, her family came from Hungary. They owned a jewelry store in Hungary, and in the middle of the night the Nazis came and took everything away from them. Only her mother and her younger brother survived with her, and I saw their ID # tattooed on their fore arms. Her mother did all the cooking in the kitchen of the Crystal Inn. Mama did not speak any English; she was eighty something at the time. I don’t know how she did all the work that she did. The owner took me under her wing and treated me like her own daughter.
    The owner’s husband, on the other hand, was deliberately sarcastic, and demeaning. If I tried to have an actual conversation with him, he would only talk about things that were over my head. He was an Air Traffic Controller, an alcoholic and a giant asshole. Many of the controllers had a superiority complex. This seems to be the perfect job for an A-typical, narcissistic type. But none of his co-workers liked him either. His alcoholism got so bad he could not work any more, this caused a deep depression.     
    Sometimes Mama came in to get the owner, because the husband was walking through the kitchen in his underwear, on his way to the bar. The doctor put him on Lithium, to make him not want to drink. At first he was a changed man. He was a real human being, and a nice person to talk to. Soon he began to sneak alcohol. He would sit at the bar with a big cup of coffee. And for a while it was straight, and then later he would add a little vodka. Eventually people thought he was only drinking coffee, but there was no coffee in the cup, just straight vodka.
    Drinking, on top of taking the Lithium, caused him to hallucinate. The hallucinations caused this chain of events: On a Sunday, (the bar was closed) he called his wife down to the dining room. (Their house was built onto the restaurant.) He had and old heirloom bible out on one of the tables. One of those 4-5 inch thick bibles. (They were both Catholic.) He asked her if she could see the blood. She told him no what blood. He said, “Can’t you see the blood dripping from the bible?” A cold chill ran down her spine. 
    She tried to humor him until she could get away, by saying, “Yes I see it now. What do you think it means?” He said, “It means that I have to take care of you, for all of your sins.” She agreed but said, “We have to take care of some practical matters first.”(He was a very practical man before all this started.) We have to close up the restaurant so no one will find out.” During the process of securing all the exits, she ran out the back door to a neighbor. They called the police, and took him to a re-habilitation facility. Finally, the owner got a separation, the husband sank into a deeper depression, and then he died a short time later. 
    He had only been dead for a day or two; the body should have been stiff with rigor mortis. Instead, it fell apart upon removal. The body was so badly decomposed from years of alcoholism, long before his death, that it became a gelatinous mess. It was almost as though his bones had been removed.