Working the Bar in Beautiful Downtown Sodom & Gomorra (chapter 5)

Chapter        5

    When I returned home from Las Vegas, I started looking for another job. I wanted someplace close enough that I don’t have to drive too far, but nice enough that I can Make some good money. 

    STILL COUNTRY IN SOUTH AMHERST, OHIO (1989 – 1997) was a medium scale shot and a beer joint. Not as ritzy as Atlantic City or Las Vegas, but much nicer than Jamboree Country.  Most of the customers were regulars, and a lot of them lived close by. Quite a few grew up, and went to school together. 
    I filled out my job application on a small Guest Check Book. (About 3”x5”) I wrote down as much of my job experience on it as I could. In a day or two, I was called in for an interview. 
    My interview went exactly like this; 
    Owner, “Have you ever worked in a bar before?” 
    Me, “Yeah, I left my information on that little guest check with your barmaid. I have worked in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and around here too” 
    Then he walks away, serves some customers and talks to them for a few minutes.     Then he came back over, asked me if I wanted a drink, I asked for a rum & coke. After giving it to me, 
    Owner, “what kind of hours can you work?” 
    Me, “I can work full time.” 
Then he walked away again to the other side of the bar, he jacked up his leg, to put his foot on the bar sink, under the bar. 
    It felt like I was being ignored. After about five minutes I was ready to leave, and he came back. 
    Owner, “Can you see a guy sitting at the bar without a drink, and serve him a fucking beer?” 
    Me, “Yes!” Evidently, this had been a problem in the past.     
    Owner, “Come in on Friday night at eight o’clock.” 
    Me, “O.K. I’ll be here. What should I wear?” 
    Owner, “Dress casual.” 

    That was the strangest job interview that I had ever had. I wasn’t sure if I should be insulted or not. Moreover, on my first night, the owner was in a bad mood, (I soon found out that was the only mood he had.) and he threw a glass at a customer, it went right behind me, and almost hit me. Just before closing, while we were cleaning up, he grabbed the blender and swung it down towards the floor to fling out the water residue left in it. However, as his arm went back, he almost hit me again. 
    I told the other girl working with me that this guy is nuts, and I told her that I didn’t know if I should come back the next night or not. At the end of my first night, I was still trying to make a good impression on the owner, someone who is extremely difficult to impress. We were all sitting around the bar drinking after closing, when I heard, someone say that the owner used to be an Air Traffic Controller. Wow, what a coincidence, I worked with many Air Traffic Controllers in my first bartender job at the Crystal Inn.     
    I was eager to impress him, so I spoke up and enthusiastically said, “I heard that you use to be an Air Traffic Controller.” Cautiously he said, “Yes I did, why?” With all the confidence I could pull together, I boldly said, “I used to work at the Crystal Inn, and I know a lot of the controllers.” I thought that knowing several of the same people that he did, would soften him up a little, and that he would like me a lot better, much faster. 
    The owner immediately came over to where I was sitting, he got right into my face, and with the most belligerent mannerisms, I had ever seen to date, he shouted at me, “All of those bastards are SCABS! Do you have anything else to say?” He literally scared the shit out of me. That was my first day on the job at Still Country. I will never forget it, if I live to be a hundred years old. I worked there for seven years, and when the owner (Francis Gildner) and I parted ways, we are still friends. I still talk to him from time to time. 
    I started out only working weekends. I worked with one girl behind the bar and we had two waitresses that worked the lounge. There was a retired police officer who checked IDs. The boss's best friend Larry was the bouncer.

    One night I got word that a fight had broken out down by the dance floor. We could not find the owner or Larry. I saw the customers starting to leave, so I went out to break things up myself. There was a very large pile of idiots all together. I squatted down low behind one of them, grabbed the belt and yanked him back, when he turned to punch me I was too low to hit. Then I told him to get out of my way. Next, I would start the process again, each time getting one-step closer to the troublemakers in the center of the pile.
    At last, I could see who was in the middle; it was Larry, some other idiot and the owner Fran. Thank goodness, this was not the norm. 

    One night I saw this person named Ron walk in the bar; he was obviously crippled in come way, but he was dressed like a bum. His hair was just past his shoulders, with a long shaggy beard and a baseball hat. He looked like a bum, as if he slept in the streets. He came in with two other guys who went down to the dance floor to sit. Ron walked up to my side of the bar and sat down right in front of me while I washed the bar glasses. I said "Hi! What can I get for you?" he ordered his beer and we started small talk. 
    I asked him where he worked; he told me that he doesn't work. I said, "Why not!"  He said, "Because I'm disabled." I asked "What is the matter with you?" At this point he was more than a little indignant. He responded, "Are you stupid? I have cerebral palsy." I replied, "So you're not going to be a dance instructor. That doesn't mean you can't work." I added, "My cousin Marcia has cerebral palsy, she can't walk, she can't feed herself and she can't even toilet herself and she has a job! I don't feel sorry for you!"  Needless to say he did not stay in the bar too long! Me thinks I went too far!
    Then a month or two later I saw this attractive young man come in the bar. Clean cut, nice hair, clean shaven, well dressed & carrying a rose. If I hadn't seen him walk in, I would have never known it was Ron. He was beaming from ear to ear. I said, "Hi Ron. How are you?" He said, "This is for you beautiful," and handed me the rose. I came back with, "Wow you look great! What's the rose for?"  Ron told me that he had a new job as a dispatcher for a tow truck company. You could tell that he was full of self-respect & pride. However, the change in his appearance was nothing short of amazing. He looked ten years younger too.

    On another occasion, the night was winding down; maybe one o’clock in the morning, and two idiots came barreling through the doors that separate the bar from the dance floor area. They started down there, and wound up just this side of the doors. I asked someone to find the owner because Larry was off this night. He couldn’t be found, so I sent for my biggest customers, Tiny & Steve. These were some BIG boys. I said, I don’t care who these guys are but separate them, and throw them out. Once separated, I was notified that the Fran, (the owner) was in the middle of this mess. Of course, I could only throw out one of the idiots cause the other one owned the place!
    
    Just like the other bars, I quickly got a reputation for zero tolerance. If two people looked like they were going to fight, I would give them only one warning. If they did not stop their behavior immediately, I would throw a beer pitcher of ice-cold water on them. This usually did the trick, if not; I would get Tiny & Steve to help me throw them out. 
    These boys were real gentlemen. At that point, I had known Tiny and Steve about ten years. 

    One afternoon shortly after the beer delivery, (perhaps 4:30 pm), there were only 2 customers in the bar, one was playing pool in the back, and one was sitting at the bar. I was talking to the one at the bar while I put the beer away. Just mindless chit-chat. I began to notice that while I was putting away beer, my bar guy, (let’s call him Jack), would have his hands below the bar. If I stopped to rest for a bit, his hands returned to the top of the bar. He was not drinking shots, so I know he wasn’t stealing glasses. We did not have dishes full of beer nuts, matches, or anything else that someone might steal, so what was he doing? 
    As I put beer away, I noticed that when I would bend down into the cooler, his shoulders moved a little. OH MY GOD, HE CAN”T BE!!!  I had no proof, but I was certain, he was masturbating under the bar. I walked back to the other guy in the bar, gave him a dollar and asked him to play the jukebox. I told him what I thought was happening, and he agreed to look while he picked his selections. I went back to the inside of the bar, and stuck my head into the cooler to put away beer. With Jack distracted the pool guy wouldn’t even be noticed. A few minutes later the pool guy came up to the back of the bar like he needed a drink and said, “Yep, he’s jacking off!” I said, “Oh my god, please don’t leave while he’s still here.” I thanked him with a beer, and called a co-worker Jane. 
    I quietly told Jane on the phone, what was happening. She laughed, and then she said why don’t you close the bar. I said, “But what if Jack is the last to leave? I don’t want to be left alone with him, he’s doing it right now while I’m on the phone!” She asked me what I was wearing. I told her, I was not wearing anything risqué or reveling. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a man’s button shirt, with long sleeves. 
    Next, I called one of Jack’s co-workers, Pete. Pete was a good customer and I trusted him to be discreet. He told me to call the police. Calling the police, and getting him arrested could destroy his live.  I told him that Jack was not doing this for my benefit, because he stopped every time I looked toward him. I just wanted him to get out of my bar. Shortly after this call, Jack left.
    The next day when I walked back into the bar, the entire happy hour crew was there, (maybe 8 or 9 guys). They were unusually quiet, I was not their favorite barmaid. After the other barmaid, Jane left, one guy put his hand under the bar, and pounded up from the bottom of the bar and said, “What do you gotta do to get a beer around here?” The rest of the crowd roared with laughter. During that time, Pete came in with different co-workers, not Jack. Then my boss Francis came in and called me to his office. He heard about this from his neighbor, his neighbor was Jack’s boss. Fran asked, “What do you want? Do you want him arrested or just fired?” I said, “I don’t want to ruin his life, he didn’t do it for my benefit, I just don’t ever want it to happen again.” Fran said, “If you don’t want him fired or arrested then it didn’t happen, don’t talk to anyone about it again.” 
    My choices were; I was a liar among all of Jack’s co-workers & it didn’t happen, or I would have to destroy someone else’s life, (have him arrested, loose his job & maybe his family to public scrutiny), in order to save my reputation. That was a tough pill to swallow, but I took the high road, and Jack did not loose his job. Many of his co-workers knew me pretty well and they called him Jack-off from then on, until he quit. However, I had to go back to work and endure a few hours of public ridicule at the hands of a dozen or so drunken Jackals. “Ahhh, life is good!!!”

    We had a couple of burglaries in a row. The first time they broke into the front window, they took all the cigarettes, broke into all the video games, busted into all the pool tables & robbed the jukebox. The owner put bars on the windows, but could not recuperate his losses. The company who owned the machines, lost more money than we did, but most of their actual damages were either tax deductible, or could be claimed on their insurance.
    Two weeks later, we were broken into again. This time the crooks were known in the press as the rooftop bandits. They would go up to the roof and comedown through the air-conditioning ducts. This did not set off any alarms, and so they had plenty of time to clear out everything. Once again, they took all the money in all the machines, all four pool tables, all the cigarettes & Jukebox. 
    The owner was beside him self. He asked if I knew anyone who needed somewhere to live. He wanted someone to live in the building, to prevent more thefts. I moved into the bar. I moved in to get free rent, no utilities, and free phone. I took over the old office that had been used for storage. The room was so small that if I stood beside my bed, and touched the wall with my left hand, I could also touch the other wall with my right hand. That was home for about a year and a half.

    Sometimes you have a pretty slow day and nothing happens until closing time. On this occasion, I got in two customers very late at night, maybe 11:45 pm. One guy ordered a Tangqueray & tonic, and the other ordered beer. Since this was a kind of Hillbilly bar, and these two guys were not our regular client base, I was sure that they would not stay very long. So I served them, then I sat down to talk to the three customers who were already in the bar. I talked about 30 minutes before I realized that my late night clients weren’t really drinking their drinks. They were just nursing them, a sip here a sip there; so I said, “Drink em up! We’re closing in 15 minutes”.  Then I sat back down with my friends. After 10 minutes, I noticed that the strangers still were not drinking their drinks. At this point I said, “Drink em up! I’m taking them!” I went over to the strangers and told them to hurry up, because I was closing. Then I went over to my friends made them hurry up so I could take their drinks, then I went back for the strangers drinks. These two guys were talking among themselves as if they did not here me, but I made sure they heard me every time I talked to them. I asked the other customers not to leave until these guys were gone. 
    Now a little more forcefully, I said "I've got to take them, slam the drink if you want to, (that means guzzle) but I have to take them! The Tangqueray & tonic looked at me very seriously and said, “I’m not leaving until I finish my drink!” I said, “Then drink it!” He said, “I still have half my drink, and I am not leaving until I finish it!” I said, “If that’s all that’s stopping you, then I’ll take care of that!” So I grabbed his drink, and threw it down the drain. He was both shocked and amazed. He told me that I had better give him another drink, he paid for it and he wanted to drink it. I had told him that we were closing, I gave him several chances to drink his drink, and he did not. I told him that I was NOT going to give him another, “Were closed, now get out!” He said that he was not leaving until I gave him another drink, and I informed him that that would never happen. I said, “If you don’t leave I’ll call the police!” 
    The customer did not know that I was never allowed to call the police, without first calling my boss. It was after midnight, and my boss was grumpy on the best days, I did not look forward to calling him in the middle of the night. When I did call him I began, “Hello police, this is Still Country in South Amherst. I am calling to report that I am ready to close and I have two customers who refuse to leave.” My boss said are they their now, and I said, “Yes they are.” He said that he would be right there. 
    I walked around to the outside of the bar and sat down with my friends, after telling the other two guys that the police were on their way. Tangqueray & tonic got up and walked into the inside of the bar. I asked what he thought he was doing, and he told me that he was going to make his own drink. I said, “That’s fine with me, the police are on their way, and it will be great if you’re on the inside of the bar making your own drink when they get here.” He asked for help finding things, and I refused. 
    Meanwhile, his friend went outside. When he came back, he did not come all the way in, he just told Tangqueray & tonic, “Let’s go man!”  Tangqueray & tonic went to the front door, but before he left he said, “I’ll be back for that drink.” I yelled back, “If you come back in here I won’t serve you!” Just then, his friend held up a gun, it looked like a Lugar. He cocked it, then Tangqueray & tonic said let’s get outta here,” and they left.
    I said to my friends who were still in the bar, “Where in the hell is Fran (the owner)? I called him a long time ago” I called Fran again and was surprised when he answered the phone himself. I asked, “What in the hell are you still doing at home? Why aren’t you here?” He asked me, “Are they still there?” “NO!” I said, “They left, no thanks to you, and they had a gun!” I told him that I would never call him again when I have a real emergency.