Where Is Everyone?

Harry, I have yet to receive a proper apology for the abominable treatment I received during and after your little Tahitian adventure. Leaving me alone at the bar with Jim and all the dead, un-dead and zombies was thoughtless of you. What kind of gentleman scampers off with the first cheap French woman to bat her eyes at him?

As a result of your behavior I was left with no choice but to close the bar, taking Mr. Thick and Huge with me, for an extended respite in Europe.

You can polish the brass and chrome and do all the remodeling you like, but until I hear sufficient remonstrations for forgiveness I shall not return to be of any assistance to you.

This sucks. Every time I restock a place, Harry moves.

I think he’s in trouble with either creditors or the Law. Either way, I’m going downstairs and taking a nap.

Wake me up when customers start rolling in.

Okay. We’ve paid off both the loan sharks and the Law, and we’re settled here, Jim. I hit the roulette wheel in a big way in Monte Carlo, and we’re rolling in it. Right in the middle of an economic collapse. I think Bruno was a little miffed when he learned I was paying him off. He was looking forward to breaking my legs — probably because the Wench paid him a little seed money.

Anyway, if you want a paycheck, you’d better get out of the basement and get to work. And what’s with the faceless routine? Where’s your Monopoly face?

As for the Wench, I’m sorry. Remember your “success” is tied into the Pub’s success, so you might want to strap on Mr. Thick and Huge one final time and get your lovely number-crunching self back to the office.

Jim dear, Sucks what? Remember, sucking always requires an object. Good grammar is a sign of intelligence, that’s what Mr. Thick and Huge always says.

As for you Harry, if you call that an apology you are sadly mistaken. I should’ve told Bruno to break your legs and knock everyone of your teeth down your throat.

You aren’t the only handsome face in town you know. A lady with my talents, and I’m not just talking about the number-crunching, can find a place in any pub around. Don’t you forget it.

Well well well. You fell in the well. Well well well.

Oops sorry. I apparently watched a little too much Little Rascals while on forced hiatus from The Pub. ‘Bout damned time you reopened it Harry. All my shekels are gone. I hope M. Camus comes back….

The grapevine tells me that even Conservative chicks are welcome. Liberals do tend to be amusing at least.

I’ll take a Vodka Martini. With Lime, please.

Hey, Jim, go into the bathroom and see whether Tolstoy, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky are finished brewing that bathtub vodka. I saw them carry a couple sacks of potatoes in there about a month ago. It’ll be harsh, but potent.

Welcome back, MP. I think I saw M. Camus wandering around somewhere. His little avatar is here, anyway.

Wench, honey, you know I never beg. If you want to stay there in the ozone with Mr. Thick and Huge, have fun. There will always be room for you here when you decide to drag your harlot self home.

And somebody get an axe and chop down that grapevine. The aliens are crawling up it thinking they’ll find Jack and a giant.

Looks like the girls are starting to out number the boys around here. Maybe that means Jim will actually clean the ladies room.

Conservatives are welcome, dead or alive, though I hear Harry has a secret thing for girls who talk dirty Republican to him-so be watchful!

Look out for Camus, he’s always trying to get M.P. to show him her underwear-be forewarned no matter what he says to you don’t go to the back room with him.

Oh, and they water down the drinks.

Harlot?! Well I never!

(Okay, so maybe I have; and as I recall there was a time when you loved to beg, that was a fun game.)

It looks like you and Jim are already running the place into the ground-bathtub vodka! Honestly. I shall have MTH drop me off at the airport and will return in haste, hopefully before you poison someone!

I am always watchful and hope my winning smile and a twirl of my little pearl necklace will keep the bartender POURING the vodka instead of the water. Looks like I’ll have to be brand specific on the vodka, though.

Um Harry. Do I have to wear this? Sheesh. M.Camus will probably stroke out. Yes. I did say out. Though I suppose the uniform will help on the tip factor. TIP I said.

What time am I supposed to be on duty?

I’m back, and apparently just in time. No MP you do not have to wear that. For the last time Harry and Jim are NOT allowed to pick out uniforms for the staff-unless Jim is willing to wear those leather chaps I picked out for him last Christmas.

Now would somebody get Ms. Walker a drink before she decides to find another establishment to patronize.

I’m waiting for Jim to bring out the … um … “vodka.” It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. I’ll put out fresh bar snacks in the meantime.

What’s a shekel?

Thank you, Ms. Wench. I have to admit kind of liking MP’s little uniform. And I personally would like to see the Chaps. Just because I’m wearing a suit, pantyhose, pumps and pearls doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like a little eye candy.

We Republicans are not as conservative as we look.

And I’ll take something a little salty in the way of snacks to tide me over until the “vodka” materializes….

I’ll wear the uniform. Being eye candy comes in handy every now and again. Momma needs a new dirndl…hehehe.

Harry will you be exchanging all the euros, shekels, mad scrill and scratch or do I have to take it to the bank?

Wench, will you go into the basement and make sure Jim hasn’t been eaten by something down there? And don’t YOU eat him.

And since when do YOU get to tell ME what to do? You want Jim go get him yourself. He’s your bar back. I’m busy over here talking with Colette about Paris. And on your way back bring us some drinks.

There will BE no drinks if Jim doesn’t get up here. And do you mean to tend bar while I’m downstairs? Or will you get Mr. Thick and Huge to schlep drinks for you? You’ll notice I asked a QUESTION. It wasn’t an order. An order would have been, “Wench, get your carcass downstairs and look for Jim. And don’t loose your lip on me, woman, or I’ll remind you where your place is.” Far different from my polite request.

Oh. And MP, we’ll still be making the exchanges — at the usual rate.

Does a girl have to take off her clothes to get a drink?

Do you know how difficult it is to move an entire inventory of booze 16 blocks using only a wheelbarrow?

I would have thought that one of you would have helped me.

And, Ms. Walker, drinks are on the house for any woman who drops her frock in my presence. (Don’t tell Harry.)

Well, Mr. Hawkins. Come a little closer. It’ll be our little secret.

Ahem, Ms. Walker- I’d steer clear of our barback Jim, he’s been known to have one too many and get carried away with himself in the back rooms. Don’t believe me? Ask the Bronte sisters. There is still a paternity issue lingering that involves our dear Mr. Hawkins.

As for Gus, last I heard he was leaving town with Mr. Thick and Huge. Turns out they have a thing for one another.

And Harry, I’m still waiting on that drink.

Now that Jim has come back with the … er … vodka and … um … rum, here is a … uh … vodka martini and one of those drinks with the fruit and umbrella in it.

Now if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have a gang of mummies at the far end of the bar who want gasoline gimlets. I’ll be right back.

M.P. Keep an eye on Ms. Walker. She’s new and while those martinis are lovely now, a few too many and she’s having to deal with the likes of Camus trying to sweet talk her into a trip to the back rooms.

And Harry, some of the patrons are complaining that the mummies stink. Can you turn on some fans or something?

Would it be a bad thing for Camus to sweet talk me into one of those back rooms? For some reason, he keeps telling me that I don’t have to be like Janine. And he can show me what Janine would have really liked.

And I wasn’t going to actually say anything about the mummies. Proust isn’t really creeping me out too badly. I find the watching quite satisfying.

but who is the dark haired man at the END of the bar. Now he seems enticing

Are you talking about Rasputin? At the end of the bar? With the long robe and the long dark hair and the hypnotic eyes? The guy complaining about the mummy stench?

And by the way, all, I don’t think it’s the mummies you’re smelling. Their scent is like pumpkin pie. All those Egyptian spices. I think it’s the balrogs behind them you’re smelling. They reek of swamp water and decaying catfish. And they’re eating sardines and drinking onion-flavored rum.

Okay. Something’s not quite right. M.Camus has not even once leered and/or made me feel dirty. Yes, that a bona fide complaint. How am I supposed to pay for my trip to Guernsey if I’m not raking in the dough?

Here’s the scoop on M. Camus. It isn’t a very pretty story.

When rebuilding the bar, one of the things we did as sort of an homage to Half-Head and all the 1920’s expatriates in France was create a replica of their Paris haunt, Les Deux Magots, right down to the green logo on the china. M. Camus wandered out there on the first night and struck up a conversation with M. Joyce and M. Pascin.

Now, M. Joyce was bad enough, but M. Pascin was worse, and pretty soon the three of them were discussing women’s undergarments and M. Joyce and M. Pascin took out the panties they carried in their coat pockets, swapping and sniffing them, commenting on the particularly piquant aroma, and trying to decide what their mistresses had eaten and drank the day before.

Well, M. Camus was livid, as he had no panties to share and felt considerably omitted. He tried to shift the topic of conversation to something else, first by bragging that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and then, when that failed, by launching into a long, pathetic soliloquy about his sad existentialism — to no avail. The dirty-minded writer and painter just snickered at him and dangled their mistresses’ panties in his face.

M. Camus stalked off in a huff, and for the past several days he has been shut up and sulking in one of the empty lockers in the employee’s lounge. We’ve tried everything short of dangling our undergarments in his face to lure him out, but it’s been useless. I think one of the guys who works on the grill slips him a little food now and then, but he hasn’t bathed in more than a week, and he’s really smelling up the place.

Many thanks for your hospitality, Mr. Haller. Nice place you have here.

I’m not a fan of dangling my panties in front of anyone. That said, M. Camus holds a special place in my pocket. Which locker is he hunkering down in? That whole place stinks to high heaven. Hard to discern old French stink vs death stink.

He’s in locker #55. But before you dangle anything in front of him, turn on the exhaust fan and spray this Febreeze liberally all around the place. It’s hard enough keeping our customers (and the damned bar back) without the addition of Camus reek to the miasmic mix.

All this renovation and the exhaust system sucks instead of blowing.

Oh honestly! Enough with all this panty talk. No one is going to dangle anything-this is a (somewhat) decent establishment.

MP-There is no Locker #55. It’s sort of like Area 51 where the “aliens” landed. Harry gets his kicks watching people wander around looking for it.

Now get back to work and do something about the stink of Camus NOW Harry.

Thanks for the heads up HW. Perhaps I’ll just go down there with my panties in hand saying “come out come out wherever you are M.Camus. I have panties pour vous”. I can spray him down with the Febreeze and be done with it once and for all.

Ah! Ze joy of zose panties! It was almost worth being sprayed wiz ze terrible Americain perfume to experience zeir magnifique satininess. Now I can tell zat wicked Pascin to shove his tawdry panties in his — how you say — pie hole.

Ze new outfit, she is sweet, no?

One more time-no more panty talk! We need to pour some drinks and make some money around here. Remember we have to spring forward Saturday which means one less hour for these dead drunks to imbibe.

Here’s the latest news from the front lines:

MP dangled her panties in front of Camus and caught what we are politely calling “a mysterious fever” in the process. She has shut herself up in Locker 9, where she has been spraying everything down with Lysol and Febreze and cursing the French. In lieu of flowers she is asking that we contribute to her “college fund.” You’ll find a donations jar at the end of the bar or, if you’re brave, you can slip them through the locker air vents.

The Wench was upstairs horsing around with a guy who calls himself “Mr. Ed” when she got an urgent phone call from Mr. Thick and Huge and rushed downstairs to the bar’s only working phone. On the way down she tripped over Toulouse-Lautrec fell into TammyR, and they tumbled down the stairs in a heap. Now all three have wrenched knees and are suffering in various parts of the bar: TammyR in a booth reserved for those who might sue us for negligence, where we are feeding her copious amounts of tropical rum with fruit and paper umbrellas disguising it; the Wench is in her office, in a wheelchair next to the telephone, complaining that we aren’t giving her enough Vicodin and martinis; and poor Toulouse-Lautrec is bemoaning the need to dance the can-can.

Sidda Lee drank three mixers laced with Tolstoy’s bathtub vodka and was last seen under a table in the basement, singing Egyptian songs with a chorus of mummies.

Jim is AWOL. I suspect he’s hanging out at Carlin’s place again.

Ms. Smouse is still waiting for a drink.

I’ve been obsessively patching up all the holes and sanding the rough edges of this blasted building, which is full of little imperfections. If anyone happens into Jim, tell him to get his ass back here before I combust.

This is why I should have stayed in Paris.

1. If you are going to attempt to call my reputation into question Harry, I will be forced to tell the truth about exactly what was going on in the upstairs office and with whom. Don’t make me talk about the location of markings upon your person that would clearly indicate who was playing “I’ll be the horse and you be the rider”. I’m not the one with saddle bruisings.

2. I did not trip down the stairs trying to get to any phone call from Mr. T&H.-he and I are finished. I was trying to get to Locker #9 before MP was able to lock herself in. Someone needs to tell her that this little mental breakdown of hers is NOT covered under the Pub’s health insurance policy.

3. Ms. R has already retained an attorney. A rather handsome fellow if I do say so myself. Perhaps if MP would come out of the locker she could go bend over or something to distract him from his work.

4. My martini tastes like shit. Where’s Jim? He’s the only one who knows how to make my drinks.

5. Ms. Smouse gave up on her drink hours ago. Last I saw her she was playing darts in the back with a whole cadre of dead poets all of whom are trying to seduce her with bad poetry. So far I think our guy e.e. is doing a pretty good job of making her swoon.

And Harry-Sidda barfed. Go clean it up.

*opens the locker door and gasps at the not so bright light. Shakes out her uniform….heads back upstairs to the bar.

I am always game for drinks, but am quite happy with the water. I heard that one comes here more for the company than the refreshments…

And it does quite turn a girl’s head to hear:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)

Hey boss, remember those little green guys that you said were aliens … umm … they got me. They blinded me some sort of super-powered flashlight and tied me up with invisible rope. And then they took me away and started doing some sort of psychic experiments on me. They were trying to read my mind — good thing I had my tinfoil hat with me.

Finally, they made me have sex with Amelia Earhardt.

The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the basement.

Weird, right?

Oh really. Harry may be gullible enough to buy that story, after all he believes in aliens, but I know better. I saw you go out into the alley with two scantily clad women (and Ms. Earhardt) carrying ropes and flashlights. Not the “super-powered” kind, just plain old Duracell. Various patrons reported hearing you scream “read my mind baby and do what I want”.

So take that tinfoil hat off your head and clean yourself up and get back to work and please, wash your hands before you start mixing drinks.

So… an Irishman walks into The Pub.

Hello old friend. What are ye having?

Hello, my Irish friend! How are things in the land of no snakes? Are you writing as prolifically as you did in the past? What is the latest on your publication schedule?

I’ve tried to contact you at your old email address a number of times, but my mail was never answered, and I figured it was devoured by a spam-eating beast.

And by the way, I’m the one who should be treating you to a pint, not the other way around. And this isn’t (wasn’t) your usual pub.

The company mail servers are indeed incredibly sensitive so I didn’t see any of your mails.

I handed off the final draft of my latest novel to my agent in London last week, and he claims he has interest in it from publishers there and abroad (having showcased an extract at the Frankfort Book Fair last October). I’m keeping my ardour cool’d and bracing myself for the likely wave of rejections, believing pessimism to be the best approach to take in such circumstances. It will be weeks yet before he hears back from the various editors.

It’s been an interesting year, all in all. The family now stands at 5 kids, with another (categorically the last!) due next February. And my father passed away in April, after a long and frankly horrible illness.

On a lighter note - and at an age when I had long abandoned hope of such bohemian interludes - I got to live in an apartment in Le Marais in Paris for upwards of two months, flitting about the coffee shops and scribbling at sidewalk tables… But that, as they say, is another story!

The snakes are still absent from Ireland, though it’s feared a lone survivor may have bitten the famed Celtic Tiger, as that creature is well and truly dead. Or as John Cleese might have put it, it is “a late tiger”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE

How are things with our nearest neighbour to the West? How extraordinary a nation you are, moving almost overnight from a Stasi-like regime which demands that I submit myself to retinal scans and fingerprinting should I wish to visit your shores, and with a whey faced poltroon at its helm - to the bright, hopeful land which elected an articulate, thoughtful young senator with vision and integrity; who just happens – almost incidentally - to be African American.

Oh brave new world, indeed..!

After working hard to see President Obama (I still love saying the two words aloud together) elected, I have some issues with his administration. After saying for months during the election that he would pursue constitutional justice concerning the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, he has done nothing. I think that’s a dangerous move, and one that tells future pretenders to the throne that they can engage in any excess knowing they will not suffer consequences. Frankly, I want to see Dick Cheney behind bars. That said, I think Obama’s diplomatic team is astonishing. Mrs. Clinton never fails to amaze me.

I’m excited about your book. As you already know, I love your work and I want to see it in print. Now.

So are we going to see a literary version of your bohemian interlude in story form? I’m ready to hear the other story.

I’m also sorry to hear about your father. My mom went through an 18-month-long battle with cancer, so I know how hard standing by and watching can be. You have my deepest sympathies.

Six kids! There’s your brave new world. Yikes!

I’ll send you on a copy of the latest draft if you like? Or perhaps I could post a one-page summary and see if it interests anyone?

Thank you for the kind words about my dad. It’s four months this week, but still difficult to take in, somehow.

I noted Mrs. Clinton’s ‘slapdown’ yesterday when some foolish journalist her with her spouse - she’s quite a formidable lady! I still can’t get over the audaciousness of her appointment and agree with you that she will bring something to her role that few others could.