Clyde Liffey
Don't Look for Me
It was a Saturday night, we were warm, we were all sitting around the long rectangular table, some of us had someone to go home with tonight, most of us, including me, didn’t, that’s why we were there. I’ve shared pitchers of beer with friends at other bars. This is the only place I’ve shared bottles of bourbon, scotch, vodka, once in a while rum, all of it house brand, it suits our purposes. The conversation did too, meandering from topic to topic, none of it having much to do with our time and place.
Snow, so rare in the city, formed big white blobs on top of the plate glass windows. The blobs dissolved as they fell obscuring the gold letters that proclaimed the name of the place – The Nuyorican Café, not The Nuyorican Poets Café, that’s a few blocks away, we’re not poets, not even prosists, we’re more Irish than Puerto Rican, we’re more like any other white suburban kid who moved to New York, even the investment bankers, we’re just not good at finance.
The other tables – there weren’t many – were all empty. Most nights people would pop in now and then, sometimes Puerto Ricans or other Latinx people, more often whites, tourists or just clueless. We didn’t expect anyone that night, it was snowing too hard, we all lived within walking distance or could stay with someone who did.
The door opened, stayed open, we didn’t care, the bar was heated, we were drunk, the newcomer strode across the open area as though it was a stage, it was big enough to be a stage, we could have been in the Nuyorican Playhouse, we weren’t. The snow on his shoulders and hair, he was hatless, melted. We saw his features, he could have been ninety, the snow made him look younger, he was tall, thin, with high cheekbones, an old chiseled snowman.
Where’s Ginsberg?
She’s been dead about five years.
She? He used to live near here. With Orlovsky.
Oh, that Ginsberg, he’s been dead almost thirty years.
Really? This is Trewe’s Bar isn’t it? One of Ginsberg’s haunts.
It might have been once. It’s the Nuyorican Café now.
Somebody got up to close the door. An inch or two of snow had already crossed the doorsill.
He moseyed to the bar, ordered something. The bartender asked to see his money, he always does that with people he doesn’t know. The snowman dug in his pocket. Some of us saw the grip of his handgun. The snowman put a wrinkled bill and a few coins on the bar. You’ll have to do better than that, the bartender said.
This place is pricy.
It isn’t pricy, it’s a dive, its prices are on a par with, maybe even a little lower than, other dives in the city, even Jersey.
He took off his coat, shook the remaining snow off it, put his coat back on, started buttoning it as he walked away from the bar,
Sit here, someone said. He slid into the empty seat, not far from me. We filled his glass with vodka. What brings you here, stranger?
Let me think, there’s so much I forget, something I was going to say to Jack.
Kerouac?
How’d you know?
From your Ginsberg question. Kerouac’s dead too.
I know.
Someone recited our Kerouac poem:
Stop yr cryin,
Jack
He laughed or at least snorted about that. You got one about Gary?
We didn’t, we’re an urban bunch.
He fell silent, at least I think he did, I was more interested in the woman sitting next to me, she’s not a regular here, she said she was born in Poland, grew up in Greenpoint before it was cool, moved out before it was, her name wasn’t Helen or Halina, I couldn’t tell if she was married or spoken for, it was hard to hear, she was soft-spoken, had an accent, I was drunk, she seemed intrigued by the snowman, he seemed intrigued by her, he wasn’t a snowman anymore, the snow melted, he was just an old drunk sitting with us young and middle-age drunks.
Been here long? somebody asked him.
About a day or two, it took a while to get downtown. He took off his boots, shook the slush off them, put them back on his wet feet. I don’t walk as fast as I used to. He finished his drink, we refilled his glass.
Why were you looking for Ginsberg?
He’s an old friend.
But he’s been dead for years.
I don’t read the papers much.
Some music came on the radio, the bartender wanted to get the weather report, he had to travel, had to hike to get to the subway.
What’s that music? the stranger asked.
Bad Bunny.
Who’s he?
A rapper.
He looked confused. What kind of music did you expect to hear here?
I don’t know – folk, jazz, maybe some of that rock they play at the Fillmore East.
We knew what he meant. We were all classic rockers or classic rock adjacent, some more than others. We told him how the scene keeps changing here. CBGB’s came and went. Clubs pop up and die. People play in the parks. Somebody mentioned the Charlie Parker festival over in Tompkins Square.
We went on like this for a while, the stranger asking questions, we taking turns answering, we all had different tastes, different viewpoints, especially about music, music wasn’t what brought us together, maybe liquor did, we switched to bourbon, a good old American spirit, of course he didn’t know about the war in Ukraine, we don’t know where our vodka was made, we’re bottom shelf people, not that choosy.
At a pause in the conversation, there weren’t many, this was one, the stranger leaned back, extracted his pistol, shot the head off a cockroach, imagine what he could do to a rat –you have rats? Um, I’m losing more points with the Polish girl – the roach stumbled like a chicken without its head only less, finally it lay on its back, legs splayed.
Oscar, the bartender, turned off the radio, pulled himself up to his full five and a half feet, he’s part Puerto Rican, his last name may or may not be Spanish, may or may not be Irish. The stranger was already at the door when Oscar reached our table. Get out! he shouted. Don’t ever come back.
I’m going.
Where to? the Polish girl asked.
Southwest. Don’t follow me.
Oscar walked to the door, stood there till he was out of sight, closed the door, and returned to the bar.
Southwest, what do you think he means by that? Staten Island? New Jersey?