It was a quarter till two, and Ernie the bartender was already showing signs that he was ready to close. Ernie, the owner and barkeep of this seedy little establishment in the San Fernando Valley, was a stocky little Armenian dude with a weird beard that was braided on both sides of his chin. His dark hair was curly and lay on his head like a rug. Whenever he was ready to go home, he'd always turn off the radio and shut down some of the neon behind the bar. He'd stand there and dry a glass that never seem to get dry.
"What's the matter, Ern, you in a hurry to get home?" "Naw, that ain't it, Errol. Ma's not feeling too good. She called about an hour ago and said her stomach was bothering her." "Hell, you shoulda said something. I'll swallow this one down then. Hey, you couldn't mix me one up for the walk home could ya?" "Well asides the fact that I legally can't do that, it goes against my better to pour scotch in a paper cup. What's the matter, you dry at home?" I nodded, "Payday's tomorrow." "Tell ya what I'll do then. I pour ya shot of Lamberts." "No scotch?" "Scotch is not for shots. Scotch is a thinking man's drink not for doing shots. Tha'll be whisky." I finished my drink and put the glass down on the bar, "I guess beggars can't be choosers." We both laughed and Ernie turned and went and got the Lamberts. I guess it would be wrong to call Ernie's Place an Armenian bar because even though there a shit load of Armenians living in the LA area, Ernie and his brother Leo were the only ones who ever came in the place. The regular clientele were middle class white dudes from the offices and car lots in the vicinity, blue collar Okies and Mexicans, a few Black guys from the airport, and some bored housewives. Some of the neighboring bars didn't let the ethnics in, but Ernie's wasn't like that. The whole theme of the place centered around the poker tables in the back room where how they judged character was based on how well you played cards. It was Sunday though, and Ernie shut the tables down on Sunday. It was a place where people either went to play poker or to drink away their troubles. Some, like myself, went there to talk to somebody other than the pictures on our four walls. I'd come out to LA from Tulsa, Oklahoma after my wife Elsie died after being hit by a hit and run driver. She was on her way to tell me that she was pregnant with our first child. She didn't die right away but lingered in a coma for over a week. My brother Pete picked that trying time to come tell me that he had decided to go out to California to seek his fame and fortune, and he wanted me to go with him. Mind you, my wife was lying comatose in the bed not five feet away from where we were talking. "Elsie's not going to want to go to California." He didn't say nothing, at least not out loud, the look he gave me was pregnant with meaning and hung there in the air between us for several minutes. I broke the silence first, " What about Sissie? We the only family she's got out here now that Aunt Susie died and Walter and his family went west." Pete rubbed the stubble on his chin, " She's a big girl now. She don't want to keep living with her older brothers. Besides I think she's going to marry Oliver Jones if he ever works up the nerve to ask her." "Don't you think we at least ought to ask her?" "Well sure, but......., " he never finished his sentence because a nurse came in to check on Elsie. It turns out that we didn't have to ask our sister what she wanted because she died two days later. She had attended a barn dance in Pryor and on the way home, a drunken farmer had pushed the truck she was in onto the path of an oncoming train mistakenly thinking his wife was in the truck with another man. They brought her body into the morgue in the basement of the hospital while Peter and I were upstairs sitting with Elsie. My wife passed away not 10 minutes before Johnny Bowron, our neighbor's boy, burst into the room to tell us about Sissy. I never did tell Peter one way or the other about going west. It was just assumed. I think that I was numb right up till the moment our truck, loaded with everything we own, pulled out of the lane that ran up to our farmhouse. Pete had handled the whole shebang. Elsie was buried by her Daddy in Tulsa, but Pete and me buried Sissy on the hill overlooking our farm. I remember thinking that the thirty-two years there wasn't a single grave up on that hill. When we left, there was three. Ernie brought me a double shot of Lamberts. I was reaching in my pockets to pay him when just waved me off and said it was on the house. "You looked like you needed that drink, Errol, and far be it for me to turn away a man who needs a drink." "Appreciate it, Ern, and you're right, I needed a drink tonight." "You ain't worried about that Giancarlo guy are you? If you want, I'll give you a ride home." "Naw, shit no. I ain't worried about that fool, him and his little gang of thugs. No, you go home check on your mom. I like walking at night. It clears my head." He finished locking up the door and walked over to where his car sat underneath the streetlight. He waved as he pulled out of the parking lot onto the blacktop road. I waved, and then I turned and started walking the block and half to the two room apartment that I shared with a parakeet named Edgar. |
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