Sammy was banished at last. I heard O’Neal personally and formally order him never to return. This posed several problems. O’Neal’s was the first place Sammy’s wife Sarah always went to look for him because he could never keep a leash on his wallet. The wallet usually led him on a merry chase, ending a long walk with a short beer. Once, Sarah even found their two-year-old daughter crawling on the bar playing with bottle caps.
Second, Sammy had recently lost his job. He was a translator of Russian technical publications. That line of work dried up when the current occupant of the White House got irritated at the KGB guy running Russia. There was enough depressing news here that we didn’t need to know the Russians’ problems. Problem was, Sammy had given the employment agency O’Neal’s telephone number as the place where he could be reached.
O’Neal said, “I got nothing personal against Sammy. I don’t hold anything against him.” O’Neal was wall-eyed. This let him carry on a conversation staring you in the eye while the other eye drifted up and down the bar to see who needed a refill.
“I wouldn’t hold anything against Sammy,” Klein answered. “I’d be afraid of getting terminal depression or some social disease.”
There were general grunts of amusement among the slackers at the bar that Saturday afternoon as they thought of Sammy. He was a short, dark, medieval-looking guy who reminded people of a monk in bluejeans.
“No, it wasn’t personal,” O’Neal repeated, moving his large bulk slowly up and down the duckboards so his shifty eye could see when a glass needed refilling for one of the half dozen customers.
“But I couldn’t put up with it no longer,” O’Neal explained. “Last Saturday there was these Spanish boys came looking for him. When I seen that big revolver they dropped on a table, I knew I couldn’t have this no more. I hadda call a cop.”
“Hey,” Klein said, scratching the fur on his face as if he was trying to encourage some words to come out from behind his teeth. “Hey, remember the time he brought the box into the bar?”
“Christ, I can’t forget,” O’Neal said. “Margie hadda ask him what was in the box.”
“Margie, what a hot number! She couldn’t give it up, pestering Sammy till he turned the box over and out came this snake.”
“Jeez, that was a time. Or when he passed out in the basement and the cops called and woke me up, and then I hadda come down and unlock the door. He was still drinking when they arrested him.”
“And the argument he gave the cop,” Klein said, with the beer snorting out of his nose. “He said he couldn’t be busted for breaking and entering because he was already inside, and you have to go outside in order to break in.”
“Where do you think he is now?” I asked. “He used to hang out at Pete’s Tavern.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t walk to Irving Place. Maybe that Ukrainian place on Avenue C,” Klein said.
Klein gave a thumbs up for a refill of O’Neal’s tap beer. “I remember the time he brought that whaddyacallit, that falcon in here.”
“Oh, the bird. Jeez, I almost forgot,” O’Neal said. “Big mother.”
“Sammy saw it flying over the East River and when it landed, down by the Williamsburg Bridge, he hit it with a rock. Knocked it out cold. I heard he sold it to the Central Park Zoo for twenty bucks.”
O’Neal sighed. “That would’ve paid his bar bill.”
“Guess, we won’t see Sammy around here anymore,” I said.
“Or his wife and kid,” Klein said. “Kid was okay. Wonder how it got born to those two.”
“A genetic sport. That’s what they call it,” O’Neal offered. O’Neal was surprisingly smart for a guy with a high school dropout. Shows what knowledge you can pick up in a bar.
“Like maybe there was a sale on DNA at Macy’s?” I suggested. “Think the Sports Authority can merchandise genetic sports?”
They both stared at me like I was in the wrong place.
“You understand,” O’Neal said. “I hadda exile him. It was getting out of hand.”
“You didn’t have to put a sign out front telling everybody he was excommunicated from the bar, did you?” Klein asked.
“The Liquor Commission was getting antsy, and I hadda pay extra to the precinct ’cause they came down here so often!”
“Face it, O’Neal, you’re a pussy,” Klein said. “The cops are more important than your customers. Look, even the jukebox is broken and we don’t have Sammy for entertainment.”
“Well, gents, excuse me,” I said, “but I for one am going to see if Sammy is hanging at the Uke’s place on C.”
“Wait a minute, I’ll go with you,” Klein said slugging down the last of his beer.
O’Neal looked shocked and both of his eyes got together to look at us. “You ain’t being loyal! What kind of patrons...?”
Klein stared back. Little black eyes behind the fur on his face bored into O’Neal. “Take down the sign, O’Neal.”
“He’s exiled. I’m like a priest and I can kick anyone out of my bar....”
“Him or us, O’Neal,” I said.
“Don’t you guys know how long it took me to exile Sammy? And finally when I do it you twist my arm to let him back in here. You’re not being fair!”
“Exiled is such a harsh word, O’Neal,” I said. “At school, we used to call it recess.”
“Recess over?” Sammy said. He surprised us coming in so silently. He nodded at everyone, then slapped a couple of twenties on the bar. “Hey, Mr. O’Neal. Here’s the money for my tab…and a small tip for your assistance. I’ve got a job writing menus for the Russia Tea Room uptown. Now, who wants to celebrate?”
# # #
Walt bounces between writing genres, from mystery to humor, speculative fiction to romance with a little historical non-fiction thrown in for good measure. His work has appeared in print and online in over two score publications including Rye Whiskey. He’s also bounced from Fortune 500 firms to university posts, and from homes in eight states and to a couple of Asian countries. He now moderate a writing group in New Jersey, a nice place to visit, but he doesn’t want to die there.
