NON-FICTION

HAIR OF THE DOG
COLUMN 1, MID-80s

by
Caucus de Bourbon

I ONLY DRINK alone or with someone. And I like a bar I can smell from the street. It's the foul effluvium of liquor that gets me. It tugs me through doors both far and near and envelopes me peaceably. I am welcomed in such pubs because, known as it is that I'm a man who fully appreciates a drink no less than a drink likes to be drunk, I prefer to drink a drink that lets me know immediately and unabashedly that I am in fact drinking. That's when I tip well.

It's also widely known I'm a writer, a terminal affliction which stems from my childhood.

I blame my parents.

It is the cause of this column to shed light on the faceless features of folk who often populate the cozy sanctions of such environs, those who often in secret nestle the ambition of signing a verbal lease that'll render them residence in a habitat of words forged on a plot of page, in a cozy community of tales and premise. Characters they are, in search of a story. They're out there. When they're not, they're usually at my place, committed to the yarn in which they've been woven.

Catching them's the hard thing. They're much more than a name, but spice and life, insight and abnormality--the stuff you want to write about and read. But you've got to know where to find 'em. They don't want to know about some frisky-fern lounge trimmed in light oak and narcissists. No, they want gaudy, poorly lit, smoke-loaded rooms with a jukebox and cheap booze that leaves you pickin' grit from your teeth. A joint where nobody wants to know about Long Island Ice Tea and if you ask for one, you're served instead a frosty exit. A place with character and characters.

One such place exists on Adams Avenue, the Ken Club. There the beer is cold and talk negotiable. That's where I ran into Yellow Man and Mable, neither of which knew of my work or that I was a famous writer. Nobody seems to. Yellow Man was sickly looking, with pallid skin stretched over bony carriage that jutted out here and there and made rigid lumps in a silk shirt that appeared to have been applied with a brush. His hair was long and grungy. He was explaining to the barkeep that the Coors Beer legend above the till was eating him.

Mable was arguing with the wall to her right. Apparently it was confused about Mable's purse and whether or not it indeed belonged to her. Mable was set on straightening the wall out.

"That's your stuff," said Mable to the wall. She slapped a pudgy clump of fingers on her purse. "This is my stuff."

The Coors legend illuminated the first and second letters slowly, C after which would come O followed in rapid succession by ORS.

"It's e-e-a-ating me," said Yellow Man of the Coors sign. "Turn it a-a-w-fff," he said.

I perched myself between these two and told the barkeep to give me one of whatever Yellow Man was drinking. The wall must have made its move. Mable back-handed it.

"The yello-w-w-w," Yellow Man then said, fearful eyes cast unwaveringly at the legend, "is e-e-a-ating me!"

Coors was spelled out in yellow. It was the same dull yellow that small lamps in the ceiling there are cast. These lamps are positioned intermittently, perhaps one above every other stool. One such lamp was directly over Yellow Man. Feeling obliged to warn him, I tapped him on the shoulder.

Mable had had enough of the wall antagonizing her. She grabbed her stuff and left.

It was then I noticed Yellow Man wasn't looking too well. He peered up at the lamp for an uncomfortable while. Then he made a noise no man wants to hear twice. The sort of noise that turns heads and bellies.

He moaned, "No..."

Yellow Man slid from his stool and began to shrivel--I swear he actually shriveled. He pulled at his hair and proceeded to wind his spindly self like a coil around the base of the stool.

"The yellow is e-e-a-ating me..." again he confessed.

Yellow Man was expelled from the bar. But by then it was too late. Already had I concluded that I liked it there. Already had I concluded that I'd be back.

And I will.