Little Casino

The salt of the earth

THE GREEK, IN HIS RENTED WHITE DINNER jacket and black tuxedo trousers, was throwing up on himself in front of the Shore Road Casino. Fat George had lost, somewhat surrealistically, half his tie and was sitting in a garbage can accompanied by a quart bottle of Rheingold, the pride of New York. Sal was attempting, in the best of humor, to persuade the short-order cook in the Royal to scramble him three eggs for the price of two, and Rocco waited outside, admiring his reflection in the plate-glass window. Nothing, but nothing, like a pearl-gray fedora! The Lion’s Den was jammed with what Donnie called “revelers,” and Whitey, in the spirit of revelry, was fucking Chickie in the telephone booth. In another telephone booth, a few doors away, Bromo Eddie was making random calls with the aid of a safety pin as substitute for legal tender, employing a method known and used by many citizens, though heartily condemned by Ma Bell: “It raises the costs for all, la-da, it raises the co-oosts for alll!”—of course it does! Carmine felt that Whitey shouldn’t be doing what he was doing, people had to use that goddamn phone booth, for Christ sake. What if somebody needed an ambulance, too? Had he no home? Couldn’t he fuck Chickie in the park under some bush or some damn plant? Donnie noted Carmine’s objections in a spiral notebook on whose cover he had written, “Local Color.” The other Sal was studying a menu in the diner, although Anna, his companion for the evening, was adamant about ordering the Cheeseburger à la Deluxe, to wit: “I am not eating any fucking soup, Sally!” Red punched Mickey just for the hell of it and then arrogantly appropriated his beer. The police were called by a citizen fed up with something or other noise or some girl who was being bothered or too loud and the neighborhood was gone to the dogs. And fuck the cops too! “Drunken boat,” he said. And then again, “drunken boat.” The bars closed at four, and at least thirty revelers sat in the breathless park with cardboard containers of beer until seven-thirty, then walked back to the Lion’s Den and waited for the doors to open, although the joint really had but one door. “Poetic license,” he said. “He who catches the early bird, catches the early bird,” Donnie said. “It’s the same as a drunk’s coat,” Fat George said. He smelled, of course, but not too badly, of garbage. Yet his chums reasoned well that a little garbage never hurt a Greek olive peddler. That was the God’s honest truth, and so they swore on their mothers! Cheech and Nickie stood at the saloon door and watched the girls on their way to the subway and work, work, work! Idle pleasures, indeed. Mary passed and told Nickie that he was a bum. Dolores passed and told Cheech that he was a disgraceful bum. Georgene passed and told Nickie that he ought to be ashamed of himself, to look at himself at eight o’clock in the morning. There was no chance that he’d ever pass the police test! They were all impossibly beautiful in their high heels and pleated skirts. Not for the likes of “you bums,” Donnie yelled from the end of the bar. Tommy Azzerini passed and told Nickie and Cheech that they talked like a coupla guys with paper assholes, although they had not addressed him. Nickie offered to knock him on his ass and Tommy said, in effect, oh, buy me a beer, for Christ sake, you guinea bastard. Pat exited his apartment building, pale, shaking, and, just an inch or so removed from a fine bout with the horrors, carefully made his way to Carroll’s for a double Three Feathers and a large beer chaser; ahead lay another day of honest labor for the youthful Irish American. The salt of the earth, the coat of the drunk, the boat of the revelers, the indisposed and lazy, the insulted and injured, the hurt, the forgotten, the salt in your stew. The sail in your dreamboat. The Greek arrived, smelling of vomit, looking, as he drolly put it, for “the party.” Many were called, oh many, and none were chosen. Pat sat back in the cab as it made its way to Joralemon Street and his, as he liked to put it, “place of business,” and amused the cabbie mightily by unsuccessfully attempting to touch the trembling flames of many matches to his cigarette. Cabbies take their laughs where they can get them, disgraceful bums that some of them are. Others, however, are the salt of the earth, good family men, the cream in your coffee, and were or will be ready to serve their country when called. “Not as fucking asshole officers, though,” Fat George opined.

It has never been determined why Plato Makarios Costas was in rented dinner jacket and trousers, nor what he was doing in front of the Shore Road Casino. (It is, perhaps, unnecessary to note that these garments were rented.)

This particular night and morning were rife with what neighbors called “mixed emotions.” However, one of the revelers surprised most of those interviewed, since he was described by everyone as “very quiet.” One man, who did not wish to give his name, revealed that “he liked to read Sexology, but he was real quiet.”

Asked what it was like to be ogled by young, disreputable men with whom they had grown up on the mean streets, the “girls,” as they insist on calling themselves, were, basically, unanimous in their replies, e.g., “the bums ought to hang their heads in shame.”

Mary noted that Nickie had been an altar boy!

Dolores revealed that Cheech had penned a very interesting book report on Men of Iron by Howard Pyle.

Georgene admitted that Nickie once carried a bag of groceries home for her mother, who remarked: What A Nice Boy.

Well. Live and learn.

Where is their deep purple, their stardust, their winter wonderland and beer barrel polka and string of pearls? Where are their jingle bells and paper dolls and silent nights and glittering funny hats?

“Oh, for the love of Jesus and His Blessed Mother, give it a fucking rest, OK?”

Every fourth one on the house, and to the Republic for which it stands!