"In A Charitable Mood."

So, last Thanksgiving week I'm back in Rah-cha-cha.

And, things about to turn drowsy as some dimwit stuffed with Turkey, I'm down for OXFORDS on Monroe Ave the Tuesday night before the big holiday.

Y' gotta pick your nights.

Let's face it, 'Chester's a dull boy and the Avenue ain't what it was.

Y' land there, you'd better know when 'n' where the gittin's good or there is no fun in the burg at all.

All you going to get right close up t' one of these 'family' holidays is stool-sitters. Not bad if you're into sad stories. Maybe a decent bitch comes in with some guy and gives it the old try, shaking it to "All Right Now,' or some other oldie good for getting loose to a little.

Since I'm looking for a little life 'fore all these clowns go off motor-boatin' in the bosoms of their loved ones - it's Tuesday I go out lookin', the night before the night before the big day is what I'm figuring.

And, when I'm right, I'm right.

Hauling up to the Pub, something like 'leven, it's like I said. Whole length of the place, foot of the bar to dart board, is deep in young stuff. The place is rockin' out. The window front I'm coming up on is a panorama of decadence - in motion. A dark-filter, wide-screen, neon highlighted shadow play of t'day's best imitation debauchery.

I could almost be proud of those half-assed kids.

So, 'min the bar. And what do you gots?

Y' gotcha couples; y' gotcha crowds; y' gotcha regulars.

You can't say anything about yer regulars and couples hasn't been said already. Any bar the regulars are in there every night, no matter. And y' always got y' couples. Not the same ones. But couples are all the same Tolstoy's good families. They're all about the one thing, couples, and that's each other. They're not looking for anything but what each other has got.

Now, your crowds are another matter.

Crowds are a whole can of worms and snakes. A bunch of people, more or less friends of not necessarily long standing, decideto get together and go our partying in a bar. Right there that's a potent breweven 'fore you add the alcohol and stir.

Mostly, this night, y' got yet kids about to go be boring. Mom and Dad's no longer little ladies and laddies off on their own in the big, bad burg and about to be home-bound for the holiday. They're under pressure to let loose. They're feeling like they gotta go out and be wild wid their own kind this one more night.

It's like they got to put enough booze down their gullets to keep buzzed the whole coming sad ritual.

Y' know: 'over d' river end through the woods...'

Some of them, it's like, somehow, they're thinking this is thelast time they ever get to be how they think they want to be. It's like they're sure just going home will turn 'em back into what they've always been destined to be - the graying folks, shoulder-to-shoulder over the roast bird on a platter, imitation hearth behind them in a two-story Cape Cod on Accountant Lane.

It's never the gals in the fandango skinny slacks or the glitzy dresses that barely cover their asses. The few of them ain't already agents of quiet desperation know they're not skating forever from their born destiny And they're the ones really cutting it loose.

They're none of them worrying about it.

No, but - eery one of these crowds has some gloomy guy who's in that other party mood, the one where all the enforcedfun is over his head. The go-along guy not saying much and smiling less. He's even dressed for the part; like he didn't even bother to dress down for getting down. 'Cuss he knew ahead he couldn't. He's just not in the mood.

He's the guy knows things aren't working out the way he thought they would. He's the guy who's going 'over d' river end through the woods...' thinking that he's not coming back the same as he went out.

So, I'm in the bar and it's like:

"'Ey, long time no see..." to one's I've seen before.

And I'm looking at nothing special here as I've just been explaining....

'Til I see this one crowd. It's not even a crowd exactly. It's a combination. One I seen before.

Brothers. Brothers on the Town.

Oh, yeah! That's always fun.

Y' got the Older Brother, the Younger Brother and the Brother-in-law. The father, son and HOLY GHOST! of the American Family. Hell, for all I know, this happens in bars in Leipzig, Liege and Limerick, too. Probably does - with accents, a' course.

Anyhow, older brother is, and always has been, better looking, better built and is 'he who must be impressed.' Probably home from out-of-town, first time in a couple of years. He's Butch. In a charitable mood I should feel something, a kinship with the guy. Only this is an arogant son-of-a-bitch and he's on some kind of throne.

Well, so am I - 'n' mine's higher!

So - still tryin' to be charitable - maybe he's put there. It's the Younger Brother, the Kid, who's paying and playing up, and showing off the old home-town's latest best to Butch, the Lone Wolf. Or, at least, he's trying awfully hard to, not that Gary can show Butch anything he hasn't seen before and better.

And the Brother-in-law? Stan or Steve or Sean? He doesn't belong. He shouldn't even be there. He can talk. But nobody's really listening. Whose ever shoulder he stands next to or ass he runs into, he's outside the circle.

Most of the time, when I'm near enough to catch their act, they're standing at the one place on the bar puttin away bottles fast enough to grow a crop of empties every little while. It's Gary does most of the talking. And, ever' now and again, Stan chimes in - that it matters.

And that's how it goes - 'til it's about half-past one.

Ole Butch is back to the bar with elbows behind him. Gary is talking still and standing sideways to his big bro with the back of his broad white shirt to Stan who's foot ont he rail and elbows beneath him on the bar no longer even chiming.

I can't see, at that moment, younger brother, Gary's face, but I can imagine.

Gary's looking up at Btuch and he's talking worried. His big brother, the Handsome Devil with the lean and hungry look, has a bit of smile cutting back into his jaws and he's not looking back and he's not listening, either. Gary's talking, butits about nuthin' Butch has in mind.

Ole Garr's not even looking in the right direction Butch is.

And, what's he looking at.

There is this crowd just there off the bar, just opposite where Ole Butch is lounging like he owns the place and is about to claim his birth-right.

And one of the glitzy-dressed babes is feeling 'Alright, Now,' full body. So much so, she's flashing the occasional sliver of tightie-whitey nylon where the flashy hem of her dress stretches more than it should while she swings it this way and that with her hair and boobs whipping that way and this.

The couple of other gals in the crowd she's with are all smiles and feeling a bit of 'Alright, Now,' themselves. They're moving with it a little but mostly just admiring Veronica and her action. And there is a couple of three of the well-dressed down boys got their arms up and shoulders swaying along with her.

To the far side, their gloomy guy just watches and mopes.

I don't know.

Maybe Butch figures Ronnie's action would be improved if she had a bit more freedom to swing it out there his way and the other way. Anyhow, with his conceited leer, he goes off the bar. And, leaning over, he extends the old middle finger to assist the next time she throws it in his direction.

Call it the 'Hemlift Maneuver.'

WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!

HEY!

That whole crowd is suddenly seriously upset.

None more so than the gloomy guy who shoves Butch's shoulder before he can straighten back up laughing.

All in one motion, Butch swings that shoulder round this way and his fist round the other clocking the gloomy guy in the upper lip and nose. Gus goes down a bloody stain on his face.

Y' gotta admire those bouncers they got at Oxfords. Two of them move right in. And three and four others follow right after. The whole lot of them move the American Family out the front door of the place in another all-in-one motion.

Now, I know what's coming and I'm near enough to the door, myself, so I'm outside just ahead of the rush - always a pretty thing to see.

No fuss; no fight. Just out the door with the two brothers. The one that's just grinning it off, shining it on and the one tha's saying that it's all a big misunderstanding, his big brother didn't mean any harm. Long Stan, now, not even included in the family ouster, comes along behind.

I've gotten off to the side of thelot of themn on the sidewalk. Okay, maybe just a little slow in going and having to step back a little awkward to keep my toes from being trampled on.

Butch is, at first, left just standing there in his leather jacket, grinning and with his back to the doorway. Ole Garr' is the worried looking one who wants it understood:

"We weren't looking for any trouble. Guy shove my brother and - "

A-n-n-d -

"Y're out...."

There is only the one bouncer still. The others have gone back to the kid with the bloody nose and lip and to the crowd he's with to be sure everything's calmed on that end. But he is one big bouncer. Big as a door and he's making a face as closed as a door would be shutting those guys out.

After grinning a bit at Monroe, at the Avenue he's back out on, Ole Butch turns it around and, standing off about the middle of the side walk, grins, too, watching a bit longer while Brother Gary explains things.

Like it matters, Stand comes up on Butch's shoulder half pleading,

"Come on. We can still get in another bar. There's time. We can still get in another bar, guys."

Then, for a time, Butch, himself, steps up to the Closed Door, saying, all grinning and calm like,

"I got a beer on the bar."

"No y' don't."

"Yeah, I got a beer on the bar - and a guy I gotta see."

"No y' don't."

"Yeah, I got a guy I gotta settle with."

"No y' don't."

And Gary touches his brother's shoulder, saying,

"It's no big deal. It's almost closin'. There's no point -"

Butch knows what he's about.

"Guys gotta come out," he says - not to Garr' even now. "And I got something to settle with him."

The Closed Door doesn't even bother to say, no, he doesn't. He's just a closed door and doesn't even look down. And, then, another big face looks out, around the Closed Door. Tater, with his big moon face, grins a look that wonders, is there a problem here?

And Gary says,

"Come on, it's almost closin'. We'd be going, any way."

And Stan says,

"We got time. We can get a beer. We can get a carton of beer. There's still time..."

Like it matters.

"This guy I got something to settle is coming out," Butch tells the Door and Tater.

And so it goes a while longer.

If no body else is, I'm looking around. It is getting down to closing and, sure enough, the cops are pulled up across the street at the Gulf, one of the places they like to pull in and sit at waiting on the turn-out at two.

So, when Btuch tells them,

"I got something to settle- and I'm going to be right here."

I'm the one walks by him saying,

"No you're not."

Tossing my head the Gulf of Monroe ways with a grin of my own right back at him, saying,

"'Cross the street."

He might, in his way, just grin back my way. But Brother Gary doesn't. And he actually takes a look.

Anxious, now, he says,

"Come on, come on, we'll just get busted, man!"

And Stan chimes, pleading,

"We'll be going any way."

I walk myself right on out of it. I walk on down to the corner of Wilmer, almost across from the two cops in cars and turn to stand there and watch.

Ole Butch is still grinning. And for a while its myway he's lookin. It's that same stoned out wolfish grin he's had all along. But he isnot saying anything, now. It's the other two who are saying. They're up around him on both sides and Gary has his hands on Butch's shoulder and back and, I suppose, he's cajoling his big brother.

Like that, they eventually move Butch off to the side, move him up the avenue. They msut have parked further up toward Oxford Street, or around in the back, down the alley at Poster Art. Because that is the way they move him off to. They get him to go up a couple of doorways though he won't go any further. He's probably saying how he still expects that guy he's got something to settle with has got to come out. Like that guy hasn't already been either hustled out the pub's back door or invited to stay t' the party that always goes on past closing inside once the front door is locked.

Myself, I could go back inside, too. A familiar face, all I'd have to do is go up and knock.

But I hang around. I'm curious how long Butch can keep grinning and waiting for what isn't going to happen.

Closing comes and goes and Oxfords empties out everybody who isn't staying after hours. The Bros 're still there 'side the second doorway above the bar. So i go and stand up in the doorway between.

Some crowds come out of the bar and stand about in front of the doorway ahving those conversations about going on to here and there. Where we going? Going to Gitsis'? Smoking cigarettes and making cell calls. Looking for cabs to flag down - and, then, having those conversations about where they're going and who's going and who's got cab fare.

None of those groups of people have that guy who's probably already out the back door in them, by the way. And, probably, even the Lone Wolf doesn't any longer expect him to be. But he's still there, in that door way up from me. He has still got what's left of a hard grin on his chops. But the other two have relaxed. They know there's ntohing going to happen, now.

Everything quiets way down. Even the sound of the music of the party in the bar is quiet now that the front door is locked and isn't opening to let out fresh crowds.

One of the last of those is standing around having those conversations, smoking those last cigarettes together, when this old lady panhandler comes around. She might be an old guy with her gray hair cropped the way it is and her Salvation Army clothes hanging on her the way they do. And she isn't exactly a panhandler, either. I've seen her around. She's picking up butts people leave on the street. She'll, maybe, ask for a light if she gets a good one. And she'll, maybe, ask for change if he gets the light.

She walks on by he latest crowd that's out front smoking and deciding where to go next. Wandering on, searching the gorund, she fins a good enough one to ask a light of the Brothers.

It's a no go. So, she wanders back to where the last crowd is just moving off.

"'Ey!"

Butch has his grin back in full and he calls after her.

This old lady has one of those red, weathered faces with a look on it you can tell she's not all there. She looks back at the three of them with the same wonder that is always on her face because so much that happens doesn't ge through to her.

"'Ey, y' wanted to make five dollars?"

It's a joke Butch is making. Only she doesn't know that. She doesn't know what it is yet. But she looks and wonders. She doesn't expect it is anything good. But she wonders, maybe, it is.

"'Y wanted to make dollars?" Butch asks her.

And he tells her how, too.

It's a joke; a real funny joke. Not that she gets it at first. And even when he repeats the joke, she only knows it's a joke because he's grinning at her.

"Five dollars; the three of us," he tells her.

Her faces makes her own shy smile and she tells him,

"Naw, I don't do that," a little uncertain yet.

"Come on, it's five dollars. Three more 'n it's worth!"

"Naw, I don't do that."

She has still got the good one. She wonders of me,

"Got a light?"

I got smokes; I can spare one.

"Rather have a fresh one?"

And I got a light, too.

I guess, maybe, having made his joke, Butch is satisfied. At any rate, laughing, he's letting his brothers move him on again, further up the Avenue.

Like I say, 'Chester's a dull boy and Monroe ain't the avenue it used to be.

I don't know why I go there.

If I had any place else to go, maybe I wouldn't.

They got an expression on the Avenue. Everybody says, after they or anybody else has said bad of anyone who's on the street, 'but he's an alright guy.' No matter how goofy or good for nothing a guy may be on this street, he's an alright guy.

And I'm in a charitable mood.