Carmen was a classic LES hoodrat, decked out in studded leather and bad tattoos. She smoked cowboy killers, sounded like she'd been doing it since she hit puberty. She managed to make the gap in her front teeth look good. We'd been hanging out ever since she fixed an overflowing urinal with her bare hands for me when I was slammed on a Sunday. She was good people. Rough around the edges, but as laid back and loyal as they come.
She and her buddy Jess closed the bar down with me that night. They were only two-thirds-drunk; I was still jazzed from the last-minute rush. So they said we should hit the Nancy Whiskey half a block down.
"You met Barry yet? Aw, man, you
gotta meet Barry."
So we knocked on the locked and shuttered door. I could hear a chorus of voices from behind it shouting "We're closed!" Not a one of them sounded sober.
They let us in. Carm and Jess were established there, apparently. The crowd was sparse - industry people I recognized from Bubby's and the Grand. A taxi driver with a newspaper under his elbow, jawing with an off-duty cop with a bulge in the back of his sweatshirt.
And behind the bar loomed a man, scarecrow-skinny, with a shaved head and a wire-brush beard. "Carmen!" he shouted, his Irish brogue thick as molasses. One by one, he gave them hugs and cheek-kisses. "What're yeh havin'?"
"Bud and a Maker's," said Carmen. "Bud and a Maker's," echoed Jess.
Then it was my turn. "Stoli Raz and soda," I said.
I didn't have an excuse. This was back when Stolichnaya only had two or three flavors. I'd been having fun with it, sucking down flavored vodka so I could pretend to drink something more interesting than gin and tonic.
Barry's eyes turned cold as he loomed over me. Like crystallized hate in Antarctic chasms, he fixed me with a stare that could murder a penguin. "Carmen," he snarled, his eyes never leaving mine. "This guy with you?"
"Yeah, he's cool," came her voice from the table. It felt so far away.
I could see the contempt in his movements as he poured my drink, sat it on a coaster, and pushed it to me with two fingertips. He leaned down, his weathered visage inches from mine. "Yeh listen to me, boy," he growled. "This is the last fookin' Stoli Raz and soda yeh ever fookin' order from me." His forehead rippled as he arched a brow. "D'yeh fookin' understand?"
I nodded mutely as I accepted my drink and left a ten-spot on the stick. Carmen and Jess were making no effort to hide their laughter as I joined them.
It wasn't long before we needed another round. Up I went, and once again Barry intoned his question from beneath his dour scowl. "What're yeh havin'?"
"Bud and a Maker's," I said, my face studiously neutral.
And like the breaking of a thunderstorm, Barry beamed at me, crow's feet like a sunny day and teeth like ancient tombstones. "Now that's more fookin' like it!"
And thus began a beautiful, beautiful friendship.
