Clowns Alley

This is a story

A story of the common man

A story of love,  lost

and a story  of................ runny noses.

This,......... is the ballad of  Clown's Alley

From the outside of 59 th St.  it  appears quite unassuming.
Ordinary, and benign, it's facade doesn't  hold the lead based paint rendering of various clowns.  As it once had, in years passed.

Friend of mine used to live in the neighborhood, but since moved.

It was a joke amongst us.

"Clown's alley, yeah right."

He used to joke and say it was haunted, cursed, and for those with no  upright social standing.

One warm Summer's day, I wandered through it's double doors.

Pleased to find the inside lightly decorated with various clown paraphernalia, it was interesting to say the least.  

The tavern itself offered various domestic  and a few import beers in the bottle, as well as twelve ounce drafts of Miller Lite or Miller Genuine Draft for a dollar back then, it also had a large collection of it's spirits offered, in plastic containers.

The bar keep back then was the  lasting memory though,  a fellow with only one eye.  A  gentleman at the other side of the bar advised me that the bar keep could not see if you were stealing beer from the tap if he had his left hand side of his body to you.

I had my share of cheap Miller Draft beer and bid adieu to Clown's Alley.

Hopping aboard the Kedzie bus I was not to know, that the next time I would step foot in there again would be fore seven years.

Then, the other day, My curiosity got the  best of me.  I enlisted my compatriot for another jaunt over to his old haunts and that tavern of comedy, Clown's Alley

We encountered it to be  quite  the same as it was seven years ago.

Although they replaced the juke box and the pool table now costs a dollar, and the one-eyed fellow was no longer bar keep

I t bothered us none- the- less.  We found  twelve ounce draft pours of miller products to be $1.50, and they still had a plethora of their spirits offered in cough syrup-like plastic bottles.  The place was quiet except for a few thirsty souls, whom had seen much grief in their life, scattered around the square shaped bar.  My comrade and I talked and reminisced while sipping the economically priced drafts.  

Old war stories, ad shop talk traded back and forth amongst he background music of Kenny Rogers and Los Tigres Del Norte.

Coming back from the commode, I was surprised to see my friend now joined by a slovenly dressed, mumbling, older  black woman.  I sat down in my seat and commenced back to my draft but she demanded my attention.

"Hey!" she shouted

"how you mens doin' tonight"?

'merry Christmas, mvtherfvcker"

"you ain't cops, are you?"

"can I get a dollah"?

"you party"?

I did not know how to answer her, besides telling her she couldn't have any money

she grinned, revealing a mouthful of scattered teeth, gums, and purplish growths.  I had to look away.
Then she threw her arm around me, licking her bruised lips in a suggestive manner.

she queried again

"lemme get a couple dollars."

Her stench was overwhelming, reminiscent of the musty high school gym locker rooms of my youth.

her babble became unrecognizable.

The bar keep intervened in the budding romance and  admonished her to the far corner of the bar.  She stumbled away with the last half of a warm twelve ounce beer she gave bedroom eye's and parted announcing her affection with

"good bye, Harold, baby".  

Glancing over in her direction now and then I would mistakenly make eye contact and find her licking her pouted lips and blackened gums once again in my direction from afar.

"What happened with your girlfriend" my buddy joked.

"Wasn't meant to be brother, wasn't meant to be" i could only say with a satisfied sigh.

before leaving our seat and heading to the pool table, a long time patron advised me to check my pockets.

"way ahead of you brother"

we decided to shoot pool and were subsequently shredded by a quiet fellow whom was ,evidently from his runny nose and twitchy body motions, aver y big fan of benzoylmethylecgonine.  His marksmanship  and moment of intense concentration were only broken by frequent trips to the bathroom.  Leaving four of my balls on the table he made quick work of the game.

We finished our beers and made our way to the exit.

Eyeing my love lost, in the corner I could see had no notice of our exit, and all that which we had shared or could have been.

As she now was doing interpretive dancing to the Scorpion's "Winds of Change"  from the juke box.