As a kid in Detroit I tried to make a buck doing whatever odd jobs were available to a ten year old. One place where I often worked was on Mack Avenue, an old bar, with a two lane bowling alley in the back, near the boundary of Detroit and Grosse Pointe Park. There, two Greek brothers, Art and Lou, poured a lot of beer and simple mixed drinks to bowlers and local happy hour drinkers. I took out the trash, picked up empty glasses and dry mopped the lanes after school, and inadvertently learned about the lives of the regulars at the bar. There was one guy in particular who I thought the most interesting because his work, so strange, was the center of his life. If you enjoy this story please
The bluish cloud of Lou’s cigar smoke billowed in the scant rays of light slanting through the open front doors.
“People don’t understand, man, you tell ’em but they don’t understand. How could they? It’s like a one man recession.”
Lou dropped one leg down from the pipe it had rested on, and then lifted the other to the same position. He folded the paper lengthwise and then by its width, leaned both elbows on the bar and continued reading while he spoke: “Yeah, nobody understands, Steve.”
“First the vaccinations, that just about killed the kid business. The old timers used to rack it up with the half sized models.”
“Sure.”
“Then it was all the new drugs.”
“Right.”
“Then they came in with life saving surgeries, cancer treatment centers for God’s sake, what the hell!”
“Yep.”
“I’ll have another.”
Lou lifted his head from the paper and walked along the bar. He kept 7-Up in 16oz bottles just for Steve, the last guy to drink the old ‘7 and 7’. He also kept an open bottle of Seagram’s 7 Crown, just for Steve, again the last guy to drink the old ‘7 and 7’. He dropped in a couple of ice cubes, and put the drink down in front of Steve. Lou avoided any eye contact with Steve, and when he put down the drink he pinched the little rosary he kept in his pocket.
“Yeah, you tell ‘em but they just don’t understand.”
“Nope.”
“I thought we might turn the corner at covid, but that was just a blip.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, when they’re really old, they normally just go for cremation, anyway.”
“Sure.”
“How’s that help me, I don’t sell effin’ urns, man?”
“Nope.”
“How ‘bout you, Lou? You gonna burn me, too?”
Lou looked up from his paper at the other end of the bar. “Nah, I’ll take care of you, Steve, the best you got, what is it again, ‘Brushed Aluminum, Mahogany Handles, Plush Satin Pillowy Interior?”
“‘Plush Pillowy Satin Interior’,” Steve corrected, “yes, the Alpha Omega, the pinnacle of afterlife comfort.”
“That’s it.”
Energized by this apparent verbal contract for a future sale that would net him a ‘satin’ bonus, Steve threw back the ‘7 and 7’, put a $10 on the bar, rapped his knuckles twice, once for each drink, and walked out with renewed confidence, forgetting for a few minutes that the Alpha Omega was now sold at local box stores, and even online, if you kind of knew ahead of time that you would soon need it.
As Steve walked out, Lou looked at the clock and saw it was that time again. He laid several bar napkins out, two or three in front of each stool, and started to prep the bar for the drinks soon to be ordered. A couple of minutes later the parade started. First came the manufacturer reps, also sometimes prone to a lot of downhearted ground scuffing, kicking at life’s unfairness; followed by the lawyers who proclaimed for all to hear that the world ran not on oil but on graft, corruption and a fair bit of sleaze, of which they, as guardians of the law, stood athwart; then came the bankers and financiers grumbling that the market was down too much or up too little or worse gone sideways; and finally the tradesmen who had too much work of the wrong kind and not enough work of the right kind and who wanted to throw back a few cheap drinks before the hike downtown for the game.
“Hey, we saw Steve drive away, is he still in a recession?” a tall man in a dark suit and unbuttoned collar asked.
“Never ending,” said Lou, “Let’s hope so,” yelled another. Immediately the Steve stories started all along the bar: All the times Steve had made the case for recession with his strange penchant for odd life and especially death statistics; his bright eyed acclamation of insurance industry calculus foretelling the huge oncoming toll that must like taxes be paid; his hilarious Seagram’s inspired diatribes at doctors and researchers who personally had it in for him; his acclaim of past cultures that accepted the end magnanimously and without hesitation and who knew how to put a body away properly in a large, beautiful hand crafted ... “To the longevity crisis,” someone hollered, and they all raised their glasses.
“To the Alpha Omega,” cried another. Lou could have used some help at this point as glasses were emptied too quickly for a single barman.
Putting cash into the register, Lou felt a tap. It was his brother Art.
“Oh, thank God, you’re early, Art, I’ve got a crowd tonight.”
“Yeah I heard, that Steve is the life of the party, hey?”
Just then a loud “Let’s all have a ‘7 and 7’ in Steve’s honor!” went out. All the arms along the bar went up with a great hue and cry.
Art arranged 50 glasses on the bar, and Lou opened two bottles of Seagram’s and walked along adroitly filling the glasses half full with whiskey. Art followed with ice and then to top if off Lou added the 7-Up. The revelers charitably handed the drinks all around so that all were served and then for a toast some wise fellow recited a limerick:
“There once was a boy name Seth Who had not time for death He drank from the bottle Like it was a throttle and lived his life with zest!” A great laugh went up, prompting another fellow to try: "There once was a boy named Steve Who kept Death's card up his sleeve When he tried to make bank Life turned its crank And we all breathed a sigh of relief!"
Then toast after toast was made. “Till death do us part,” someone exclaimed; “Live long and prosper,” cried another. The din bounced and doubled off the pressed tin ceiling. No one inside heard the great peel of thunder or the downpour shortly afterward.
As the clamor hit its peak, in walked Steve, his red, sweaty face beaming with mad delirium, looking as a man who had just walked out of a storm, drenched but thrilled to be alive. The crowd grew quiet, embarrassed at the hilarity they just enjoyed at Steve’s expense.
“It’s a great day, man, a great day. Fred and Emma Stone, they owned that little grocery on Charlevoix, they died in an auto accident on their way home from Ohio this morning! I just signed them last Friday to a couple of luxury boxes, that’s what we call them in the industry, no insult meant! Lou, 7 and 7!”
Steve’s announcement broke up the logjam at the bar, and one by one and then in small groups the revelers drifted away in a steady current of disbelief. Fred and Emma had been their friends, their children had been their children’s friends, their store was a Saturday morning must, a place to buy the local paper, gossip and meet neighbors old and new, get steaks for the Saturday night bbq, and fresh squeezed orange juice for Sunday morning brunch.
Lou removed his apron, and Art, gave a quick wave, seeing his brother off. At the other end of the bar, Art spread out the paper and put one leg up on the pipe. Steve again the only patron, nursed his ‘7 and 7’, oblivious to the force of his announcement, giggling to himself alone at the recession’s end, if only for a few days. He started working through a list of his contacts on his phone for a woman who might be intrigued by his new standing, not realizing that he had passed by several of them on his way to end of the bar.
Steve should just quit! He can’t compete as a middle man!