Free Beer Tomorrow: A Book of Stories

By Ellis Byers

Thoreau once surmised that most of us lead lives of quiet desperation. Reading these stories brings Thoreaus words to mind. The characters are found in settings in the Deep South in the days of Huey Long in Louisiana; in present day New York City with its current economic hardships and other difficult goings on; and in several Mississippi locales.. The characters exist in quiet desperation. Isolated within Themselves all face crisis and loss. And yet somehow they struggle to cope with the hope they will prevail.

In the title story a Cajun bartender struggles against fate and the two sons who have stolen his farm. A farmer turned bartender, Joe Lee LeBlanc sues his boys to recover the farm. His story circulates. He has his few minutes of fame as interest in his case grows. People stop ignoring the khakis-clad bartender. They ask about progress in his cause. Of course free beer and tomorrow never arrive. The old bartender never gets his day in court. Chekhovs story, The Lament, is recalled as one reads FBT, set in Opelousas, Louisiana, during the Yambilee Festival.

The shadow world of cockfighting with its unlawfulness and potential for violence is the environment where one youngster is coming of age. The Cockfighters, reminiscent of Sherwood Andersons I Want To Know Why, and Ernest Hemingways My Old Man, also has a Louisiana locale where the law and the Church (ironically in the Parish of St. Landry) turn a blind eye to the blood sport in which fighting cocks usually duel to the death.

An unknown assailant kills the boys father after a highly wagered cockfight. The Lad, freed from the sport, is urged to get an education by his guardian, a former prostitute and the mistress of the dead father.

At the end of the story, the fathers murder remains unsolved. And a sable rooster with a fighting spirit, a bird the family pinned its hopes on, is killed in a cockpit battle it was supposed to win. We are left to ponder what part the little cock had to do with the death of the father after the little bird is found nailed to a post outside the cockfighting arena. The question of the boys true understanding of his fathers profession remains unresolved. The boy is last seen studying hard in school, reading Hemingway and thinking about horseracing as a career.

In The Picaninny, an African American child is forced to leave the South after innocently kissing a white boy. Later she finds fame as a singer in the North. She returns to her roots in Mississippi. She finds change and understanding after talking to a crippled white man from her past. She leaves Mississippi a second time but without baggage.

The protagonist in To Kill A Kingfish races against time to stop his cousin from killing Louisianas former governor (U.S. Senator Huey Long in the story). The tale unfolds as the protagonists grandson attempts to unravel a relatives ties to the assassination plot. In the end the grandson scruples and decides to let the story remain unrecorded.

The WWII pilot hero of Beau Chandlers Wonderful Bedroom returns from the Battle and settles in New York City. He finds the perfect one bedroom that eventually becomes the prize in a battle of another sort. Chandler, a gentile, and Kahan, a Jew who manages the building, are both obsessed with the apartment but for different reasons. Both men are oblivious to some of the reasons the war was fought. There is no brotherly love in the story. In the end the old pilot, an alcoholic, dies in a fall down a stairwell. Was he pushed over the railing by Kahan? Does the old man simply give up the fight? In the end the thought lingers: how easily man is motivated to kill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 14, 2005
• ISBN: 9781477163924

Ellis Byers

Ellis Byers was born February 4, 1943, in Jackson, Mississippi, in the old Jackson Infirmary, firstborn of Camille Kennedy Byers of Smith County (Sullivan’s Hollow), Mississippi, and Lieutenant Ellis S. Byers, United States Army Air Corps, whose hometown was Lovington, New Mexico. He was educated in public schools in Lovington and Jackson, and at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. His career includes stints as bartender, retail salesman, journalist and publisher, bookseller, advertising executive and media spokesman. He retired in New York two days before the 9-11 attack on the WTC.

Book preview

FREE BEER

TOMORROW

A Book of Stories By The Author

Of The Novel A Hero For Our Time

ELLIS BYERS

Copyright © 2005 by Ellis Byers.

Library of Congress Number:   2004097414

ISBN :            Hardcover         1-4134-6729-6

                        Softcover         1-4134-6728-8

                        E-book         978-1-4771-6392-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any way or by any other means without the written permission of the publisher and author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

TAKING KENNY’S PLACE

THE COCKFIGHTERS

THE PICKANINNY

FREE BEER TOMORROW

TO KILL A KINGFISH

BEAU CHANDLER’S WONDERFUL ONE BEDROOM

EXPERIENCE

THE CONVERSION OF IRA SPIELBERG

A MAN’S BEST FRIEND

MIELE MOUTHED

TENNIS IN BAGHDAD

PERLEMAN’S EVENT

SEVERAL ENDINGS

For My Children: Alison, Heath and Ellis III.

Also, for Marie Ohlsson

I dedicate this book to Aung San Suu Kyi, my heroine.

I dedicate this book to those brave women who participated in

the Tienanmen Demonstration in 1989 as well as those women

who stood by their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and friends.

I dedicate this book to all the Asian women

who have suffered so much and ask so little.

Ellis Byers was born February 4, 1943, in Jackson,

Mississippi, in the old Jackson Infirmary, firstborn of Camille Kennedy Byers of Smith County (Sullivan’s Hollow), Mississippi, and Lieutenant Ellis S. Byers, United States Army Air Corps, whose hometown was Lovington, New Mexico.

He was educated in public schools in Lovington and Jackson, and at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

His career includes stints as bartender, retail salesman, journalist and publisher, bookseller, advertising executive and media spokesman. He retired in New York two days before the 9-11 attack on the WTC.

The desire to write stories was formed as he listened to his maternal grandmother, Celeste Ashley Kennedy, tell stories by the fireplace in their farmhouse in South Mississippi. His paternal grandmother, Minnie Hobbs Byers, was an artist and musician. She also told stories to her grandson about the early days of the Twentieth Century in New Mexico, when settlers migrated westward enduring harsh weather and the rough life on the plains. The town of Hobbs bears her family name.

Legends, lies and anecdotes gathered over the years by the former newsman in Louisiana, New York and Mississippi led to the stories found in this volume. His novel is entitled A Hero for Our Time.

The author is the father of three children. He lives in Manhattan.

The web of our life is of mingled yarn, good

And ill together.—Shakespeare

TAKING KENNY’S PLACE

Kenny the panhandler died the other day. Many people in our neighborhood on Madison Avenue are talking about it. McKibbens, my doorman, told me Kenny just dropped dead on the street. He died on the job, so to speak, McKibbens said. But I’ve heard several stories. Probably as many about how he died as the number of those I’ve heard over the years about his life.

Kenny was seen in late March on his regular route on Madison from 72nd to 86th. Kenny’s back; must be spring, we all said. Then several people along the strip noticed Kenny had disappeared.

McKibbens said: Kenny probably went back to Florida after the late snow we had the other day to wait for warmer weather. Marie Wiley from the stationary shop said Kenny was hospitalized for what he said was a hernia. But Carla Dalvin, the owner of a small gallery, said it was not a hernia but pancreatic cancer that killed Kenny when he resumed his regular route a few days after being released from the hospital. Both women—in fact just about everyone who knew Kenny—seemed genuinely saddened by his passing. They reminded us all that Kenny was an artist and very well read. A television channel once ran an interview with Kenny. He was a personality of sorts.

He had a gentle way about him, Carla Dalvin said. He was sensitive and quiet. She pointed reverently to the two paintings on the walls of her gallery. These two paintings are among Kenny’s last works, she said.

The only thing we all know for sure is something got Kenny and services are scheduled at Campbell’s. Campbell’s is getting high praise in the neighborhood for taking the initiative in Kenny’s case. They printed flyers announcing services.

They’re handling everything for free, even burial out in New Jersey, Carla Dalvin said. At least Kenny won’t wind up just another number in Potter’s Field. Who says New Yorkers are uncaring people. She said the funeral home even tried to locate Kenny’s family but nobody turned up, not even the mother Kenny had mentioned a few times over the years.

That aging mother story, McKibbens said, was probably just a part of Kenny’s spiel. McKibbens could be very cynical, and over the years he sometimes tormented Kenny. I remember one incident before the market crashed. I was waiting at the door for a limo. McKibbens was having a smoke out on the sidewalk under the awning. He saw Kenny walking on the east side of Madison heading north toward 86th street to catch workers waiting for the M86 crosstown. Hey! Kenny! McKibbens shouted. Come over here. McKibbens had his right hand in his pocket jingling his change. Kenny waited for the traffic to clear and crossed the street. He approached the curb and held the cup out just as McKibbens grabbed his crotch with his left hand and said: Here, Kenny, come get this.

God Bless, Kenny said as he shook his head in disgust and moved on up Madison. Kenny knew that deep down McKibbens, who could really come out with some vulgar stuff, was often a soft touch, and next time he might slip a dollar in Kenny’s cup for coffee and a bagel.

Before the economy fell apart I would see Kenny some evenings outside Elios’ on 2nd Avenue. Spare some change, he would ask. I would drop a handful of coins in his cup and say:

Kenny, I thought you only worked Madison Avenue. Or: One of these days I want you to buy me dinner. I was just playing with him. He would grin and move along the street.

I thought Kenny remembered my face because of the banter and my contributions. But I was mistaken. One night after dinner I stepped out of Nectar on Madison at 82nd street. There was Kenny with his cup out. Spare some change? Changeless and alone, I said:

Hey, it’s time you bought me dinner. I laughed.

Kenny went ballistic. Fuck you, mother fucking son of bitch, he said quickly in a low voice. The outburst was totally out of character. I was stunned. I hurried away just a little afraid he might become violent. I thought later the bad economy was probably getting to Kenny, too. Then again, whatever killed him in the end was probably already working on his mind and body by that time.

You have to understand Kenny was a seasonal fixture of sorts in our little neighborhood on Madison Avenue, a part of our community except for the coldest months. I remember one of the last times I saw him. It was one of those bright April days when the weather turned warm. The sky was cloudless and so bright. It was as if a thousand strobe lights had put a mercury shine over Manhattan. Here came Kenny, pack strapped over one shoulder, blue and white coffee cup in his right hand, swinging right then left: Change? Spare some change? But after he had stormed out at me that night, when I saw him coming at me on Madison, I turned away.

One evening later in the month, I happened to switch channels and catch by chance the rebroadcast of the interview with Kenny. There was Kenny pontificating on art and philosophy as if he had been doing it all of his life. Substitute the green t-shirt and jeans for herringbone jacket and rep tie and Kenny could have been a college professor being interviewed by PBS.

Kenny didn’t hesitate to tell certain people along the strip that at one time in his life he had been in prison. He read every book in the Attica library, one of his confidants told me. Then again it might have been Ryker’s Island, she said.

If you think about it, McKibbens said, getting caught for something—none of us know what Kenny was in for—other than a capitol crime, was a good career move for him. I mean an unfortunate young black man makes a mistake early in life. He accepts the sentence, serves his time. While he is serving his time he gets a free education in enforced confinement like a monk somewhere in the hills of California, free room and board. He gets out of the pen and he’s a scholar of sorts in certain fields. He becomes a roving coin collector on the streets of Manhattan. It turns out to be a pretty good living. Winters in Florida. The rest of the year in Manhattan at our expense, so to speak.

McKibbens’ evaluation of Kenny was a gross oversimplification. However, parts of it were true based on my own observations. Some may wonder why I’ve always noticed the beggars. It probably stems from a story my mother told me about a panhandler down in New Orleans when I was a kid. My mother said the beggar was a woman who wore very dark glasses, dressed plainly, carried a cane and used a brass cup. By the end of each day the people on Canal had filled the cup many times over. The woman would dump the money into a bag concealed inside her coat. At five o’clock each afternoon she would walk back into the French Quarter where a limo waited at a Bourbon Street intersection. My mother never explained how she knew so much about the panhandler. Before she died I questioned her about the woman but she sluffed it off saying she probably read about the beggar in the Picayune.

About a year before the layoffs in the Wall Street company I worked for, I followed Kenny a few times just to see if maybe he had a limo waiting for him somewhere in midtown. I sneaked along behind at a distance but lost him in sidewalk traffic on 79th and Madison close to Mayor Mike’s private residence. I had heard Kenny accosted the mayor about once a month and on occasion had been known to tap the Iraqi ambassador who lived across the street.

About this time I began to watch all of the panhandlers much more closely. Observing them I developed my own case studies. I began to follow them on lunch breaks and after work. I studied their techniques, mannerisms and dress. I always compared them to Kenny.

Following 9-11 and my layoff, I quietly took my unemployment benefits which eventually ran out. Then I cashed in my 401K and lived on it until last month. I had started to give my change to Kenny again but made no more comments, and he would simply say: God Bless.

Believing Providence would reward me for the small contributions of change I tossed in every cup thrust at me as I walked the streets in search of employment, I soon found myself in a hole. Jobless, no pension, no prospects and several years away from Social Security, I practically begged for work. I would even settle for a MacJob. The young managers everywhere I went took one look at my gray hair and the resume (This resume has dates from another century, Man, one young interviewer said) and assured me I would not enjoy flipping burgers. Another young manager told me flat out in broken English I was really too old to be shelving videos in his store. Many simply said: Sir, you are really over qualified for our opening. The comment did nothing for my ego as rejection followed rejection.

Finally, a temp agency found a part-time summer job for me at the bookstore at Lincoln Triangle. You know the one. It’s as big as a Home Depot. I was introduced around the five floors. Later, I heard the store manager speaking about me privately with one of the floor managers: Mr. Bellewether is our token senior. Poor old fellow is a temporary employee. With the company hiring freeze on us now he’ll be very temporary. But even a temporary bookseller job with pay not far above minimum wage lessened the feelings of worthlessness. A small but regular paycheck lifted my spirits. When the other booksellers, most of whom were under the age of twenty-five, teased me and dubbed me the Ancient Bookseller, it felt good to be a part of the crew. I knew their kidding was not malicious.

I hadn’t seen Kenny for a while. Then several times I spotted him walking through the store from the Broadway entrance to Columbus. One morning I was called to the registers to help the cashiers. Suddenly Kenny walked up to pay for a greeting card. I surprised us both by saying: Hello, Kenny. You’re a long way from Madison Avenue. He smiled at the recognition and said he often worked the West Side at the height of the summer tourist season. Kenny pulled out a credit card with another name on it. I was shocked and feared a scene if I questioned him. I ran it through the machine several times then punched the number in. The card was verified. His signature on the paperwork matched the one scrawled on the back of the card.

Do you know that beggar, one of the cashiers asked as Kenny left. I see him all over midtown begging for change.

He works in my neighborhood, I said as we watched him through the storefront windows as he walked across 66th and into the little triangular park. He must be doing pretty good for a beggar don’t you think. That was a Visa card he paid with. Out in the little triangular park, Kenny had the coffee cup out and was putting the touch on tourists headed for Lincoln Center.

When the summer heat turned Manhattan’s asphalt streets gooey and tourists retreated to their cool dark hotel rooms, the panhandlers flocked to the air-conditioned bookstore. Like vultures, they waited for an opening. When a customer left one of the big easy chairs, they would plop down. Up in the café, I watched them take magazines to the tables where they waited until someone left