21 in '71 at the Green Bean Lounge

By Jeffrey J. Brusie

A fellow rambles through the city, his only possessions, a clock radio and a box of stuff that didn’t fit in his suitcase. They all fit in the trunk of jet black, Osceola, his 1950 Dodge Coronet. Along the way, late one evening, Osceola birthed a young female vagabond from her backseat floorboards. The fellow promised to keep her warm, safe and well fed. He delivered all with honor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664194922

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COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY JEFFREY J. BRUSIE.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/15/2021

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Beer Keg Bowling

Chapter 2   Charlie’s Buying

Chapter 3   Sent to Licketysplit

Chapter 4   Hoosier in the Mist

Chapter 5   An Encounter of the Wrong Kind

Chapter 6   Stowaway

Chapter 7   Omerta

Quite a simple task really, rambling through legal

adulthood, infused with raunchy behavior to de facto

manhood. Just assume some responsibility beyond yourself.

Chapter 1

BEER KEG BOWLING

Where did I, Moshe Dov Ber, go from there, after the roommate found religion and decided to marry his girlfriend? I should have known it was coming, after moving the piano down three flights of stairs from her tiny apartment to the not much larger home that he and I shared. Just when I was used to the smell of innocent animals slaughtered at a nearby meat packing house, they asked me to make other living arrangements. I didn’t care much. His preaching to me put me in a quandary. How could I argue with a guy who learned his theology from a televangelist, with a PH. D. in Undiluted Horse Shit, who only wanted his money and designed his preaching to take it from him? My college minors in theology and philosophy, with knowledge of Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew didn’t help at all. He had the King James version of the Christian Bible and thought if it was good enough for the Apostles it should be good enough for me. I knew better than to enter an argument.

My roommate was a wiry little man, about 5’ 7", with strong arms that could lift 200 pounds. I was bigger, slightly, but not as strong in the upper body. In my football playing days I could out run anybody, except the pros, with 4.4 second speed in 40 yards and 9.98 in 100. Maybe I could fight him. Nah. Who would want to crucify an innocent man for believing nonsense that couldn’t be verified even upon close inspection?

There was no concern for a roof over my head, just a few days from the big race. Parties and drinking were top priority now. I worked one of the neighborhood bars as a bartender, part time. Wednesday, I pulled the afternoon shift for Uncle Albert at the Green Bean Lounge, who went to the racetrack with friends. A squat little man, of ANCIENT AGE, an OLD GRANDAD, not yet to his HEAVEN HILL, a fine bourbon, he hadn’t had an erection since the EARLY TIMES of that Day of Infamy, December 7, 1941. He told us so many times. The only pleasures afforded him, now, were cigarettes and horse races.

I don’t give a shit what they pay, as long as the ponies run, he said as he left for the track.

It was a quaint little neighborhood bar. The store front windows and the second story at the rear suggested it was a mom and pop shop in its youth, maybe a grocery, drug store or other enterprise necessary to the needs of the locals. The owners would have lived upstairs as Uncle Albert did that day. Green booths lined the slime green walls, five apiece and three down the middle. The floor was dirty green and each aisle led to the bar. The light green bar top reflected back through the ancient mirror behind a line of booze bottles on the wall behind the bar. The back of the mirror, flaking off for years, made cleaning it to look new and presentable impossible. Between the exterior side door and the stairs, leading to an upper room was a wall pay phone- standard black. The outside brick wall from the side door to the street had a picture of a celery green 1963 Plymouth Valiant painted on it. Before we were of drinking age, we used a similar car as a traveling lounge and roamed the back roads drinking cheap beer and cloudy wine.

The Green Bean was empty and dead quiet when the college kid pranced through the side door. I was cleaning wine glasses stored above the bar top. My ring finger jammed between the slats that held them. I stood on tiptoes waiting for help. He stopped in his tracks, either afraid of me or maybe he had to go to the bathroom.

Got my hand stuck. Come behind the bar and help me get loose, I said.

What are you doing? Uncle Albert never cleans those wine glasses. This is a shot and a beer bar, he stated.

I don’t need the humor. Just help me get my hand the hell out of here. Grab Albert’s stool and help me out.

Here, I’ll lift you up. he said. Damn, you got strong big thighs, muscles galore.

No. Get your head out of my ass and get the stool, I demanded. The Hebrew National’s not for you."

On level ground now, I thanked him, escorted him to the other side of the bar and took his order.

Put up one of those 25 cent beers, he said. I’m getting an early start to the weekend.

"Wait a minute kid, I’ve got to see