It’s been a rough day. Shit… let me be honest, a rough week, a rough month. Work’s been stressful, the few dating app dates I’ve gone on were all a bust. My friends are all wrapped up in their good lives with their significant others, couple’s nights out, and their fun vacations. I’ve felt more and more isolated lately. The stress of the old therapist job and feeling more and more cut off from my support system lead me to some pretty unhealthy ways of coping with the day to day.
Most nights after work I got off of the El train home and stopped off at my local watering hole. Get a few city wide specials… that’s a shot of bottom shelf bourbon and a Pabst Blue Ribbon for about 5 bucks at most places… and then spending waaaaay too many dollars on the pinball machine. Pinball was one of the only things that took my mind of the stress at work and the fact that I was in my mid 30’s, everyone else I loved and cared about were doing pretty alright with their lives while I was stuck in limbo.
The pinball obsession is a story for another time though and I definitely got one about that that’s pretty creepy and all, but this is about a different night than that one. This night, I went to my local spot… ordered up a special from the bartender, a young charismatic guy that’s seen me enough to just say “you want the usual?”. I nod my head and he pours out the well whiskey and cracks the top off of a pounder of PBR. In step with my usual new unhealthy routine I slug down the shot…. Shudder a bit realizing like every other day for the past too many I’ve done this that I haven’t had anything to eat today. Skipped lunch again because I had too much paperwork to catch up on. I take a sip of my beer and turn around to face the pinball machine.
I put a few quarters in and get ready to play hoping that win or lose it’ll be enough to take my mind off the stress of the day. I instinctively hit the game start button on the lefthand side but get no results. I hit it a few more times and look up at the display to see it didn’t register any of my coins. I press the quarter release button a few times but none come out. I simultaneously reach in my pocket for more quarters while continuing to press the release button as my anxiety begins to rise to a level that’s a hell of a lot more than is appropriate for this sort of situation. I mean…. You get used to a certain comforting thing when you’re stressed, and when it’s taken away unexpectedly… it’s not that abnormal to freak out a bit.
The bartender knows me… knows my affinity or at least habit for the pinball machine and calls out to me. “Hey sorry bud! It’s busted. We got a guy coming out tomorrow to look at it. How many quarters did you lose? I’ll reimburse you!”
I exhale and walk back to the bar, tell the bartender what I put in and continue drinking my beer I was planning to sip on in between balls on the machine. It’s really stupid how much this bothered me, but the last thing I wanted right now was to be left alone with my thoughts from the day. The second to last thing I wanted was to have random bar flies spark up superficial conversations with me. See I’m normally pretty extroverted and love to socialize, but after a rough day of doing the therapist gig… talking to people all day, hearing about all of their woes, I need a good buffer between that and figuring out quote – unquote- how to “people again”. Without my daily afterwork pinball esape, I think it’s time to head home. I chugged my beer and gulped down the extra shot the bartender left in consolation for my lost quarters and the game being down.
I’m not quite sure exactly how I got there other than getting turned around in my own neighborhood, but I found myself outside of a small run down looking pub with a neon sign over the door that read “The Steel Cage”. During my long walk home and after a few too many specials, I had decided I either needed to stop in a bar along the way somewhere to use the bathroom or risk taking a piss in an alley somewhere and incurring either the wrath of the police or whoever lived around there. I figured this bar was the better of the two options. This was a small bar on the corner of the block… almost indistinguishable from the rest of the row homes aside from the sign. Either way, seems like a good spot to take a piss. I’ll order a beer while I’m there as I’m inebriated enough to be stumbling a bit but not so much to ignore business etiquette and use a bathroom without patronizing.
From the outside I can’t tell if it’s crowded or not. The whole block around is kind of quiet considering it’s still pretty early in the night. There’s one guy standing outside by the door smoking a cigarette. He’s a big guy, not too tall but stout with a crew cut, a goatee and a beer belly that puts my pandemic pudge to shame. He’s wearing a black faded T-shirt with a professional wrestler from the 80’s on it. One of the guys my older brother used to idolize and make me watch old VHS tapes rented from the local video store so I’d understand what “good” wrestling was. It made me chuckle a bit. Love a good bit of nostalgia.
As I went to walk into the bar, Old Crew Cut put his meaty hand up in front of me and said “Hold on brother.” I instinctively reached for my wallet to show ID though I found it really strange…. I mean… in my neighborhood here, it was rare that any bars ID’d at the door…. Especially shitty hole in the walls like this, and even more so not on weekdays.
He cut me off. “No…. Hey… I don’t recognize you and I know everyone! It’s a bit early but you’re not a JABRONI are you?”
I swear if I had beer in my mouth at the moment I would’ve spit it out laughing. Between slightly drunken giggles I said “ha…. No… I just… I was on my way home and I needed to grab one more drink and take a piss.” I figured this was just some asshole local guy and not an actual bouncer so I moved to walk past him into the bar when he gripped me pulling on the fabric of my shirt around the chest.
Just at the moment I was about to enter fight or flight a voice came from inside the bar….
“He’s not the one.” The man immediately let me go and looked sheepishly apologetic. “Hey man… I’m sorry…. You just never know about those Jabroni’s trying to sneak in to get an extra.” I honestly didn’t know what to make of that… but glad that I somehow avoided an altercation with a dude almost twice my…. girth… I walked inside.
It was a usual neighborhood dive…. Real small… narrow, just the bar space for about 12 seats along it, which were mostly filled, just enough room to walk by behind the seats on the way to the back where there was a small back room with pool table and bathroom. I ran to the back, took a long piss, and contemplated whether I should even order a beer given how strange that interaction was.
Things were already pretty weird here and I didn’t want to make them any weirder by running in, using the bathroom, and running out without at least throwing the place some business so I settled up on a stool and ordered. There was only one older fellow behind the bar working. He looked to be an older gent, probably in his 70’s, desperately trying to look younger than his age with obviously dyed black hair that was slicked back over what was most likely a pretty severe balding crown. He was oddly dressed up for such a dive wearing a nice black suit, white shirt, and red bow tie. While I waited for him to finish pouring out a beer from the tap for a customer down the bar, I glanced around noticing the walls scattered with framed pictures of old famous professional wrestlers and scenes from some of the more famous matches I remembered from growing up. There were also a number of black and white photographs from an era long before my time.
“What’ll you have?” barked the bartender standing right in front of me. I jumped as I didn’t even notice him walk over. I asked if they did specials. Of course they did. All the neighborhood bars around me did. This place only charged $4 though! That’s a throwback! For a second I thought I might need to make this more of a regular spot.
Overall, the place was pretty sad though. I looked around and saw that most of the patrons looked like pretty haggard middle-aged drunks. Don’t get me wrong, a few more years and I might end up the same way if I can’t get a better handle on my job stress, but this just seemed to have a really…. I don’t know quite how to explain it… a different kind of depressing feeling? Before I could really figure out what I was observing a man at the end of the bar caught my eye. He was the only one smiling.
While the majority of the crowd looked like they had just gotten off a 12 hour shift in the quarry or something, this guy looked like he’d had it even worse. He looked like he’d seen better days indeed and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t been living on the streets for a while. He had tattered clothes, a long scraggly beard and greasy shoulder length gray hair. He smiled a manic jagged toothed smile while he swallowed his pint of ale, the beer spilling out the sides of the glass over his chin and already stained shirt. The locals side eyed him chuckling in between their hushed conversations.
He finished his beer and slammed the glass on the bar. He smacked it on the bar a few times trying to get the bartender’s attention. The bartender walked over walked over to the man and said very loudly as if he wanted the bar to hear “One more? Are you a jabroni?!?!?” The man nodded his head enthusiastically. The bartender said “You know I need you to say it Gill.” The man stood up, one foot on the barstool and proclaimed at the top of his lungs “I’m a jabroni!” The bartender poured him another pint from the tap and everyone in the bar let out a quick cheer.
Safe to say…. I had a lot of questions at this point, but I was about finished my beer and this whole scene was a bit much for me. I ducked out front to grab a quick smoke before I planned on finishing my beer and heading back on my way home. Crew Cut was still outside standing in front of the bar. He was still smoking.
I stood to the side of the entrance and lit my cigarette while he eyed me suspiciously. A minute or so into my smoke…. I saw a young guy, probably in his mid twenties, short red hair and a scruffy short beard, came stumbling up to the front of the bar. He looked like he was either already drunk or on something to say the least. He stood in front of Crew Cut, tripped over his own feet a bit and began to speak but slurred his words and let out a quick but disturbing giggle….trying his best to find his words.
Crew Cut held his hand up, similar as he had when I tried to walk in. He said… “Are you…” and before he could finish the man yelled out “I’m the Jabroni!” It was the weirdest thing. It seemed like he yelled this with a combination of pride but at the same time a sad desperation. Crew Cut smiled ear to ear like a cartoon cheshire cat. He turned towards the bar, cracked the door and yelled….
“Bring the Jabroni his drink! It’s time!” Within a few seconds, I saw the bar empty out of the front door. The sad regulars looking worn out from their work days looked like they had gotten a second wind, all with smiles on their faces. The old slicked back bartender came out holding a tray of shot glasses. He passed them out to the patrons. He gave me one. It looked like well whiskey like most of what I’d been slugging back throughout the night.
He offered the last shot to the red headed man but before handing it over to him he asked loudly in a dramatic way for all to hear “Who exactly are you good sir!?” The red headed man proclaimed “I’m the jabroni!” The bartender smiled and handed him the shot which he immediately drank.
As he drank so did the others, and so did I. It only took a few seconds, the patrons smiling after downing their whiskey in unison. They threw their shot glasses down on the ground at the same time as if this was rehearsed and something that had been done countless times before. The shock the unexpected sound of shattering glass gave me, it took me a few extra seconds to realize quite what was happening. All of the patrons pounced on the poor red headed man. They drew knives, brass knuckles, small clubs, one even had a baseball bat he had been holding out of sight behind his back. The group surrounded the man and went to quick work ruthlessly turning him into a lifeless bloody pulp within seconds, all while cheering, yipping, and screaming battle cries. Within probably 30 seconds but what felt like a lifetime to me in that moment, I saw blood, guts, probably chunks of flesh and teeth go spraying into the air. The corpse of the man was so messed up you could hardly even tell it was human.
While I sat there, mouth wide open and in shock, a few of them dragged the body to a back alley while the rest of them high fived, hugged each other, and started back into the bar. A couple of the men grabbed on to me…cheering, hugging, not realizing I hadn’t taken part, wasn’t part of the crowd, and pushed me back into the bar along with them.
I sat at my stool head in my hands trying to collect myself. I noticed that the only one who hadn’t left the bar the whole time was the old man Gill at the end. He was banging his pint glass on the bar stubbornly. The bartender walked over to him and yelled “Get out of here Gill! Come back tomorrow and tell the doorman what you are…. You’ll get one more drink!” The old man muttered some curses under his breath and stumbled out.
What the hell did I just see? My head was spinning. I’ve got to get out of here. The bartender noticed my drink was low. He poured a pint without me asking and said “That’ll be 5 bucks bud!” Without thinking, I nervously reached for my wallet. I opened it up and saw that I was all out of cash…..
The bartender saw it too. He leaned over the bar…. Looked me in the eye and said loudly “Are you a jabroni?”
I got up off that stool and hauled ass out that front door. I sprinted as long as I could before I ran out of steam. I don’t even know where I ended up and damn it took me a good while to get my baring and make it back home… but at least I was far away from that God awful place.
There are plenty of horrible things in this city. There’s all types of ghouls, ghosts, monsters, and things you couldn’t imagine in your most horrific nightmares. That aside…. Sometimes it’s the people in this city that are the most disgusting and terrifying.