LA No Longer

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L.A. No Longer

Jack felt the shiver running throughout his body as he walked past those familiar doors that seemed to know more about him than most of his friends did. More than three years have gone by and yet, the place still felt like fresh made bread. Excitement was not the right adjective to describe what he felt at the moment, neither was exhilaration. To Jack it seemed like a strange breed between an old high school reunion and compulsion.

Despite his past success, Jack once again found himself dead broke and amongst the unemployed. Now that he was down on his luck, there was no room for foolish male pride. Now a day, it was all about simply getting by. After he lost his high paying income, foreclosed on his ocean front condo and crashed his once impressive silver automobile, Jack was back to square one.

South Florida was no place for a man to live life. It was all fluff within and throughout. Between the long impressive blue canals and the sweet summer breeze, all that was now left for the locals was disappointment.

What was once supposed to be the Rodeo Drive of the east coast soon turned back to water down beer and grouper sandwiches. But even after losing his cash, his car and his unbelievable high-rise apartment (known to most women as the panty dropper, no explanation needed), Jack still felt like he had a fighting chance in this world.

The old wooden bar still smelled the same way it did before the good real estate days, before any jerk with twenty grand could become an over night millioner, before Jack hit it big and told the owner of this fantastic old bar to take this job and shove it up his ass.

Jack felt strange for a moment as he sat on the wrong side of the bar. Once a bartender, always a bartender, he thought or at least that is how he felt at the moment.

Three years and nothing much had changed. Billy still had those same ridiculous pictures up on the wall, sporting him and Dan Marino smiling like two morons over a pitcher of amber stout. Billy could never get over the fact that he almost made it, that he was offered a football scholarship down at the University of Miami. Billy was well on his way to made it into the big times until that career ending torn ACL injury. Sidelined by misfortune, he decided to give up on football all together.

Instead he opened up this friendly little bar down on A1A. One man’s watering hole may once again give Jack a reason to wake up in the morning. At least, that was what Jack was hoping for.

“What are you having sweetie?” she asked.

The jaded blond behind the bar knew nothing of Jack or of his connection to the place. Back in the day he used to lay them left and right. The blonder the faster, the redder the better, the browner the funner. Jack liked the taste of it all. To him, regardless of color or shape, women tasted like freedom.

“Ill take a Sam Adams.”
“Sorry sweetie, we only carry domestics.”
“Sam Adams is a domestic,” he lackadaisically smiled.
“Whatever you say hon, but we only have the basics, Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Light, Coors and Coors Lights, you know, American beers.”
He smiled. “I see that Billy is still just as cheap and as patriotic as he has always been. I’ll have a Miller Light. “
“Are you a friend of Billy’s?” she asked.
He hesitated, “Well, let’s just say that we go way back. Where is the old bastard anyways? Is he around? Most likely he is not. He is probably down at the gym flexing his muscles across some stretched out mirror, am I right?”
“No hon. He ain’t at the gym and he never gets in here before eight O’clock these days. He went down to Dolphins training camp out in Plantation, preseason football, you know what Billy’s like.”

Unfortunately he did.

“Two seventy five please, do you want to close you out or open a tab?”
He threw a five on the bar and told her to keep the change. Billy’s was still one of the cheapest places for beers around the area. Billy never bought into that whole William and Sonoma bullshit like the rest of them did. Billy detested the Aventura Mall and those luxury foreign cars that everyone bought during the recent real estate boom. If it was up to Billy he would kick all of those New Yorkers back to where they came from and turn Fort Lauderdale back into Jimmy Buffett land. He never liked the corporate facelift that everyone else fell for. Billy was a good ole boy and wanted his life to be as simple as the beers he served, nothing too complicated.

Jack only wished that he could take Billy’s worldview but he was not made of the same basic elements. He fell in love with the money, the monetary excess, the large homes and those grade A titties that seemed to literary pop everywhere with every plastic surgery center that mushroomed across Yamato Road up in Boca Raton.

While Cheri handled some of the other customers that were lining up at the other end of the room, Jake took his time to reflect about those old bartender days. Despite the mediocre pay and occasional degradation, the bartender gig at times made one feel like a celebrity. When you worked the bar, everyone wanted to your attention. When standing tall behind that bar, every man wanted your advice and way too many women offer a lick of their cupcakes. Why he ever left? He thought about it for a while.

Cheri returned for a moment only to leave again. The banker at the other end did not like way her Appltini tasted. Cheri did not make a fuss, instead she just smiled and made her a new one with an extra shot. Such was the vibe of the place. Billy always preached his philosophy about keeping his costumers satisfied. “A happy costumer,” he would say “is a returning costumer.”

Jack took a careful look at that group of bankers on the other side. They were dressed in the cloths of success and were drinking like young fraternity boys. Hard days for the banking world, hard days for the real estate industry, hard days all around. When times were bad out in the world, business was good at Billy’s old bar. The recently disenfranchised, unemployed and bankrupt were more than happy to drown their sorrows in Billy’s cheap drinks and fried finger foods.

“So Cheri, how long have you been working here?”
“I don’t know, close to a year now.”
“Do you like it?”
“You know, it pays the bills. I have had better jobs as well as worst ones. You know what it is like.”
“Oh yea? What was the best job you ever had?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Actually, I do, I really do.”
She hesitated for a while, “Back when I was younger, I worked as a cocktail waitress down at the Crazy Horse.”
Jack knew that place all too well, “you mean that tity bar in north Lauderdale? I use to love that place. Billy and I used to go drinking there after work back when things were good between us. But I don’t think that I ever seen you over there.”
“Yea, like you would notice anyone with all of those naked women running around.”
“Well, a pretty face like yours I would never forget.”
“Get over yourself Jack; working at the tity bar, I must have heard that line more than a hundred times. But thanks for the compliment,” she smiled.

Thinking back to those days at the Crazy Horse brought a smile to Jack’s tired face. A couple of the waitresses who worked at Billy’s were either strippers or former strippers. After work, they would all hang out at the joint, get free lap dances, buy shots all around and often bring back a couple of girls back to Jack’s place where they all snorted cocaine and fucked like a bunch of Cajun horndogs.

There was one particular stripper who caught Jack’s eye. She went by the name of Coco but her real name was Stacia Martinez. She was a half black, half Dominican dancer with natural 36C and a pear shaped ass. Coco loved money as much as she liked the attention. Jack was more than happy to deposit his weekly tips into Stacia’s carefully comforting Caribbean clitoris.

Year, those were the days, back before everything turned around, before Jack gave it all up in favor of the rich real estate life, before he climbs up the mount of high society only to crash all the way down to its underside. Now he had nothing.
While Cheri dealt with the crowd of secretaries who came in for happy hour, Jack went outside for a cigarette. The ocean breeze sailed lightly across his unshaved face. He did not mind the solitude of the parking lot.

Ten minutes later, Billy pulled up in his red Mustang. “If it aint American, it aint something I drive,” was the way Billy looked at things. There were not too many locals who so proudly displayed their patriotism, most were more interested in displaying their consumerism.

But not Billy, he rejected the Prada, Lexus and Armani logos in favor of the old red white and blue that was proudly displayed on every corner of his bar, his car and even tattooed on his left shoulder.

“Well shit if my eyes don’t fool me. Is that old son of a bitch Jack Douglas I see?”
“Yea Billy, it sure is, been a long time, how are you partner?” they hesitantly shake hands.
Billy took a long careful look. Years have gone by and Jack seemed like a different man.
“So what’s the deal Mr. big shot millionaire, you looking to tear me down and build another one of those monstrous high rise condos on my remains? You sure as shit aint coming in for a drink, I best assume.”
Jack took a deep modest breath, “You sure as shit are wrong there Billy, I am no longer in the world of real estate development, it is all gone I tell you, every single dime I ever made in real estate went down the shits and under the water. I am just as flat broke as you first met me. Down and down by the rain.”

Billy digested Jack’s words as if they were some strange concoction of eel soup or some exotic appetizer they served down at those fancy sushi restaurants. “And you came here for what reason?”

“Are you going to made me beg for it Billy? I want my old job back.”
“Well hell shit if that don’t beat nothing, are you telling me that Mr. high-rise wants to go back to service Miller Lights to a bunch of redneck fisherman and local alcoholics, are you really that desperate Jack? Whatever happened to all of those socialite friends you recently been hanging around with?”

“I told you Billy, it is all gone, the money, the women, the cars and all of those highbrow types, all went missing. I am no long Jack T. Douglas the second, I am just plain old broke ass Jack the bartender.”

Billy needed some time to think about it. Like most people out there, he enjoyed watching his friends thrash about with the many discomfort offered by life. Other peoples' misery make our worries taste like key lime pie.

Jack returned a week later to take over the early shift. Cheri was schedule to join him around 7pm. Her body used and her eyes tender, Jack took a careful look at Cheri and wondered why he never noticed her back in those days when life made much sense down at the Crazy Horse Saloon.

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