Chapter 10: Secrets Bar & Grill
The big man back in the corner booth talking on his pre-paid Tracfone…
…Making lots of calls.
Running out of minutes.
“So, Sarge, I can count you in.”
“Yeah, why not.”
“What night best for you Sarge, Wednesday is Spaghetti Night, all you can eat, $5-bucks, bread extra, or Friday, Fish Fry, comes with ‘slaw, French Fries, Tarter Sauce, House Draft Beer 75¢...limit 8.”
“Um...”
“I’m on the keys Wednesday can slip you some drinks, bar well only though.”
“Wop food it is.”
The big man just smiled, knew all along Sarge, aka Anthony “Bull” DiMarranca would pick Wednesday.
Always does.
Dominic is called Bones because of how skinny he was but ain’t no one who ever came into the bar ever saw a skinny Dominic. When Dominic stands sideways, he done blocks out the entire sight of the old cash register on the back bar.
As far as any of the regulars know no one knows Dominic’s last name…its secret..
Bones, he leans over the bar to give someone standing a beer as his old belly be dangling a bit in the ice bin.
Because of that, no one bought a mixed drink, or anything that needed ice in it while The Bones was bartending.
Regulars learn quick.
Last time anyone “new” came in to the gin mill the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn.
The actual bar at Secrets sat about 12 to 15 people, depending on waist sizes, stood about that many behind them, less folks early in the night, more as the night moved on. Three 4-tops tables pushed up against the wall, two round-tops tables at either end of the bar. Without fail all the tables are cleaned Sunday morning, or so.
Smoked mirror behind the bar, one row of the fancy expensive top shelf “hooch” as Bones called it, the Gin, Whiskey, Scotch, Bourbon and Vodka that came packed in fancy boxes with name you know.
The cheap stuff was in the speed rail hung below the ice bin and sink. No-name hooch, the same no-name hooch that after closing Bones would pour into the top shelf bottles of hooch.
“Better than just watering it down,” he would always say to justify adding the cheap stuff to the stuff he charged more money for.
Sunday morning before he opened Secrets, very early Sunday when hangovers were still hanging, even earlier than when he scooped all the cig butts out of the urinals, that’s when he would take to “watering” as he told his wife.
Ain’t no plants in the joint.
Just Top Shelf hootch that needed a touch of hydration.
Just a touch.
The actual bar in Secrets is older than Bones…
…it was built by his father and grandfather from wood they got from the old docks on the Hudson River.
The bar was in the shape of a “J,” with the curved end having 2 weird wood stools and a direct view out the front window. The last stool was Bones spot to sit once his cousin came in to “tend.”
All the wood of the bar matched except for those wood stools.
The stool where Bones sat, where his father sat before him, where his grandfather sat before any of them, that wood, that wood those stools are made of came from Holy Ground…sort of.
Bones would sit there and happily explain these bar stools.
“This here wood, holy, HOLY I say, you see, the wood came from a place called, Castle Garden, back before Ellis Island immigrants coming to this country they landed at Castle Garden, used to be a fort or something, but it’s where they were, you know, processed.
Back in 1880 my great, great, great grandfather Giuseppe DiMarranca, he was processed there, he was only 6-year-old, maybe more, who knows, but when they tore the joint down his father, Big Giuseppe, went over there and ripped up a piece of the wood, stole it he did from the feds and this...THIS...
...is that exact piece of wood,” and with that he always ended the speech with a flourish of exaggerated pounding on that exact piece of wood/bar stool.
True story.
Sort of.
Pickled Eggs bobbed in vinegar within a large glass jar on the Lower East Side bar.
Schlitz, Pabst and Genny beer where the “house” suds. Labatts and Molson were the expensive labels.
Pretzels, chips and peanuts were spread out every so many feet on top of the bar in baskets lined with paper towels.
Glass ashtrays that once had the bar’s name emblazed within but who long ago lost the real estate to ashes from cigs and cigars.
Four booths up against the wall held six people each, or an hour or so before “last call,” two people sleeping per booth if need be.
Local cops would always come in to “check on things,” while downing a quick “Genny Ale,” or a shot or two out of the “Cop Stock” which were the whisky bottles that had in them what the label actually said was in the bottle.
Only the best for NY Blue.
Off to the side, just past the booths was an alcove filled almost entirely by a large NYC made piano.
And behind that piano sitting on a bench was an equally large man, also made in NYC.
The Big Man.
Alone and Burning up his Tracfone minutes calling all his Vietnam platoon buddies, asking them all the same questions:
“Can you meet me at Secrets this coming Wednesday, spaghetti day?”
And.
“Getting the band back together.”
And.
“You in?”
And a few were…in…but there were two problems.
One: There wasn’t any “Band” to get back together, it was always talked about but never actually put together.
Two: Most of the “Band Members” were old and in the VA Hospital.
Yep.
And none of them had any musical instruments.
Nor, knew how to play music.
Yep.