Chip Off the Old Block

It wasn’t until I walked into Dimple’s Tavern over on Halsted Street one Saturday morning and saw Willy, the Wednesday night bartender, serving drinks to a noisy crowd, that I realized I hadn’t been there in almost six months. Of course the reason for my absence was simple: I was trying to avoid running into Max McGuire, the world’s biggest…Well, let’s just leave it at that.

Seeing Willy behind the bar, however, was a real shocker. What in the hell was he doing in Dimple’s on a Saturday, I wondered. The last I knew, he was saving all his energy for his big nights at the Silver Fox Restaurant over on Rush Street. That’s where he made his real money – the big bucks that kept him living in style.

Naturally curious, when he came over to take my drink order, I asked him straight out. “So what’s the story Willy? What’s with the bartending this morning? I thought you worked on Saturdays only at night over at the Silver Fox?”

“You don’t wanna know,” he said with a look of disgust on his face.

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“I guess it depends on how you look at it,” he said. He paused and shook his head. “Did you see that gray rattle-trap sitting out back, pretending to be a car, when you came in – the ’38 Chevy coup with the dented fender? That’s the best car I can afford.”

“What the hell happened?” I exclaimed. “I thought you were raking in the big bucks? Somebody get tired of the blanket you were holding over them and threaten you or something?”

“Keep your voice down,” Willy said, looking around. “I was threatened alright, but not by anybody you’d think.”

“Who then?” I asked puzzled.

“Phyllis – my wife. You remember her. When she left me, I thought it was good riddance, but I found I couldn’t live without her. The truth is I found out I loved her. What’s to say? She gave me a simple choice: quit my sideline or lose my wife. I’m embarrassed to tell you. I chose my wife.”

“Ah, maybe it’s for the best.” I said, trying to console him.

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Willy said and moved down the bar to serve more steins of beer to the crowd around tables near the front door.

I looked toward the other end of the bar. It was empty except for a ten- or eleven-year-old boy sitting alone on a bar stool, drinking bock beer. A kid in here drinking dark beer! Before I could digest that discovery, Willy returned. “What’s McGuire think about all this?” I asked. “I know about his stake in your, shall we say, questionable enterprise.”

“What do you think? He’s not exactly jumping for joy,” Willy replied.

“No, I’ll bet he ain’t. Well all good things come to an end – or was it really such a good thing?”

“It was a mixed blessing for me” Willy admitted. “As you seem to know, McGuire was taking a hefty chunk of my take to keep his mouth shut and, on top of it, I lost my wife. Hell, I’m probably better off. Least I got a woman who loves me.”

“Say, what’s with the kid sitting at the bar drinking bock beer?” I said, pointing a thumb in the kid’s direction. “He sure as hell doesn’t look twenty-one to me.”

“He ain’t. He’s eleven and he ain’t drinking bock beer. That’s root beer in his mug. His old man brings him in here every Saturday. The two sit together, hardly speaking a word to each other.”

“Where’s the old man now?” I asked.

“In the men’s room, getting rid of some of the beer he’s been drinking for the last two hours.”

“So what gives? Do you know?”

“Oh, I know alright. When somebody comes in here towing a kid every Saturday for two months, I just gotta find out the reason. So I start talking to him general like, about this and that, and before you know it, he tells me just about everything.”

“So tell me.”

“Say, how ‘bout some more beer over here!” someone yelled from one of the tables near the door.

“Coming up,” Willy yelled, dashing off.

I turned to get another look at the kid, but his father had returned from the men’s room and was sitting between us. He was a big man with smooth shinny black hair, probably from using too much Brylcreem. He had a thick neck and huge arms. I guessed he had spent his youth in manual labor. He rarely turned to the kid, and when he spoke, which wasn’t often, he looked straight ahead. Anger and disappointment in equal measure had carved fissures in his face.

I wondered what would compel someone to drag a kid into a bar with its dank liquor smells and noisy crowd of men with nothing better to do on a Saturday than drink beer. Hang around long enough, and there’s sure to be a fistfight. Its good Dimple’s has a tough bouncer.

Willy returned to where I was sitting, and I ordered another beer. There’s nothing in the world like a cold one straight from the tap.

“So what about the man and the kid,” I said, lowering my voice.

“Well, it’s the same old story. Sometimes a wife just gets tired of her husband. The spark or whatever the hell was there vanishes, and she starts hunting around for a new playmate. Eventually, she finds one – they always do – and before you know it, one thing leads to another, and she runs off with the new guy. Bingo, the husband finds out. There’s a scene. He says things. She says things. And the rest is the familiar tale of woe. Once the bitter words are out – and in this case they were harsh on both sides according to the husband – a couple can rarely go back together again. It’s like trying to fix an egg after it’s broken.

”Who’d she run off with?” I asked. “What kinda guy captured her fancy?”

“You’ll never guess,” Willy said, grinning from ear to ear.

“The mailman,” I said.

“Are you kidding?” Willy exclaimed, laughing.

“The milkman,” I said, trying to be funny.

“Guess again,” Willy said. “You can do better than that.”

“Oh hell, I give up. Who’d she run off with?”

“A bartender like me!” Willy says almost splitting his sides. Ain’t that somethin’? He works over at Dewey’s on Dickens.”

“Well I’ll be damned. I would never ’ave…Say, what’s with you bartenders anyway?”

“Oh, you know us. Women just love us,” Willy said laughing and walking away to serve more drinks

The kid drinking root beer at the end of the bar hadn’t turned his head when I looked at him earlier, so I’d only seen his profile. But it came back to me as I studied his father’s. His features matched the son’s exactly – same prominent nose, puffy cheek, tight jaw, elongated ear, and thin lips. They were just older and bigger.