Shift Change
Taverns: Consecutive Substack Story 1226
When I was fifteen I got a new job, and that job was going up to The Top Button Lounge at 11:30 at night and talking my dad into coming home.
Smoke was the bartender, and he was supposed to be the toughest guy in Delray. He couldn’t have been cooler to me though, most often demanding my dad leave with me and come home to me and my mom.
One or two nights my dad just said fuck it and stumbled off to Frankie’s, where the doorman wouldn’t even let me in.
They didn’t have a doorman at the Button because they had Smoke.
Smoke was still bartending at the Button when I hired in at Ferguson Steel. There were a lot of tough sons of bitches at Ferguson, but they all knew Smoke was the toughest guy in Delray, maybe in all of Detroit.
But Detroit isn’t a town that’s run by fists, it’s run by guns.
I was picking up OT at Ferguson when Smoke got shot.
Lizard Larry Pinski shot the guy who shot Smoke, but only got him in the shoulder and the guy got away.
Al Bergman, who owned the Top Button Lounge, didn’t shut down one damn day after Smoke got shot.
They put up a real nice picture of him behind the bar, and they named the softball team the Smokers, but that was it.
I hadn’t been to my dad’s grave since his funeral, but I dropped by to tell him Smoke got shot.
Thought he might have appreciated Smoke cutting him off and sending him home with his only son, except of course those two times he fucked off to Frankie’s and kept drinking.
The new bartender is Ernie.
Al Bergman told all the regulars that Ernie was the toughest guy in Nashville, and that just made us laugh.
Serve the drinks Ernie, we don’t give a dick inspection how tough you are.
I look at Ernie while I’m drinking my PBR and I think two things:
I think I could take him without breaking a sweat, and I think my daughter is four years old, and if Ernie’s still around when she’s fifteen, his true test will be if he cuts me off and orders me out when she shows up to take me home.
***
Today was a day it would have been really easy to justify not publishing. But I did.
Any love you could show me through buymeacoffee.com/JimmyDoom or Venmo James-Graham-80 would be immensely appreciated. 1226 consecutive stories (and 1700+ overall) is an amzing accomplishment whether or not this platform cares to acknowledge it.
So many ways to love. Your story is amazingly similar to stories I recently heard Sherman Alexie tell about bringing his dad home. Except you’re in Detroit and he was on the rez. So glad you published. But you have already been astonishing.
I know a guy that goes by Smoke, and I come from an Irish family. This story doesn’t seem like fiction. Nice writing Jimmy.