The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies,
dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The March presented by
Lightweight Group Enterprises held its inaugural event on a warm Thursday night
in April. It was a closed
party. All The March regulars had
been invited, as had some press, some minor social luminaries and many of the
board members at Bulstrode’s church (Episcopalians, fortunately, drink). It was going to be interesting jibing
those disparate groups together, but Tré felt confident that the décor would be
inviting to folks who didn’t normally hang out in bars. And they’d leave early
enough. Rosie would play some fly music later in the evening, and that would up
the party potential for the drinkier invitees. He expected it to be a great night.
That afternoon, when everything
was in place, Bulstrode, Tré, Mary and Caleb stood in the middle of the new
room and took it all in.
The old tile floor had been
replaced with a dark-stain parquet.
The cocktail tables were shiny black with red barstools around
them. There were glass (glass!)
ashtrays on every table. The
drywall had been stripped, exposing recently tuckpointed brick. Black framed mirrors and black and
white photos of 1960’s sophisticates lined the walls. The neon beer signs were gone, save for a kitschy old Hamm’s
sign from the 50s. The bar itself
had been refinished and polished to a high shine. Black, high-backed barstools lined perfectly around it. The shelves in front of the mirrored
bar were lit from beneath and polished bottles gleamed on it. Everything looked clean and classy.
“My construction workers are
going to love this,” said Mary, wryly.
“Come on, Mary,” said Tré. “It looks nice. Just admit it.”
It did look nice. It looked like the kind of place you’d
go to get a really great Manhattan.
It looked like the kind of place where beautiful women turned sidewise on
barstools and crossed their legs at handsome men. It looked like the kind of place where rich men rewarded
themselves for the money they’d made that day.
Tré and Bulstrode separated to
wander around. Tré looked hopeful,
Bulstrode looked stressed.
Caleb was depressed. He tried to imagine his usual crowd of
regulars sitting around the corner.
Would they still feel at home drinking shots and arguing over Cubs
versus Sox? Would they play music
and sing along to the songs coming out of that beautiful Wurlitzer CD jukebox
in the corner? Would they still
holler at the ref during Bulls games from this bar’s corner? It didn’t feel like it.
This place made him feel like he
should be wearing a tie.
The March hadn’t ever been a
particularly pretty place. Years
of cigarette smoke and over consumption had left the walls off-colored and
smelly. But it had been
comfortable. It had been the kind
of place where plans made to meet for a quick drink before a concert or a play
disintegrated as you found yourself instead passing the whole night at the
bar. Even if you’d already bought
the tickets. The March was just
like that.
Caleb thought this new March
looked like the kind of place frequented by people who stuck to their evening
plans.
Bulstrode, on the other hand,
worried that the place still had too much local tavern feel. The echo of Rafferty and the old days
lingered. The people he’d invited
were not the types to stop in at their local on the way home from work. These people attended cocktail parties
at fancy homes on Lake Shore Drive or poured a good whiskey from a Waterford
decanter when they got home from work.
He liked the way the place looked, but he worried that the barroom feel
was too strong, that the people he’d invited would think of him as staff.
And he worried that Raff would
show up. He almost always worried
that Raff would show up these days.
Mary put her arm around Caleb’s
shoulder. “Cheer up, Dad,” she
said. “After a few weeks they’ll
be burn holes in every stool. I
don’t care who owns this place, it’s still yours.”
Caleb hugged her back and felt a
little better.
Tré joined Bulstrode and said,
“We’re on our way now. This place
looks great!”
Bulstrode nodded grimly.
A little while later, Brooke and
Gio showed up, both in black jeans and with their new black March tee-shirts
on. They got behind the bar and
began setting up for the evening, cutting fruit and stocking beers. They’d already familiarized themselves
with the new microbrew station behind the bar. Before the rehab, they’d served Miller High Life, Miller
Lite, and Old Style on tap. Now
they had over 20 microbrews for sale.
There was a collection of single malt scotches and small batch bourbons
that cost more per sale than the typical March bar tab. The cocktail napkins were thick and
monogrammed with the L.G.E. logo.
“This place feels weird,” said
Brooke.
“Totally,” said Gio. “I feel like I should be calling people
‘sir.’ Even the women.”
Shortly after 6:00 the invited
began arriving. Mike, the
overzealous hockey fan, was one of the first to arrive. He sat at the corner, drinking a comped
bottle of Old Style and looking around uncomfortably. A few of his drinking buddies came in shortly after and
joined him, talking too loudly, shooting the odd hairy eyeball at Bulstrode’s
churchy invitees. Be-skirted
waitressed navigated the room, awkwardly carrying their drinks on trays rather
than tidily in their hands as they were used to. The floor managers from
Marshall Fields sat at their usual table together, drinking free rum and cokes,
wondering if they could still get pitchers of Lite when it came time for them
to pay for their own drinks.
Bulstrode wandered the floor,
ignoring all the regulars. He
gladhanded the illuminati and accepted their congratulations. He grabbed bottles of 80-year-old
single malt scotch and showed them off to his fellow church board members. Susan held court at a table near the
door, so that the first person you saw was rich and beautiful.
“Welcome,” she’d say, greeting
their friends by name and with a kiss, a good hostess. “I’m having this lovely Chardonnay. Would you like one? Can you believe Bully’s little tavern
cleans up so nicely?”
The sound level remained at
cordial cocktail-party level. Some
of the regulars examined the selection on the jukebox, but no one dared play
it.
Caleb stayed in the corner with
the regulars. He drank coffee and
chatted about The Bulls. His
tavern management that night was less an act of professional responsibility and
more an act of solidarity. Before
too long, the room was split cleanly in two. March regulars by the bar (both A and B regulars, it’s worth
mentioning), Bulstrode’s invited guests at tables. Only the regulars and staff noticed the divide.
At around 9:00, Rosie showed
up. She looked around the room and
shook her head disgustedly. She
stood in the front of the DJ booth, which was in the middle of the room, and
shrugged off her jacket. Under it
she wore a hot pink body suit into which she’d artfully cut holes here and
there. Over the holey body suit,
she wore a pink tutu and motorcycle boots. She’d mimicked Darryl Hannah’s makeup from Bladerunner. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun.
She looked great.
She looked around, shook her
head again and crawled behind the DJ booth. She’d been rehearsing this moment all day. She cut the polite cocktail music off
mid-song and waited until the room was silent. In a matter of seconds, every eye in the room was on
her. And then she reached over,
flipped a switch and Guns and Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” came blasting out
of every speaker, turned up to 11.
And just like that the
atmosphere changed. The folks
who’d been drinking small batch bourbons from Bulstrode’s expensive new rocks
glasses took their leave. They weren’t
really the type to hang out in bars anyway. The March regulars, who were exactly the type to hang out in
bars, started to loosen up. Shots
were ordered. Spontaneous dances
broke out.
The Bulls were playing a West
Coast game that night and were just underway. After a dubious call from the officials, Mike shouted up at
one of the fancy new TVs, “Come on, Ref!
Let ‘em play!” A roar of
approval came up from his barmates.
Before too long, much to Caleb’s
great surprise, The March began to feel, if not exactly the same, still pretty
fun. And he realized, much to his
great, great surprise, that this was due in no small part to Rosie.
Rosie inserted a cigarette into
the holder she’d bought at a thrift store that afternoon and returned Caleb’s
smile with an imperious nod.
