By:
THE NoLookPass (Special contributor to PSD.com)
business, cause that's how I roll. It's the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy four. I turn 14, Ive had a paper route for 3 years and my dad's friend frequents a restaurant and tells my dad I can get a job as a busboy. So I pass the route down my brother and go down and talk to Jimmy the Greek and he hires me.
Jimmys a short guy, around 5'7 and he drives a red Cadillac. When he leaves the restaurant, he never looks, just backs his Caddy out onto Hwy 20, cause everyone should watch out for him. He's a crusty old dude, with a good heart and when he counts his money in his office, he always has a pearl handled derringer on his desk.
I meet the other kids who work there and they are all pretty cool. Merlin is the cook, he's 17 and has a nice car with glass packs that he paid for by working 40 hours a week. He goes to the Catholic High School. His sister Judy works there, shes a little older and likes to tease us guys.
Moose is a dishwasher and he's funny. Me and him decide early on we are going to join the Marines, go kick some Viet Cong ass and come home and open a bar. Moose has always been a loyal friend, which are hard to find. I bumped into him a few years ago at my cousins wedding, and it was just like we were 14 again, living in those magical times.
There's a restaurant and a lounge in the back. The waitresses in the lounge wear skimpy black dresses. One of the girls, Renee, has big lips and straight black hair and a killer body. She gets a kick out of walking thru the kitchen when us guys are in there and lifting up her skirt as she walks past. All us dudes are dying with our raging hormones. We have these hundred pound sacks of white flour and Moose starts putting his hand in the sack and then patting Renee on the ass when she walks past so she has a nice hand-print on her skirt when she goes into the Lounge.
The lounge is a real Payton Place. Doctors, lawyers, state Senators and various forms of wildlife hang out there. Lot of them are banging someone they aren't married to and everyone pretends not to notice. There's a lawyer in there that later goes to prison for tampering with a witness, and then later for attempted rape. He's a prick to us kids, so Moose cuts the tires on his silver Corvette one night in the lot. Hes entertaining a bunch of chicks one night and I notice he dropped a hundred dollar bill on the floor. I walk thru with a stack of napkins and drop them next to him....Moose is behind me and he grabs the napkins and scoops up the hundie. We split it five ways and give Merlin some money for gas as he drives us home most nights.
The bartenders are Pete and Dan. Pete is 20 and got fired from a good job at Deere cause he's a drunk. He drives a sweet Malibu convertible. He's dating Renee and later dates a beautiful model who moves into town after testifying against her mafia boyfriend in Chicago and going into hiding. Dan was in the Navy, he was on the ship we saw on TV when we left Viet Nam. The Viets were landing helicopters on the ship and the Americans were pushing them off, into the sea. Dan looks like a thicker Sam Elliot and he's the bouncer. A few times he gets into fights and he's pretty good. He married the daughter of the guy who owned the grocery store on our block. It's the same store my sister died in front of when I was 8.
One night Dan beats up this customer who was a state Senator. A few weeks later we are leaving after 2 am and two dudes dressed like bums jump out of the woods and pull a gun on us. They pistol whip Dan and Pete and I take off running down Dodge to the Derby station and call the cops. When I run back up, Pete and Dan are all bloody altho they recover. It prolly was a set up deal and the dudes were more likely than not local cops.
There's an old dude named Chester (I kid you not) who cleans the restaurant. He wears white shirts and white pants and we notice he wears colorful women's undergarments under his clothes. Of course we nickname him, Chester the Molester, altho hes nice and never bothers us kids.
Jimmy the Greek never comes in after 10 PM. So we cook steaks and drink beer and play poker after close. I go from a 120 pound freshman to a 160 pound soph in no small part due to the fact I'm eating steak 3 or 5 times a week.
This chick named Casey moves in from Chicago. Shes 16 with long legs and looks like Olive Oyl only shes got knockers. Pete has a crush on her, but he knows shes jail-bait and he cant do anything. So one night I'm washing glasses in the bar and he's telling me I should ask her out. Im like, "Negro (it was OK to say that then) please...what am i gonna do if I ask her out? I don't have a car or a license?"
He's cocky and says, "if you ask and she says yes, you can take my car" Well much to his surprise, I ask her, I happen to be wearing Old Spice when I ask, and of course she accepts. The rest is history.
I show up and I'm wearing one of these goofy long shirts they used to wear in the 70s with a big embroidered pattern on the back. He gives me his keys and tells me he will tell the cops I stole it if I get caught driving it. I consider it a worthwhile risk. Merlin gets me a bottle of TJ Swan and I pick Casey up, in the convertible, drinking wine.
We go to the worst movie ever, The Janis Joplin Story. we get there early and she asks if I want to smoke a joint. I have no idea what shes talking about, the only drug in our neighborhood was Pabst. She lights up..it tastes like crap and we go to the movie. On the way home I'm lit up and a semi next to us glances against us and leaves a tire mark on the side of Pete's car. We never go out again.
Jimmy the Greek has a son named Peter who never works. He's a year ahead of me and he often comes in and tells the head waitress his dad wants me to go over to their house and cut the grass. Then Peter and me go out drinking and I get paid for it. Peter likes girls and he don't care what they look like, he expects me to jump on his grenades but Im naive about chicks. One night we walk into the restaurant with two ugly chicks and I walk in the front and right out the back and leave. We come back later and Peter is bangin some chick in Merlins car! The car has air shocks and its rocking and we are all outside laughing our asses off.
Peter comes in one night after his prom and has a tux on. He bets me five dollars he can take his underwear off without removing his pants so I bet him. He then reaches behind himself, rips his underwear and triumphantly removes them.
We were living the dream and we knew it. I have to go, my dog Harley is eyeing the geese on the first fairway.
