normal

normal as far back as i can remember - my father always took me –to work it just seemed completely normal i suppose other kids went to sports practice on saturday mornings, or slept late – i went to work in queens, in the city i was always – the kid – surrounded by men my father was a big-boss and put me to work: drill press operator packing department wall painter stock boy inventory clerk assembly line worker purchasing expeditor… i had more jobs before 16 than most people have in a lifetime normal shit my father would hand me off to a foreman – “ take care of the kid” and he was off to meetings and big-boss stuff at lunchtime me and my fellow factory workers would go to an Irish pub - Brendell’s across the street and next to a gas station – the three Brendell brothers were partners, Jackie was the bartender an oversized human who swayed back and forth all the time when he spoke or listened … white shirt black pants -all three brothers dressed the same, huge hands on all of ‘em. we’d get sandwiches and beers- all knife carved, top quality meats new york style: corned and roast beef, sliced turkey, pastrami always on seeded rye and big fat kosher pickles … a scoopful of creamy potato salad - and we’d go back to the plant full stomached - with dreamy heads from the beer … so this is how it was was- from forever.. weekends, school holidays, summer vacations - normal- a kid in a man’s world.. work, eat, drink, smoke, worry, bullshit at the bar, crab about the boss and get hard-on’s thinking over the girls in the front office … normal life and then i went upstate to college and otheer kids surrounded me - but i was a kid too ...? my dorm floor went to a place called Buckland’s the second night I was there… it was a crummy shack and they only poured upstate beer in pitchers- flat tasting Genny Cream Ale – they called it- and all they served were skinney burgers and submarine sandwiches made with no-brand cold cuts, tasteless puffy white bread - overflowing with shredded lettuce… no hot pastrami, martinis or scotch on the rocks with a twist and these kids couldn’t hold the beer down - they all chugged it like thirsty giraffes and puked - and there was no long dark bar like at Brendells; they drank at picnic tables and nobody wore a tie or smoked Winston’s, Camel- no -filters nor had WW II tattoos on their forearms and ex-wives and secret girlfriends and scars and wounds and big troubles, alimony payments, mortgages, child support and health problems where were the men? i got panicky get me out of here i called a hick-taxicab and waited twenty minutes outside in the freeze are you drunk you? wanna go back to campus? no - take me to a bar this is a bar no, this ain’t a bar what bar? what’s down town? well - we got the holiday inn do they have a bar? yep take me there .... ~~~~~~~~ what’ll it be is pal? bartenders name was Lenny, an old timer, veiney-shaky hands i was 19 a scotch and soda on the rocks with a twist the guy next to me had a martini with two olives and was wearing a sears tie the TV set was orange and green, a hockey game from Canada Tony Bennet was playing on the juke. i felt normal.