I spent a lot of nights at
Rudy's Bar and Grill (9th Avenue between 44th and 45th Street) in Hell's Kitchen in the 90's. I was the youngest person by a good 50 years most of the time. There is no TV there, just a jukebox crammed with jazz classics, the irony being many of the old faces at the stools and booths played on those albums. The beer was always cheap, the comments sassy - especially from strangers. That was when everyone in New York seemed to be working on their comedy act, and their breakout screenplay (while driving cabs, waiting tables or just welding theater scenery like me).
Every time I walked in the door, I was greeted as Massimo. It seemed there was a regular that looked like me, only he was far more established. I wondered if they ever greeted him with my name. It became a running joke with one guy - Tommy the Plumber. He was scrawny, with big blue eyes. Ed Norton may have been based on him, or he was just stuck doing a very long Ed Norton impression and did not want to give up on it. He would swoop into my face, staring at the pores on my nose.
"It's him." He would announce, not that anyone was listening.
"It's not." I would say.
"Never mind, it's the other guy!" He would shout, and go back to his wobbly stool by the shuffleboard game.
Vicky, the beehived bartender would lean over to me.
"What's your poison, sugar?" She would ask, the red of her lipstick smeared into the corners of her wrinkled mouth.
"Bushmills." I would say, retreating to a stool in the middle of the bar, studying the faces around me through the mirror behind the bottles so they did not notice. I spent Christmas Eve there one year, and it was just starting to snow. Prostitutes and war heroes crammed into the place trying to keep warm. Some danced with each other, all fur collars and jangling medals. It was a lost Bukowski story, and I was living in it.
One day, I arrived after a late build session in the theater around the corner. Tommy loped over to me, half lama. He tugged at the corner of my welder's jacket and brought me over to a tall man with slicked back black hair.
It was my double, only he was about a foot taller than me.
Tommy poked his nose right up against mine.
"I know what you're both thinking." He said in a loud whisper. "I'm the good looking one!"
He cackled and slumped off in the shadows.
The man shook my hand, not amused, and not interested in talking.
"Well, nice to finally meet you." I said. "You know - this just proves these old farts need some serious eye exams."
He did not laugh, just a crooked frown, a few mumbled words. Then he left, straight out the front door. I don't know if he ever came back. Somehow the place felt like it was mine now, that I had become the regular. That I was known, recognized - that the next time I came through that same door someone might say my name, not his.
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