The Naked Man

the naked man

part one | part two | part three | part four

I know that anyone who is familiar with the area would think me crazy, but in hindsight, of all the cities and places I wandered around to, I'd have to say that I liked my time living on Ridge Ave. in Roxborough the most. I know that there's nothing nice about the neighborhood, even I would have considered it kind of scary once upon a time. But for me, it couldn't have been better. I had a supermarket two blocks away, a pizza place across the street, and a bar downstairs. It was like living in center city at one third the cost.

The downstairs bar was called Emil's. It was a dive. Emil died before I had ever found the place, and now it was run by his son Steve and Steve's wife Lucy. Steve was a huge caricature of a man, somehow big with both muscle and fat. Susan, she was the small-scale version of the quarterback's girlfriend in high school. She was petite, pretty, but she talked like a truck driver and looked at you with a look that convinced you she could throw you across the room if she needed to.

Nobody, absolutely nobody messed with Lucy. They were also the landlords of my apartment. Oddly, they lived across the street. I never bothered to ask them why they never took the apartment upstairs from the bar, I was just grateful every time they carried me up the stairs and put me in bed. I liked those nights. Those were the nights when I just stopped thinking about anything and drowned myself in a sea of booze. I never worried about mixing whiskey with vodka, or beer with tequila, or anything. I just drank to my heart's content and laughed with Lucy and Steve as they carried me up the stairs.

I know what you're thinking. Here's where he deals with his wife's death by drinking himself into oblivion. It sounds so easy, doesn't it? But that's not it at all. She wasn't a part of me anymore.

Nothing was. That was the best part. I didn't drink to forget, or to hide from anything. I drank because I could.

The way I look at it is this. At any given bar, on any given night, the drunkest person there is either hiding from something, unable to deal with something, looking for something he didn't find, or wishing he knew what he was looking for. I wasn't any of those people. I was just someone who knew that there would be this wonderful couple who would let me keep drinking all night and then carry me jup the stairs before going home across the street. I realize that it's hard for you
to understand, but I really was free.

Once, an old co-worker of mine tracked me down and came to visit me. I took him downstairs to the bar. We drank from six on and I just watched him, slowly sipping at his beer, afraid to leave me there and uncomfortable sticking around. His pain amused me to no end. We barely even spoke, although I could tell he wanted to say something to me. I knew eventually it would come out, so I ordered us shots of bourbon.

" Cheers." I said.

He stared at his shot, terrified of it. He shook his head.

"Jimmy, you shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be here."

" Why not?" I asked.

He looked at me. His eyes looked funny. Maybe it wasn't fear anymore, maybe it was something else. I wasn't sure.

"This place is wrong." He said. "I can't fathom why you're here."

I turned away from him and looked along the bar. I called out to Len, one of the elder statesmen of the bar. Len was there to watch The Price is Right in the morning and didn't leave until his wife called looking for him. He was old and bald and the veins in his face had all burst. Len scooted off of his stool and shuffled over to us.

"You want to know why I like it here?" I asked.

I took my friends shot away from him and handed it to Len. Len and I drank our bourbon. Then we both relaxed for a moment and enjoyed the way it felt as it ran through our system. Finally, I looked up at Len from my stool.

"How many shots is that, Len?"

Len didn't say anything. He just smiled broadly without revealing his teeth, a smile that seemed to wrap around his entire head and push his eyes up into themselves, a great old smile. Then he put his hand on top of my head and shuffled back to his stool.

"I'm good here." I said. My friend threw some money on the bar and left. I didn't mind.

There were days like that. Easy days. Days when nobody could disturb me. When I would show up early, Len, Jake and Steve would all be watching the Price is Right, and every time they would argue about which Prize Girl was the best looking, and every time they would each pick a different girl. I would have to settle the argument for them, but whenever I tried to pick a different girl than I did the last time, they wouldn't let me get away with it. On the days when I stayed late, I'd drink with Steve and Lucy as they cleaned up and we'd sing Creedence Clearwater songs at the top of our lungs, or Steve and Lucy would dance whenever I played Frank Sinatra on the jukebox.

One time, Jake and I spent an entire afternoon arguing as to whether the Army Navy game where the railing collapsed happened at the Vet or at Franklin Field. Jake got so angry he stood up in front of me and I swore he was going to swing at me. Instead he just stared straight at me, conceded that I was right, and bought me a beer. There was no fear to be felt in that place. You were only afraid if you didn't know these people, didn't respect them. The only fights that broke out at Emil's were from the Roxborough kids who came in late and couldn't handle their booze.

I remember my last great night in that bar. It was Christmas Eve. I had nowhere else I wanted to go, so I went downstairs to the bar. There were only eight people there, but one of the regulars brought his guitar, and he played every song we could think of all through the night. I was amazed at how many songs he knew. It was like listening to an oldies radio station. We all sang along, and we danced, and we drank until the sun came up.

Those nights, when you're sitting at home in your suburban cookie-cutter home wondering where else in the world you could be, this was it. Sitting in a warm bar with great people laughing and dancing while songs are sung by some drunk with voice sweeter than you could ever imagine. This was my life that night. It was one of the few times I wished that Susan was with me to see it.