Balling the Jack Read online

  By chance I caught them on their first night. Stopped in to confirm a dart match, saw them tuning up, and figured I’d give them a few songs. I didn’t leave until they locked the door on me. There were only thirty of us, half of them friends of the band, but once they took the stage they didn’t care.

  The singer sang and played electric guitar. They had a guy on the uilleann pipes, a smooth sax, bongos, and a drum machine. They did great covers, and their own stuff was even better. Killer songs about drinking in the new country and missing the old. About fallen heroes, about workers uniting, about chasing tail. Songs funny and sad that kept you moving. I was swept along, into the second set, downing one pint after another. Jigging to the jigs, reeling to the reels, having a blast.

  Late in the night they played the first strains of a song that sounded familiar but no, it couldn’t be, not here, not by a bunch of drunken micks. But it was! Bob Marley, “Get Up, Stand Up,” and damned if they didn’t hit it just right. At 3 A.M. they sent us out the door to “Anarchy in the UK” and we spilled into the street exhausted, excited, drunk, promising ourselves we’d be back.

  Nothing beats finding a new band. One day they don’t exist and the next they explode into your head and are part of you. I bought the T-shirts and homemade tapes, learned all the words to their songs. Told my friends about them, passed out fliers, called the college radio stations. “What do you mean, you never heard of them? Don’t you guys do your homework?”

  Each week built to Saturday night. We would stake out a spot by the bar and send drinks to the stage between songs. We plotted to get them into Rolling Stone. Word spread. Thirty people turned to fifty, to a hundred, to a line down the block, another set on Wednesdays, a doorman, a cover, and some real faces in the crowd. Record men, dealmakers. This band was the real thing, and we were a part of it.

  Rock ’n’ roll is a language and those who speak it a tribe. A good band, when you take them to heart, gives you more than songs. They give you nights, mad nights outside yourself when you feel your youth so strong it breaks through your skin. We would all be packed together, swaying, roaring the chorus to “Free Us Now,” our insides hollowed out, our fever rising with the music. At the peak we could barely stand it. We were no longer citizens. Our jobs, careers, parents belonged on another planet. We wanted only this world, right here, and so long as this song didn’t end we had it. Then the last chord crashed and we stood dazed, famished, like lovers stopped before the finish.

  We looked at each other, really looked, on the verge of something, all of us. Some shared truth inside us the next song promised to reveal, if we could just hang on. And in the instant before it started a line from a college teacher I hated would come back to me. “You kids think the answer’s in a rock song, or between a woman’s legs.” Well, some nights it is, Teach, and as they broke into “Irish Freedom” I started rubbing up the girl next to me, and when she rubbed back I pulled her through the crowd, out the door, into a cab and gave it to her right there in the back seat, my face in her shirt as we took off, covered in sweat, the words of the last song still ringing in my head.

  No wonder they stand up in Congress and plot the death of rock ’n’ roll. This stuff is dangerous.

  The Coffin Ships hit the big time, as you might have guessed. Signed on the dotted line for one of the giants, and a month later here came the MTV truck, right into Finn’s to film the video! You’ll see our gang in the back if we survive the edit. These days the band keeps pretty fast company. The singer drinks with movie stars of Irish blood who pop in after a shoot, and you can often see the sax player on Page Six in the Post. Even the drummer, who hasn’t been sober since the first gig and was a little short of hat size to start with, never leaves without a girl on his arm.

  Finn’s is a star now too. When the band’s first album took off, so did the bar’s rep as a launching pad. Writers started coming around. First the underground press, then The Voice, and finally, yes, Rolling Stone. Liam sits them all at the bar, pours pints and tells again how the new home of Irish music in New York began as just a dream in his head. He’s always careful to imply he’s a bit of a musician himself, though as a businessman there’s not the time for it.

  When the Coffin Ships’s album hit the Top 10, the majors declared roots Irish music the next rage, and suddenly anybody with a cousin in Ireland and an amp had a shot at a contract. They all wanted to play Finn’s because that’s where the scouts were. Told Liam they’d play for nothing for a shot at the big time, so that’s what Liam pays them. Books the best for Friday night, the others for Monday and Thursday, throws in an open mike on Sunday and now he fills the place every night, at ten bucks a head. Takes in three times the other O’Shea bars combined. Liam still stops in on them from time to time. “Just for a pint, y’know, and to see how they’re getting on. We Irish stick together.”

  A few weeks ago I saw the Coffin Ships for the last time. Headed over Saturday night, as usual, drinking an Oil Can, getting psyched, but when I saw the line down the block I slowed, and at the door I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I watched through the window awhile. Saw them set up, dive into the first set, the crowd going nuts. I thought back to the first night, just a few of us there, the magic feeling you get at the start of things. Was it really a year ago? I remembered the first time I heard them on the radio, turning from the deli register with a beer and stopping dead as the singer’s voice came through the speakers, singing “New County Down.” I thought of all that and then I tipped my beer to them, through the glass, and walked home.

  When you’re with a band from the start and they make it big, there comes a time they don’t need you anymore. They belong to everyone now and not to you. Letting go is like ending an affair. The last few Saturdays were rough.

  Dave says the buzz on tonight’s band is good, though. Some outfit called Aisling Chara—you tell me how to pronounce it. The singer is supposed to have a real set of pipes, they got some little guy plays hell out of the electric cello, whatever that is, and according to Liam, if Neil Young ever hears their cover of “Cinnamon Girl,” he’ll go back into the studio and get it right this time. Maybe I’m back in business.

  Dave waves from a choice spot between two groups of girls. When I reach him he’s trying to explain the concept of a body shot to a pretty German. He claps me on the neck.

  “How ’bout those Phillies!” he says. “I talked to Stella. Guess you’re buying tonight, huh?”

  “All weekend. Pint?”

  “Sure, and one for Angila if you can. And shots of Jägermeister. Maybe my German will come back to me.”

  Looking at Dave you’d never guess I spent half my nights freshman year sleeping in the lounge. A shade under six feet, a bit on the heavy side, dark hair, dark eyes, a small mouth. Not GQ material by a long shot, but Dave gets laid more than anyone I know. It isn’t even close.

  He’s off to a slow start tonight. As the drinks come, I turn just in time to see Angila land a good slap on his kisser and storm away.

  I laugh. “You always said you could take a punch, Dave. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” He works his jaw in his hands. “I thought I told her she has nice eyes, but my German’s a little rusty. We should have gone to a better school.”

  “I’ll drink to that. Next ten bucks I give goes to the language department. Cheers.” We do our shots. “Say, who’s the new waitress?”

  “Something else, huh?”

  She really is. Slender, with a strange, graceful walk, as if she were on her tiptoes. Blond hair all down her back and a shy smile when I overtip. I wave her back for another round.

  “Hi, we’ll take two more. I’m Tom Reasons, by the way. This is my friend Dave.”

  “I know. Liam told us about you. Says I should bring them as you finish. Says you’re loaded.”

  “Well, I am tonight anyway. What time are you off?”

  “About three.”

  “Ever go for a bite after work?”

  “N
ot with a customer.” She smiles, only not so shy this time, and glides into the crowd.

  “Jesus, Dave. How ’bout that accent? She could tell me to go fuck myself and it would sound like a come-on.”

  “I think she just did. Anyway, you don’t want to be messing with her. She’s Kennedy’s cousin. Trust me, the ring would have to go on before the shirt came off. She’s Catholic.”

  I’m convinced if I picked a girl off the street Dave could tell me her name and the chances of landing her.

  “What’s wrong with Catholic? We’re Catholic.”

  “Nothing, if you want to get hitched. But if you don’t …” Dave shudders. “Tom, I swore off Catholic girls this morning, and this time I mean it.”

  I laugh.

  “I’m serious, Tom. From now on it’s the first question I ask.” Dave shakes his head, looks pensive. “You know, it’s always the same story. You knock yourself out for them, take them to a great place, and they’re a lot of fun. They love to drink, to dance, and the way they dance you can’t wait to get ’em in the sack. Everything’s perfect until you shoot the dead bolt, and then it all falls apart. The kissing’s fine, but you reach for the shirt and the wrestling match starts.” Dave takes a swig of his pint. “Even when they want it they manage to ruin it, Tom. They can never admit they’re actually going through with it, so foreplay is out. Right up until you get it in they’re telling themselves they’re just fooling around, that nothing’s really happening. Once it’s in, they warm to it, of course, and you get your ten good minutes, but then the party’s over. Next morning the beer’s worn off and you can tell straight away there won’t be any encore. She’s clammed up, grabbing her clothes, won’t hardly look at you. You leave feeling like you shot the Pope.”

  Dave’s made this speech before, and every time he winds up back here at Finn’s with ten pints in him, standing in a sea of Irish girls. Something has to give, and it’s usually Dave.

  The band’s done tuning up and we turn our attention to the stage. I love the moment just before a band plays the first note. Anything is possible. I’m on my toes, leaning forward.

  “One last thing, Tom. Are we going to kick some Irish ass Tuesday night, or what?”

  “Damn straight.”

  The singer steps to the mike. “A one-two-three-four.”

  The songs begin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ANYONE contemplating law school should have to work as a paralegal and file motions at the State Supreme Court on Center Street. These guys make Kafka’s bureaucrats look like a dance troupe. They have one clerk working the counter here, who I get every time. A real giant, with so much hair on him you can’t see his arms or neck. Ask him to stamp the motion and he grunts. Ask him a question and he glares. You could swap him for a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo and it would be a week before either place knew the difference.

  I’m in line here Monday morning, filing another motion for my boss, Carter McGrath. Boy, do I feel like hell. Just once I should try starting the week without a hangover. Carter is an associate at Farrell, Hawthorne, and Donaldson, the firm I work for. Or Fatigue, Heartworm, and Dysentery, as we paralegals call it, which about captures the spirit of the place. The firm’s one of the old guard. Been on the corner of Wall and Water for fifty years. Small by New York standards—six partners, thirty associates—but a real money-maker.

  I don’t believe it. Five clerks working the desk and guess who gets Magilla.

  “Hi, I’d like to file—”

  Wham! I jump back as the stamp comes down like an anvil, barely missing my dart hand.

  “Hey. Watch—”

  “Next!”

  He stares at me with such pure hatred I hurry out the door.

  Out on the sidewalk I shake my head. I must have seen too many movies as a kid. Somewhere I got the notion this legal stuff would be a lot of fun. At seventeen, just as it was hitting me that I wasn’t going to play centerfield for the Mets, an alum with his own practice came in and talked to our senior class. He explained the legal process to us. Spoke about discovery, a little on the rules of evidence. Told us how the whole system was designed for the sole aim of arriving at the truth. It sounded beautiful.

  Well, I’m twenty-three now and the jig is about up. Fun? Forget it. Serving papers, tracking down cites, summarizing depositions. In a year the only fun I’ve had at the firm was balling one of the secretaries in the conference room. That was a whopper, I’ll grant you, but it was after the Christmas party, and she’s made it clear it won’t happen again.

  As I walk back to work from court, the boys in my skull start up the jackhammer again. The better the weekend, the tougher the Monday, they say. I’ll need a lot of coffee to get through this one. I stop in at a bodega for some aspirin. Back outside, I find that by squinting my eyes almost shut I can narrow my vision to a few yards in front of me, and as my feet drag me toward the office I go back in my head to the weekend.

  Aisling Chara turned out to be as good as the hype. I still can’t pronounce it, but by the time they slid into a cover of “Deacon Blues” at three in the morning, I was a believer. I’m not ready to call them another Coffin Ships just yet, but I’ll be back next Friday.

  From Finn’s, Dave and I hit an after-hours’ joint on Tenth Street that I couldn’t find again if I had to. The last thing I remember is Dave trying to clear my head with a shot of Absolut, sounding urgent.

  “Okay, Tom, sit up. This is important. See the babe at the bar?”

  I saw two babes, dressed exactly alike. The same hairstyles even, and moving in perfect unison, like synchronized swimmers. Leave it to Dave.

  “Which one’s yours?”

  “Tom, there’s only one. Now listen. Dinner at her place tomorrow, and Basic Instinct on cable, if I can recite the words to ‘Mandy.’”

  “‘Mandy’?”

  “Yeah, start to finish. She gave me five minutes. Here, I got a napkin and pen. Let’s go.”

  “‘Mandy’? Dave, you should decline on principle.”

  “Tom, look at her.”

  The twins crossed their legs, smiled and waved. I hit the floor.

  On his own Dave couldn’t even come up with the chorus, which at least left him free to throw me into a cab. After eight hours’ sleep we met up again in box seats at Shea. Then it was to The Palm for the best T-bone in Manhattan, a few darts at Adam’s Curse, a tequila tour of the Upper East Side, some more sleep, back to Shea, poker with the guys at Jimmy’s, and finally a nightcap at the Polo Grounds for SportsCenter. I’m down to a hundred bucks, but I had me a weekend.

  Now I’m looking at five days before the next furlough. At the steps of the office I take a good breath, shake my head hard and straighten up. Walking through the oak doors the weekend slips away and the lights inside me dim. I’m a suit again.

  CARTER CALLS ME into his office straight away to prep me on a new case. This part of the job isn’t so bad. Every case sounds good the first time you hear it, and I can tell by looking at him that he likes this one.

  “How was your weekend, Reasons? Did you get laid?”

  “No, sir.”

  I call all the lawyers sir or ma’am. They like it, think it’s my military upbringing. Actually it just gives me a kick.

  “Young guy like you, good build, what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Maybe once I’m a lawyer they’ll come around.”

  Carter starts to laugh, stops and squints hard. “Reasons, I can never tell when you’re dicking with me. This wouldn’t be one of those times, would it?”

  “No, sir.”

  Carter’s not a bad guy. It’s just that he was born with a stick up his ass and nothing’s happened in thirty years to dislodge it. His one goal in life is to make partner, and he thinks the way to do it is to spend a hundred hours a week in the office. He’s probably right. Every case for Carter is a war of attrition—whoever files the most motions wins. That means a lot of shit work for his staff, so he’s not too popular among the pa
ralegals. I get farmed out to him a lot because he doesn’t like working with the girls. He says he likes to swear too much and was raised better than to do it around them. The real reason is he’s afraid he’ll try to fuck one of them. Nobody who wants to make partner in this firm starts down that path. All in all, he’s not so bad. He’ll order in beer if it’s going to be a late night, and wrapping up a big case can mean a long lunch at a titty bar.

  “Reasons, we pulled a good one. What does the name Garrett mean to you?”

  “Garrett. Wayne. Played third base for the Mets in the seventies. Had a high of sixteen homers in seventy-three.”

  “Not quite. Try Garrett, Winston. CEO of Pyramid Publishing. On the board at the Met. Net worth of about twenty million.”

  “Wow. Who’s he suing?”

  “He’s not suing anybody. His wife is.”

  “His wife, sir?”

  “Regina Garrett. Big socialite. Always popping up in the paper. A month ago she threw a cocktail party to honor some French designer. Small party, but top-shelf. Real A-list crowd. Had the thing catered by Prego’s, a little Italian outfit. They do appetizers, cheese and crackers, that kind of thing. Well, an hour into the party, six people come down with food poisoning. Not serious, no one kicked the bucket, but apparently a real mess. People losing it out both ends, some not making it to the bathroom. You get the picture.”

  “Yes, sir. What caused the poisoning?”

  “They traced it to the bean dip. It seems the caterer mixed together two seasonings, cilantro and pegrini. They’re okay by themselves, but combine ’em and the effect on the human digestive system is explosive. Vomiting, diarrhea, the works. Now you and me, maybe we get steamed, demand our money back, that’s the end of it. But to these society types, this kind of thing is the Hindenburg. Their good name, social standing, all that on the line. And I take it this Regina Garrett is no lamb to start with. She wants a hundred thousand dollars to cover her anguish and the damage to her reputation, and a letter of apology sent to each of the guests. What do you think?”