everybody knew harry.
everybody at henry’s horseplayers bar on houston st.
the name “henry’s horseplayers bar” dated back to the days of lillian russell and diamond jim brady and jimmy walker and damon runyon. at the time of our story the patrons were not more or less horse players or gamblers or high rollers than the population of new york in general. it was not even a particular hangout for bookies.
it was just a neighborhood bar where people drank and talked - mostly drank.
irving, who had owned and run the place since the end of prohibition, had refused to add that new invention, that destroyer of humanity’s peace and sanity, a television.
there was a jukebox, but nobody played it much. al jolson and rudy vallee and sophie tucker were still on it.
all in all, a pretty quiet place. there was no sign, “no colorful characters allowed”, but there may as well have been.
harry was one of the regulars. harry was in the sausage business. he knew sausages. but he did not particularly want to talk about them, or think about them, at the end of the day.
the regulars at henry’s talked, when they talked at all, about politics, or baseball, or boxing, sometimes about the movies. even on these subjects they did not argue much, or get excited.
harry talked and argued even less than most.
harry had a wife, gloria, whom he was happy to leave at home, and who was happy to be left at home, not having to look at or listen to harry. harry had bought a television, and gloria’s sister, judy, would come over, and the two women would watch the television together, keeping up a running commentary on everything on it, the news and the commercials as well as the shows like milton berle and arthur godfrey and the lone ranger.
harry was happy enough to sit on his stool at henry’s bar and not listen to gloria or judy or milton berle or arthur godfrey.
happy enough, but not completely happy.
harry had a secret. not a secret life, or a secret personality, and he had never committed any nefarious or shameful deed , but a secret desire.
he wished he was somebody else.
anybody else. anybody else at all.
he never confessed this desire to anybody else. so he never had to listen to anybody laugh at him, and say - oh really? anybody? you would rather be a coolie in shanghai pulling a rickshaw twenty hours a day, or a coal miner in argentina, or a beggar in cairo so hideous people ran screaming from you and never threw you a penny?
and harry would look into his glass of dark beer and think - anybody. anybody at all.
one night a stranger came into henry’s. the bar was a little more crowded than usual, and the stranger sat down right beside harry.
the stranger looked like a bum, and he also looked like he was from high society, like he had gone to yale or princeton or some such and would let you know it.
he was in fact both of those things, and he was also quite drunk.
“what’s your name?” the stranger asked harry. although he could hardly sit upright, he enunciated as clearly as an actor on broadway.
“harry.”
“harry, eh? a royal name. henry the eighth was called good king harry in his day. what do you do, harry?”
“i’m in the sausage business.”
“my name is philip, and i’m in the drinking business. “
at this point ralph the bartender appeared. “can i help you, sir?” he asked philip.
“it’s your job, isn’t it? i’ll have a double cream of kentucky.”
ralph took a closer look at philip. “you look a bit out of sorts, sir. are you sure somebody isn’t waiting for you at home?”
“my mother isn’t calling me,” philip replied. “only that double cream of kentucky is calling me.”
ralph considered. “i’ll serve you, sir. and then we will see how straight you are sitting up. good posture, sir, remember good posture is not to be scoffed at.”
“and good scoffing is not to be postured at,” philip retorted, and laughed at his own joke, but was not joined by either harry or ralph. “christ,” he added, “ i sound like poor addison.”
“say, speaking of harry, harry, what do you think of truman?” philip asked harry, as ralph went to get his drink.
“i am sure he is doing his best.”
‘his best? his best? did you know that truman used to sell suits in kansas city?”
“i think i might have heard that somewhere,” harry agreed.
“i wouldn’t buy a suit from truman if it was fifty below zero in a snowstorm and i was naked, that’s what i think of truman. what do you think of truman? “
harry considered his answer as ralph placed philip’s drink in front of him and collected his money.
“i think everybody is just who they are,” he finally said.
“everybody is just who they are! hey - that’s deep , that’s deep, my friend. that’s deeper than a rat drowning in a submarine sinking in the mariana trench in the pacific ocean. ha, ha! you know, i think you are wasted here, my friend. do you know where you should go?”
i wish i could be half as obnoxious as this guy, harry thought, but he just said, “where should i go?”
“bob’s bowery bar. that’s the place for you. filled to the brim - most nights - with philosophers and poets and people who know it all. you would be right at home, sharing the effulgent bounty of your wisdom.”
a great light flashed in harry’s brain. of course, he thought, i could go somewhere, anywhere, where nobody knows me, and take on a whole new personality, be a whole different person.
“bob’s bowery bar,” he said aloud to philip, ‘i guess it must be on the bowery, eh?”
“a brilliant deduction. it is, in fact at the bowery and bleecker - “ philip paused.
and he suddenly sprawled face down across the bar, completely passed out.
the conversation was over, and harry was left with his thoughts.
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