Wednesday was a typical New York night. By typical I mean it was unpredictable – the people I was supposed to meet bailed on me, soon to be replaced by strangers. Beth and I met for a game of pool at Tribeca Tavern, a dark bar on a triangular block between three of Manhattan’s quietest downtown streets. The owner bears a strong resemblance to James Gandolfini of Soprano’s fame, and the bartender is a voluptuous blond who looks like she’s killing time before her late night shift at a strip club.
When we arrived, a small crowd of displaced 9 to 5’ers had already claimed the front room of the bar, giving the tavern an air of post-work boredom. We immediately fed the mediocre jukebox (filled mostly with songs you play at the end of a long night after all of your first choices have played twice) and sauntered to the back room. The back room was more our speed – it was home to the worn red felt-covered pool table, and devoid of any people. We played a couple of games, catching up on our day, our cramps, and our plan for the rest of the night.
Solitude in a New York bar rarely lasts, and soon we were joined by three men who looked more like thugs than Wall Street types. They introduced themselves as Leo, Jimmy, and Elliot, and challenged us to a game. In the years that I’ve played pool in this town, I’ve come to find that there are two types of players – nice people, and assholes. I prefer to play the first type, regardless of their skill level, although when forced to play opponents of the second variety I do take some pleasure in trying to beat them. There’s nothing better than knocking someone’s ego down a few notches, especially if he’s a misogynist ass whose name you only gathered from the list on the chalk board.
Leo, Jimmy, and Elliot were of the friendly sort, although they did indulge in some paternalistic “Here’s how you should have taken that shot, little lady”-type remarks. I didn’t let it bother me because they were chatty in between their bouts of advice-giving. Leo stood 6’5’, and was on call for his job as a bodyguard for a Dominican phone card mogul. His shots appeared effortless, and as he bent down over the table he looked like a giant in a dollhouse. Jimmy and Elliot were much smaller in stature, and once Leo was summoned to meet up with Phone Card Carlos, they joined us for a beer.
Elliot, sporting a red hooded sweatshirt and gold chains, proceeded to explain internet advertising to me. “When you type in a website the person who owns the website gets money every time,” he said. “I can’t really explain it but my brother told me how it works.” I was too bored to tell him I’d been in the industry for four years and it didn't work that way. I received no salvation from Beth, who was deep in conversation with Jimmy. When the room fell silent, I leapt from my seat to feed the juke and abandon the internet tutorial.
By the time I returned to our table, “Your Time Is Gonna Come” was playing at full volume. I was flooded with the memory of a six-hour drive to Southern Illinois to pick up a date that wasn’t my first choice. My first choice (and my first love) had cheated on me with my high school nemesis, leaving me dateless and heartbroken for my first college dance. Led Zeppelin I had played on a continual loop during that drive, and I used an entire box of Kleenex, my heart pouring out of my body in the form of tears and snot.
“This is the song that I played a million times after Chris broke my heart,” I said to Beth between lyrics. I left out the part about how it was the worst pain I’d ever experienced at that point in my life. It was the breakup that forever changed me, the one where I realized that love is not forever, that it ends, even when someone makes you a promise that it never will. I had meant every word of that song on that tearful drive, but never could have imagined how his time would actually come.
“Where is he now?” Elliot asked as the song drew to an end.
“He’s dead,” I said, offering no information other than how sad that made me.
“I know how you feel,” he replied, and while Elton John sang “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”, Elliot told me the tale of his sister, who died from AIDS in the days when Chris was still alive. “When her boyfriend got out of prison he gave her the disease,” he explained. “We told her not to go back with him but she didn’t listen.”
Jimmy joined in with his own tale of suffering. He, too, had lost a sister to AIDS in the ‘80s. She had contracted the disease from a deadbeat boyfriend, a man who Jimmy, an otherwise forgiving person, hated. “He’s probably dead now,” Jimmy said, “and I don’t care.” His kind face twisted into anger, then sadness, as he told his sister’s story. I realized that I’d never felt hatred like that, not even for an 18-year-old boy who introduced me to heartache. Not even close.
As the room filled with other drinkers, our conversation seemed out of place among the happy chatter surrounding us. A professionally-dressed man and his girlfriend started a game of pool, and I looked to Beth, who was frowning. “We’re late for our friend’s party,” she explained, and we all took a final swig of beer. Jimmy asked us for our phone numbers, in that fleeting moment when you think an evening could be repeated if only you have the right combination of ten digits. We settled on giving him our email addresses – Yahoo accounts, not our less anonymous work ones – and bid them goodbye. We then set off into the cold winter night, in search of people and music that would make us smile.
