Last night was Monday Night Football on ABC, always a hectic time at Judnich's; but with the Minnesota Vikings coming to town to play the 49er's, I knew before opening it would be crazy. Little did I know how crazy. K.D. usually made sandwiches and waited tables on busy nights, and Gavin helped behind the bar, but he was sick and I couldn't find another part-time bartender. So, after opening up, I fortified myself early with a pair of double Smirnoff's.
Guys hurried in right from work from the surrounding industrial area. By 6:00, half an hour till kick-off, the oak bar that ran the length of the room was three deep, shoulder to shoulder with customers, talking, laughing, betting, and bugging their neighbors:
"Hey, Tark can't carry Brodie's jock!"
"Well, Howard says--"
"Oh, man, Cosell don't know jackshit."
"Guess y'all doan 'member what Sayers did to 'em in the mud?"
"Hey, Seamus, turn up the sound willya?"
After punching up a sale on the old-fashioned brass cash register centered behind the bar, I glanced up at the big screen where Don Meredith had taken the mike and was giving his pre-game analysis. The guys liked Gifford, tolerated Cosell, but they loved Dandy Don. I turned back and shrugged at the meat-cutter from the Safeway plant down the hill. It wasn't any use raising the volume with all the hubbub.
K.D.'s chili must've smelled good to the crowd, because it was gone before kickoff. And most of her sandwiches, too. I managed to keep up with the drink orders even without help, because everything ordered was fast and easy. Most of the crowd were beer drinkers. Even a trio of couples at the tables near the unplugged jukebox wasn't ordering anything tough, except for one yo-yo from Bay City Steel trying to impress a secretary from uptown with margaritas. But they'd come in early and I'd whipped up a whole pitcher on the first order and just poured refills. I'd even managed a couple of sips from my third Smirnoff's. Oh, I was into it. The game started....
Then someone caught my attention and motioned downbar to Mr. McIntire, holding up the phone for me to come answer. I nodded at K.D.'s tray, which I was filling with Miller drafts. He shrugged, still holding out the phone. I figured it must be important, because Mr. Mac always answered the phone on busy nights and could handle routine bullshit himself. He was a regular, a court reporter who lived nearby and came in every night for his medicine to take the edge off constant back pain. He walked with the aid of aluminum canes, the kind with sleeves that slipped around his forearms--polio or something when he was a kid. Anyhow I nodded back and mouthed, one minute, while I finished K.D.'s order. I worked my way down the bar, the crowd settling down a little, now that the game had started. Brodie had already marched the 49er's down the field on the opening drive for a score. Still, the noise level was pretty high, and I had to cover one ear when I took the phone from Mr. Mac. "'Lo," I snapped, not trying to hide my irritation, "Cavanaugh speaking."
For a few seconds there was dead silence on the phone, and I glanced over at Mr. Mac with a questioning expression, thinking whomever it was had got tired of waiting. But the old man was busy watching the game and sipping his shot of Jack D.
Then I heard a low chuckle and pulled the phone back to my ear in time to hear: "Hello, Clyde,"
I hadn't heard that for over twelve years. It dated back to my high school days when a writer for the Chronicle described my floor play like that of a "pale Walt Frazier."
Frazier, the slick guard for the New York Knicks, had been dubbed Clyde for the way he dressed in period '30s--reminiscent of Clyde in the movie Bonnie and Clyde. But only one person knew all that.
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