I’d run out of salt and pepper, so decided to go to my neighbourhood takeout sandwich shop. I ordered the cheapest sandwich on the menu (grilled cheese and tomato) and treated myself to some fries as I’d had a good day, having arranged all my books according to the Dewey Decimal System. They forgot to charge me for the fries so it really was a good day.
On my way out, I stopped at the table of straws and lids and condiments. I grabbed fistfuls of salt and pepper packets, and tossed them into the sandwich bag. I also took several packets of vinegar. I didn’t like the taste of vinegar. I used it to clean my kitchen sink drain with baking soda I’d stolen from my mother’s fridge.
I looked behind me, and there was the cashier, glowering at me and shaking her head.
Having saved money on the fries exchange, I decided to stop into the local pub for a nice cold beverage. I sat at the bar and ordered a half-pint of Keith’s IPA and two large glasses of water.
While absorbing the ambience, I noticed three NFL jerseys on hangers on hooks at the end of the bar. But there was something wrong with them despite the “official” NFL logo on the left breast of each one. The numbers on the front of them looked as if they’d been hand-sewn by someone with arthritis.
From the colours of the jerseys and the distorted numbers, I deduced they were intended to be the uniforms of Patrick Mahomes, CeeDee Lamb, and that fellow who plays QB for the Jets whose name I cannot mention without getting an outbreak of hives. I’m a casual fan of football. While I admire the skills and toughness needed to play the game, I think watching thirteen minutes of actual play in a three-hour+ game isn’t a particularly good use of my time, especially considering I need the time to clean my kitchen sink and empty packets of salt and pepper into the very cool pewter salt and pepper shakers I’d inherited from my aunt.
I don’t normally engage in conversations with people who sit at bars. I always wonder why they’re there instead of out saving the world based on the particular socio-political beliefs I regularly hear emanating from their large facial orifices. I was intrigued by the jerseys, however, and I thought I would make a comment to the large fellow sitting two stools away from me. He was wearing a matching cap and hockey sweater representing the local icers in anticipation of the coming evening’s contest, and appeared to have settled very comfortably onto his stool, slightly bending the stool’s legs with his corpulent frame. I thought he might have some insight into the apparently bogus football jerseys.
Adopting what I hoped was the local vernacular, I said, “What’s with the football sweaters?” I nodded at them at the end of the bar.
He looked at me, then at the sweaters, then back at me. “What about them?”
Damn, I thought, how much more clarity was required from me? There was obviously something funny going on. Did I have to spell it out?
I twigged. I needed to be more a man of the people, that is, answer a stupid question with one of my own. “Why are they hanging there?”
“They’re for sale,” he said.
I’d engaged him. Quickly, I said, “How much?”
“Beats me,” he said.
The conversation had clearly fizzled. Not knowing what to say next, I said, “Oh.”
After a while, he said, “Ask Anna.”
The game was on again. Cleverly, I said, “Who’s Anna?”
“Bartender.”
That was helpful but I realized I’d have to start most of the conversation again. My sandwich and fries were getting cold, but I didn’t mind so much. Putting my oven onto 350 and putting the food in it for half an hour or so would fix that.
“Anna,” I said, “I understand the football sweaters are for sale.”
“Yes, they are,” she said.
It was like pulling teeth off my grandmother’s dentures that irritated her gums. Doing my best to ask a question that couldn’t be deflected, I said, “How much?”
“Forty,” she said.
Even I knew forty wasn’t the price for a legitimate NFL sweater. I said to my friend two stools over, “Forty seems very reasonable. They must be…” And I searched for the correct word. Counterfeits? No, that was for money. Forgeries? No, that was for paintings. I had the word. “Knock-offs.”
“Shut up, man,” he said. “Do you want to buy one or not?”
That made me pause. His response indicated he had some interest in the possible transaction. The half-pint had gone to my head and, recklessly, I asked Anna for another half. Then I asked the guy, “Is this your business?”
“None of your business.”
Good point, I thought. But I was starting to feel like I was in a 1950s Humphrey Bogart movie, or perhaps some 1950s movie that Bogart wasn’t in. I took another sip of beer, no, it was a slug of beer. Still feeling reckless, wishing I was wearing a fedora and had a gat in my belt, I said to Anna, “Gimme a shot.”
“Shot of what?”
That stumped me. I thought a shot was a shot. What would Bogart order? No, not Bogart. Robert Ryan or Robert Mitchum. Tequila. “Tequila,” I said.
“With training wheels?”
I had no idea what that meant so I just shook my head in my best Tom Neal impersonation. I love “Detour”, and now I was living it. Maybe Claire Trevor or Jane Greer would walk in at that moment and give me a wink I could feel in my pocket.
Anna put a shot glass in front of me that had clear liquid in it. I assumed it was tequila. I sniffed it. I didn’t know what tequila smelled like.
It was called a shot, and I remembered a ton of movies in which people would shoot it back, hence the name, I guess.
It was horrible. Why would anyone do that? I forced myself to not cough. I started to feel warm. And not in the usual way of being out in the sun or under a blanket, lying on my couch, watching Peggy Cummins talk John Dall into doing something even more stupid than he’d done before. Gun crazy, for sure. I reached into my inside jacket pocket for my heater but of course there was nothing there except for my gum. Gum, not gun.
“Ya wanna buy one of those sweaters?” said the guy.
I looked at him. He was now George Raft. Terrible actor. Strange human being. A guy who turned down the role of Rick in “Casablanca” and a lot of other good parts. Not the most discerning dramatic actor. If he’d been Mike Mazurki, I might have liked him. Mazurki was always a heavy, but you couldn’t dislike him. Watch “Murder, My Sweet” or read “Farewell, My Lovely” and imagine him. But I didn’t like this wannabe Raft, no matter how heavy he was. And I didn’t want to buy a sweater.
I had an idea. Perhaps it was irresponsible, but by that point, I’d had a whole beer and a shot of tequila, so it was understandable. I asked Anna how much I owed, she told me, I paid her, adding a tip I understood was now currently acceptable. Not the old 10%. Double that.
I picked up my sandwich bag and went downstairs to the bathroom. What I did there will become apparent in a couple of paragraphs.
When I came back upstairs, I looked around. Anna was somewhere else, probably out back eating heroin or whatever bartenders did on their breaks. The guy at the bar glanced at me briefly, then went back to staring into his suds. I figured the guy was too fat and slow to react quickly but I still had to go past him.
I looked at the sweaters. Dallas’s uniform design and colours were better than KC’s or NY’s, and its numbers weren’t as misshapen despite the “88” looking more like “BB”. I pulled the sweater off the hanger and jammed as much of it as I could into the back of my pants. I walked toward the big guy. He turned on his stool but was far too large to actually stand up quickly. But he looked threatening. So I reached into my jacket pocket, grabbed a handful of salt and pepper I’d removed from the packets while in the bathroom, and threw it at the guy’s eyes.
I missed but got him in the nose, and he sneezed, paralyzing him for a moment. He finally manipulated himself off the stool and took a step toward me.
I grabbed out of my pocket a packet of vinegar and squeezed it as hard as I could, aiming at his eyes. I missed. I took two others out and, double-fisted, crunched them. This time they hit.
He rubbed his eyes and I took advantage of the moment to get out of the bar.
I ran up the street, took the first right, ran to the next cross-street, turned up, went a couple of blocks, and then eventually figured out where I was and went home.
I warmed my sandwich and fries in the oven but they didn’t taste very good.
I had no salt or pepper or vinegar. I had a crummy NFL sweater that I gave to my landlady in lieu of rent; she had no idea what it was worth.
I wasn’t able to clean my kitchen sink drain that week. And I had to figure out when I could go back to the sandwich place for salt and pepper without attracting undue attention.
I bet Bogart never had to go through anything like that. And I think he even got to kiss Ava Gardner.
[Image Credit : Photo by Josh Massey on Unsplash ]
by 
Bill Kitcher
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