The Party On 77th Street (Or When The Barmaid Knows You Best).

The party was in full swing as beer and whisky were downed as if the world was ending.

I happily drank more than most and sat in the corner, the internal haze of my time

Gazing back at me through frosted glass and my smile,

Permanently plastered on this English face, for a while stopped beaming.

The noise outside the Manhattan window, the cars driving down 77th Street, the people

On the sidewalk, cheering in humour, some shouting in pain

At the arguments that fuelled the city. The sound of a distant gunshot

Ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding around the street leads

To a scream and the announcement of an ambulance arriving

To take the dead away.

Inside the relative safety that was inside the frosted glass, my hostess

Came over to me and raised her polished schooner, her smile I tried to match

As she chatted with happiness at having me in her home.

This young lad from England, a Cornish heart inside a Midland body

Who struggles with who he is; she actually toasted me and walked away pointing

Me out when people seemed to uncertain on how to approach me.

An oddity, a child who dared make his way on his own across so many miles

Just to witness life across a pond; was I really an oddity?

I made my way across the room, half looking for the door

That would lead me out of the company of whom

I knew perhaps knew only four…maybe five people in amongst the throng

Of what seemed hundreds! I reached the table

And found myself being poured another drink

And gratefully this time I saluted the girl behind the bar

And wished I could have asked her to dance at this party.

She came up to me then and threw her arms around me,

Sober but with the heavy hint of expensive perfume

That was wasted on someone like me…No taste.

To others though she was the idea of perfection

And in a way perhaps she was that embodiment, except

That to me at that time, there was no perfection but I still thought

About her on a daily basis and how she would deal with me

If she saw me now across the room.

I smiled once more and made a show of being surprised

At the show of affection. The girl

Who had served me the beer, hair in a ponytail, long and clean,

Black waistcoat with blue trim buttoned up in a stateswoman like manner, white

Blouse, black skirt and behaviour impeccable unlike the magpie she resembled,

Raised an eyebrow knowing full well that by the morning I would be making my way

Across town to Union Station if I had sense.

Oh I must introduce you to blah, blah, blah, blah.”

I found I had no interest at her world or who sipped their drink within in it.

I liked her, the exotic nature of her very being thrilled me and just for a short while

I forgot about you.

But you kept returning to my mind and I let my thoughts wander

Down the street to the bar in which I first got drunk in New York.

The sound of a distant dropped glass

Ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding before smashing into a thousand

Tiny

Fragmented

Pieces

Brought me back to her telling that blah was big in something Downtown

I shook his hand and found

I couldn’t care less but her smile told me I should and I made

Conversation.

The room hummed with the sound of people who talked of words

That I understood but couldn’t follow.

I gulped my drink and made my excuse to get another

Still looking for the door that would lead me out and into the fresh air

And the ambulance that was parked up at the end of the street taking the gunshot victim

To an appointment that he was already late for.

Beware of those you shouldn’t be around English

She said with humour in her voice but with a hint of the warning that I should heed.

I raised my full glass to her and told her she might be right

But this is what I came to see, to witness life in all its unsettling glory

Didn’t you come here to see the whole of life?” she enquired as I remembered

That she was right, fortune teller on the quiet perhaps?

Your first night here, I served you in the bar. You were excited for it all

And what have you done since aside from sightsee?”

At that point she became my conscious and my internal haze for a while unfrosted.

Silently, I mouthed thank you, smiled properly and whilst it took a while

To get away from it, she remained the only woman I ever said no to.

I heard my heart ricocheting and reverberating and rebounding, beating fast

As I made my mind up to walk away and find the door

Leaving a life I didn’t want behind.

 

Ian D. Hall 2013.