Tall Folks

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I n the good, good days when the Ruddy Nut Hut was

across the street from the Tall Folks Tavern, there was a

steady passage of drunks from one place to the other, every

night. It was as if the two bars were one bar, weirdly split by the

four fast lanes of First Avenue.

Ellen owned the Tall Folks Tavern, and the Ruddy Nut Hut

was her husband Tommy’s. They had been married for fifteen

years, separated for thirteen, hadn’t slept together in two, and

held no particular interest in the politics of divorce. Tommy

was a fabulous drunk. It was impossible to get kicked out of his

bar — not for fighting or falling down, not for being broke or

under age. Tommy delivered every possible permission. Ellen

delivered famous bartenders. Not all of her bartenders were

great beauties, but several were. The others had their own spe-

cialized appeal, such as immediate sympathy, great wit, or reas-

suring alcoholism. Ellen always kept one bartender who was

good with names, as a guarantor of hospitality, and she always

kept one mean bartender, because there are people who crave

that, too. There are people who crave a mean girl who calls fat

guys “slim” and throws ugly drunks out by hand. If it was not

somehow possible to fall in love with a girl in five minutes,

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Ellen would not hire her. She had done very well this way,

brokering these particular and necessary loves. And Tommy,

too, had done very well.

The Ruddy Nut Hut had pinball and darts. The Tall Folks

Tavern had a pool table. Some nights, one place had toilet paper

or cigarettes when the other did not. And in the hot summers,

the drunks crossed that stretch of First Avenue as if it was

someone’s back yard, as if the moving cars were harmless as

swing sets or sandboxes, as if the twin bars were just neighbors’

picnics, welcome as any suburb.

Then Tommy didn’t pay his rent for eight months, and the

Ruddy Nut Hut closed. All that autumn, Ellen’s customers left

their drinks and stepped out of the bar for air, paced, stepped

back inside again quickly, restless and irritated.

In December, the Ruddy Nut reopened with a hand-lettered

banner that said walter’s topless. The front window had

been painted black, and a sign hanging in it said, “The most

beautiful ladies in the world.” On the door was a smaller sign

that said, “The world’s most beautiful ladies, ” and the final,

smallest sign, which was really just a note, explained that Wal-

ter’s Topless would be open every day of the week. At noon.

Ellen had a nephew named Al. She had hired him to be her

plumber, which meant that he was in charge of digging rotting

lemon wedges out of the sink drains, and replacing the toilets

that the young men sometimes tore out of the bathroom walls

to commemorate great moments at the pool table. Al was nice

to look at and easy to talk with. If he had been a girl, he would

have been a perfect Tall Folks Tavern bartender. He would have

been the kind of pretty that union guys are crazy for, and Ellen

would have given him the Thursday evening happy hour shift.

If Al had been a girl working Thursday happy hours, the car-

penters and teamsters would have come in every week and

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Tall Folks

tipped the hell out of him for being so pretty. After Tommy left,

Ellen spent most of her time with Al, and it was Al who went

with her when she finally crossed the street to check out Wal-

ter’s Topless.

Ellen knew everyone drinking at the bar when she walked in

that night.

“These are all my people, ” she said to Al.

“And Tommy’s.”

“Tommy can’t really claim any of these people anymore,

can he? ”

It still looked like the Ruddy Nut Hut, except that the pinball

machines were gone, replaced by a small stage with a wide

mirror behind it and a long rail in front. There was one stripper

dancing — a skinny girl with knees wider than thighs and a

druggie rock star’s tiny hips. Ellen knew her, too.

“That’s Amber the junkie, ” she said.

Amber smiled over at Al, and shook her chest at him. Her

breasts were just nipples on a rib cage. Al smiled back.

“She’s terrifying, ” he said.

“She used to come into my bar and drink rum and Coke all

day, ” Ellen said. “I used to try to catch her shooting up in the

bathroom, but every time I’d go in there she’d just be brushing

her teeth.”

“That’s almost grosser.”

“Almost.”

“You should put blue lights in the bathrooms. That’s what

they do in fast food places. Then the junkies can’t see their veins

and they can’t shoot up.”

“That’s a little bit mean, I think.”

“I like blue lights, ” Al said. “In a blue-lit room I can’t see my

balls.”

“Stop that, ” Ellen said. “That’s not true.”

There was a girl behind the bar in a dark bathing suit. Ellen

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didn’t know her. She had black hair with a serious center part,

and the bathing suit was a practical one-piece, faded, with tired

elastic and wide straps.

“She looks like she should be wearing flip-flops, ” Al said.

There was a man behind the bar with her, and when he

turned to face them, Ellen said, “Walter? ”

He was carrying a case of beer, which he brought over and set

on the bar in front of Al. He had a long beard, seedy and gray,

like the beards of prophets or the homeless.

“Hello, Helen, ” he said.

“Ellen, ” she corrected. Walter said nothing.

“Don’t even tell me this is your bar now, Walter.”

Walter still said nothing.

“What the hell are you doing with a place like this? Nobody

told me this was your place.”

“Sign tells it.”

“I didn’t know you were the Walter.”

“What else Walter is there? ”

“I’m Al, ” Al introduced himself. “I’m Ellen’s nephew.”

The two men shook hands over the case of beer between

them.

“Walter? ” Ellen said. “I’m not sure about the name of this

place. You should at least call it Walter’s Topless Bar. Walter’s Topless sounds like an announcement. It sounds like you’re the

one that’s topless.”

“It is an announcement.”

“I guess so.” Ellen looked around. “Tommy didn’t tell me he’d

sold it to you.”

“It’s me.”

“I’m just surprised.”

“I don’t know how come. Sign says it plain enough.”

“Walter? ” Ellen said. “Secretly, I always thought you were

Amish.”

Al laughed, and Ellen laughed, too.

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Tall Folks

“I’ll buy you a drink on the house, ” Walter said. “And one for

your nephew.”

“Thank you, sir, ” Al said.

“We’ll take two beers and some good Scotch, ” Ellen said.

“Thanks.”

Walter took two bottles from the case and pulled an opener

out from inside his shirt, where it hung on a chain, like a heavy

crucifix. He opened the beers, which were just short of cold, and

put them in front of Al and Ellen.

Walter went to the end of the bar for the Scotch and Al said,

“I haven’t called anyone ‘sir’ since I was twelve.”

“Walter can’t run a strip joint, ” Ellen hissed. “He hates

women. He never even used to come to my bar, because he

hated women bartending. Jesus Christ, what a lousy joke.”

Walter came back with two shots of Scotch. Ellen drank hers

and left the glass upside down on the bar. Al smelled his and set

it in front of him carefully.

“Who’s your bartender? ” Ellen asked.

“Rose, ” Walter said. “My daughter.”

Walter and Ellen stared at each other in silence.

“Wow, ” Al said. “I was thinking of asking for a job, but she’s

probably staying, I guess.”

“I have three daughters, ” Walter said, still looking at Ellen.

“They all work here.”

“Are you going to drink that? ” She asked Al, and when he

shook his head, she put back his Scotch, too, and set the glass

next to her own. “This is the funniest thing, Walter, ” she said.

“It’s so funny that Tommy didn’t tell me it was you. But good

luck and everything, right? ” Ellen took a twenty-dollar bill out

of her pocket and slid it under her beer bottle. “Make sure Rose

keeps us happy down here, ” she said, and Walter walked away.

On the stage, Amber the junkie was finished. She was sit-

ting on the floor, buttoning up a man’s long-sleeved shirt. She

looked as tiny as a third-grader. Walter changed the tape and

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adjusted the volume, and another girl came up out of the base-

ment and onto the stage. She had red hair in a braid from the

top of her head, and without a lot of performance, she took off

her bra and started bobbing lightly on her toes, as if warming up

for a jog.

“We can’t compete with all this tit, ” Ellen said.

“Sure we can.”

“This is such dumb stuff. Why should anyone cross the street

for this stuff? ”

“They won’t, ” Al said.

“But if it’s just plain old tit they want, we can’t compete with

that.”

“Polly takes her shirt off sometimes, ” Al said.

“Yeah, but only when she’s really drunk. Then she cries and

everyone feels bad. It’s not the same thing as this. Plus, Polly

only works on Monday nights.”

“You’re right.”

“What if Walter tries to hire my bartenders to dance here? ”

“They won’t.”

“If someone could get Polly to take off her shirt and look like

she was enjoying it... that would be something, wouldn’t it? ”

“A guy would pay for that, ” Al said.

Ellen waved to a huge man as he walked in, and he came over

and sat beside her.

“Wide Dennis, ” she said. “Good to see you.”

Wide Dennis kissed Ellen and ordered a beer for himself and

a Scotch for her. She patted his head and smiled. Wide Dennis

had a head thick and faded as an old buoy. He had far-apart

eyes that tended to lean randomly and outward, as if he were

watching every corner at every time. He smelled like baby

powder and spit, but he was smart enough to do something

with computers that perhaps only two other people in the world

could do, and he was paid well for this.

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Tall Folks

“Did you know this was Walter’s place now? ” Ellen asked

him.

“Just found out.”

“I always thought he was Amish, ” Ellen said.

“I always thought he had a friend in Jesus, ” Wide Dennis

said.

Ellen laughed. “Remember Willy? Walter’s brother? ”

Wide Dennis rolled his eyes.

Ellen said, “Willy could put his whole fist in his mouth,

remember? ”

“He put his whole damn near fist in my mouth a few times.”

“I don’t know that guy, ” Al said.

“You’d know him if you saw him, ” Wide Dennis said. “He’ll

be the guy banging someone’s head against a Dumpster. Talking

real loud.”

“He was a hell of a talker, ” Ellen said. “Listening to Willy tell

a story was like getting stuck behind the school bus. If anyone

was going to open a damn strip joint in that family, it would be

that bastard Willy, not Walter.”

Wide Dennis took a dollar bill from his pile of change

and went up to the stage. He handed the dollar to the red-

headed dancer. He said something to her as she took it, and she

laughed. Ellen ordered two more beers, and when Rose brought

the bottles over, Ellen asked, “What do they say to those girls,

usually, when they give them money like that? ”

Rose shrugged and walked away.

“Can’t shut that girl up, ” Ellen said. “Just like her Uncle

Willy.”

“Usually they tell her she’s beautiful, ” Al said. “They tell her

she’s a great dancer or something.”

“That’s sweet.”

“You used to strip. You remember how it is.”

“Not in a place like this, ” Ellen said. “Not professionally. Just

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in the beginning, at Tall Folks. Just to get people in there.” Ellen

drank her Scotch. “It worked; that’s the truth. Some of those

people still haven’t left. Actually, some of those people are in

here right now. Can’t remember anyone ever handing me any

money for it, though.”

“How’s my boy Tommy been doing? ” someone behind Al

asked. Ellen looked around her nephew and smiled.

“Hello, James.”

“Hello, Ellie.”

“Where’ve you been, James? We miss you.”

James waved at the stage. There was another dancer up there

now, a tall black girl who was swaying, with her eyes shut. They

all watched her for a while. She swayed and swayed, slowly, as if

she’d forgotten where she was, as if she thought maybe she was

alone. They watched her for some time and she didn’t do any-

thing more than sway, but nobody was in any hurry to look at

anything else. The redheaded girl gathered up her things and

crossed the stage behind the swayer.

“Oh, my, ” James said. “Will you look at that? ”

“Which one? ” Al asked.

“All of them! Everywhere! ” James smiled. He had a front

tooth missing, from where Tommy had fallen down on him one

night and James had hit the floor with his mouth.

“Do they let you sing here? ” Ellen asked.

James shook his head. He used to come to the Tall Folks

Tavern and stand under the light by the cigarette machine to

sing. Ellen would turn down the jukebox and threaten the circus

into some kind of silence, and they would all listen to James. He

used to dress for it, too, in a found suit, dress socks, and sandals.

He looked like Nat King Cole but sang better. The light above

the cigarette machine shadowed his face just right. People used

to cry. Even sober people used to cry.

“How’s my Tommy doing? ” James asked again.

“He’s so fat now you wouldn’t believe it.”

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“Always was a big man.”

“Now he looks like a monk. Drinks like a fish, still.”

“Like a monkfish, ” Al said, and James laughed and hugged

him. James was wearing a leatherish coat that looked as if it had

been made out of pieces of car seats. Patches of brown and gray

and darker brown.

“I do miss Tommy, ” James said.

“And we miss you, ” Ellen said. “Stop over. Make the time.”

James nodded toward the swayer on the stage.

“We’ve still got girls across the street, honey, ” Ellen said.

James did not even nod this time, and Ellen whispered into

Al’s ear, “I want my people back.” He squeezed her hand.

Ellen got up and went to the bathroom, which looked the

same as it always had. Above the urinal, it still said, “I fucked

your mother, ” and in a different pen below it said, “Go home,

Dad. You’re drunk.”

Ellen put on lipstick and washed her hands without soap or

paper towels, which she was used to. Under the mirror was the

oldest piece of graffiti in the place, a decade-long joke. “Top

Three Things We Like Most About Tommy, ” it said. “#1) He’s

not here.” There were no listings under numbers two and three.

“Ha, ” Ellen said out loud.

She stayed in the bathroom a long time, ignoring a few quiet

knocks and one quick pounding at the door. When she finally

came out, the dark-haired girl with the serious center part was

standing there. They smiled at each other.

“Rose, ” Ellen said.

“I’m Sandy. Rose is my sister.”

“You look like sisters.”

“We all work here.”

“I heard that. It’s like a cottage industry. It’s like a bodega, ”

Ellen said, and when Sandy did not answer, she added, “I’m

Ellen.”

“I know.”

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The two women looked at each other. Sandy was wearing a

bathing suit like Rose’s, but she had shorts on.

“How’s business? ”

“Great, ” Sandy said. “And you? ”

“Great, ” Ellen lied.

“Good.” Sandy smiled. “That’s real good.”

“Are you waiting for the bathroom? ”

“I’m just sort of standing here.”

“Do you know my nephew Al? ” Ellen pointed down the bar.

“He’s the cutest boy here.”

“He sure is, ” Sandy said.

“He told me the other day that he’s been in love with me

since I used to push him around in his baby carriage.”

“Wow.”

“Do people fall in love with the girls in this bar? ”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“I don’t think they do, ” Ellen said. “I think they just like to

watch.”

“I don’t guess it matters, ” Sandy said.

“Your dad doesn’t even like girls. Excuse me for saying it.”

“He likes us.”

“You and your sisters? ”

“Yes.”

“Does he like Amber the junkie? ”

Sandy laughed.

“Don’t laugh at Amber. She’s a sweetheart. She’s from Flor-

ida, poor kid... It’s hard to say, ” Ellen said. “I used to have this bartender, Catherine, who had this walk. People used to come

to my bar on her shifts just to watch her walk back and forth.

Not your father. He never liked my bar.”

“Do you like his bar? ” Sandy asked, and she smiled as she

asked this.

“See, Sandy. It’s like this, ” Ellen said. “Not really. You know? ”

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“Sure, ” Sandy said. “I think I’ll go in there now.” She pointed

to the bathroom, and Ellen moved out of her way.

“Sure, ” Ellen said.

Ellen made her way back to Al and ordered more Scotch for

both of them. Wide Dennis was still there, and James in his

car-seat coat was there, too, talking to Amber the junkie.

“I don’t like this place, ” Ellen said to Al. “Who’s going to

come to a place like this? ”

“Me, neither, ” Amber said. She was eating a sandwich out of

one of those small coolers people use for carrying around six-

packs or organs fresh for transplants. She was drinking what

could have been a rum and Coke. “This place is the worst.”

“Nobody loves anyone here, ” Ellen said, and Al took her

hand and squeezed it. She kissed his neck.

“He’s the sweetest boy, ” Amber said.

“Remember that bartender you used to have over there? Vic-

toria? ” James asked Ellen. “She was a sassy thing, that girl.”

“She worked Wednesday nights, ” Al said.

“She worked Tuesday nights, baby, ” James said. “Trust me

please on this one.”

“You’re right.” Al nodded. “It was Tuesday.”

“My God, I do miss that girl.”

“She was a good bartender, ” Ellen said.

“Those were good, good times. We used to call that the

Victorian Era, didn’t we? When Victoria was still working.”

“That’s right, James.”

“Get that girl back again. That’s what we all need.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Tall Folks was holy back then. We used to drink out of that

damn girl’s hands.”

“She has kids in grammar school now, ” Ellen said.

“They don’t make girls like that anymore. That’s the truth.”

“They’re always making girls like that, ” Ellen said. “They just

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keep on making them, and there’s one of them across the street

at my bar right now, if you’re craving a great girl.”

“Who? ” Al asked. “Maddy? Not Maddy. Hardly.”

“I don’t drink like this all the time, ” Amber the junkie said

suddenly. “You know that? Some days I don’t drink for two

weeks.”

Then they were all quiet, looking at Amber.

“Okay, sweetie, ” Ellen said. “That’s great. Good girl.”

“Sure, ” Amber said. “No problem.”

Behind the bar, Walter was changing the cassette again, and a

new dancer stepped up onto the stage.

“Wow, ” Al said.

“I know, baby, ” James said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She was blond but not a born blond, with dark eyebrows and

short hair, combed down straight against a round, round face.

She wore fishnet stockings and garters, big clunky 1940s high

heels, and a short antique pink dressing gown that tied in the

front. She was chewing gum, and as the music started, she

looked down at Al and blew a bubble.

“Jesus Christ, ” he said.

“That girl is a pin-up, ” Wide Dennis said.

She danced for a while with her robe on, then slid it off and

coyly folded it at her feet. She stood up to face the bar with

naked breasts, and her nipples were perfect and tiny, like some

kind of cake decoration.

“She’s beautiful, ” Ellen whispered to Al.

“Ellen, ” he said, “I would eat that girl up with a spoon. I

really would.”

“She’s a steamed dumpling, isn’t she? ” Ellen said.

The dumpling had an actual act. She worked the bubble gum

and the stockings and her flushed little arms. She worked the

big clunky shoes and the belly and thighs. She held every avail-

able attention.

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“You know what I feel like? ” Ellen asked Al. “I feel like I’m

looking at a pastry, you know? In a bakery window? ”

“Yum, ” Al said gravely. “Yum.”

“You could melt cheese on that girl.”

“You know those tubes of biscuit dough you can buy in the

dairy case? ” Al asked. “You know how you smack them on the

counter and they go pop and all the dough pops out? ”

“Yeah.”

“She came out of one of those tubes.”

The dumpling was dancing in front of the mirror, looking at

herself. She put her hands against the reflection of her own

hands and kissed the reflection of her own mouth.

“That’s what strip joints are all about, ” Wide Dennis said.

“Greasy mirrors.”

“You know what she’s leaving on that mirror? ” Al said.

“Butter.”

“That’s not lipstick she has on, ” Ellen said. “That’s frosting.”

Al laughed and pulled Ellen tight, and she put her arm

around his shoulders.

“You should give her some money, ” he said.

“No way.”

“It’ll be cute. I’ll go with you. She’ll like it. She’ll think we’re

a married couple and our therapist told us to come here so we

could have better sex.”

“She’ll wonder how I tricked a twenty-year-old into marry-

ing me.”

Ellen put her face against Al’s neck, which was warm and

salty. Wide Dennis went up to the stage and leaned his huge self

against the rail, as if he were on a veranda or a cruise ship, as if

the scenery were delightful and vast, as if he were a man of great

leisure. He pulled dollar bills out of his pocket one at a time and

held them up suavely between his second and third fingers. The

dumpling accepted the money somehow within her choreogra-

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phy, and managed to tuck each dollar bill into her garter as

though it were a slip of paper with a phone number on it that

she thoroughly intended to call later. Against Wide Dennis, she

looked slightly miniaturized, a perfect scale model of herself.

“He’ll stand there as long as he has money, won’t he? ” Ellen

asked.

“She’s the sweetest girl, ” Amber the junkie said. “I love her.”

The dumpling leaned down and took Wide Dennis’s huge

head in her hands. She kissed him once over each eyebrow.

“I love that girl, ” James said.

“Me, too, ” Al said.

“I love her, ” Ellen said. “I love her, too.”

Ellen drank the last of her Scotch and said, “This is bad news

for me. This place is really bad news, isn’t it? ” She smiled at Al,

and he kissed her with his boozy, pretty mouth. It was more of a

kiss than aunts usually get. He kissed her as if he had been

planning the kiss for some time, and Ellen called up all of the

lessons of her considerable history to accept and return it with

grace. She let him hold the back of her head in one reassuring

hand, as if she were a weak-necked baby, feeding. To Ellen, his

mouth tasted like her own fine Scotch, nicely warmed.

When Ellen and Al finally crossed back over to the Tall Folks

Tavern, it was closing time, and Maddy the mean bartender was

kicking out her last drunks.

“Go home! ” she was yelling. “Go home and apologize to your

wives! ”

Ellen did not ask Maddy how the night had been and she did

not greet any of her customers, but walked behind the bar and

picked up the lost-and-found box. Then she and Al went to-

gether to the back room. Ellen spread the lost-and-found coats

over the pool table. Al turned off the low overhead light, and

the two of them climbed up onto the pool table, with its thin

mattress of other people’s clothes. Ellen stretched out on her

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back with a damp jacket pillow and Al settled his head on her

chest. She kissed his smoky hair. In the dark of the back room,

without a window or a fan, the air smelled like cigarette ashes

and the dust of chalk. It smelled something like a school.

Much later, more than an hour later, Al did roll carefully on

top of Ellen, and she did lace her fingers snugly against his

back, but before this they rested for a long time, still in the dark, holding hands like old people. They listened to Maddy the

mean bartender throw the last drunks out of the Tall Folks

Tavern, and they listened to her clean up and shut down the bar.

On the best nights, Ellen used to dance on that same bar with

her arms spread open wide, saying, “My people! My people! ”

while the men crowded at her feet like dogs or students. They

used to beg her not to close. It would be daylight and they

would still be coming in from across the street, begging her not

to close. She told this to Al, and he nodded. In the dark of that

big back room, she felt his little nod.

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