BEN BERKLEE'S HIGH FIVE NIGHTSPOT

33. BEN BERKLE’S HIGH FIVE NIGHTSPOT:

I met Sergeant Schroeder at Ben Berkle’s High Five a nightspot on 5th Street one night way after the moon had gone down way before sunlight arrives and kind of right in the middle of the two spaces that night fills up and we sat there exchanging tales and comments he looking over at each and every female that walked in or by and for sure commenting precisely and discreetly on each of their attributes most of which I heartily agreed with for unlike me this guy was or seemed completely comfortable with sex and could undress a woman verbally in ten seconds while all I could do was sort of look or stare and imagine or something far more inconsequential than he did and for him so many times the opening exchange whatever it was took him with ease to the next step past pleasantries which was often a sequence of more and more intense exchanges ribald riotous and raw shall we say and it always amazed me the way - no matter what kind of stuff you hear about women being diffident or awkward and shy or easily embarrassed - these females always went whole hog into it with him no holds barred jokes and asides and comments about everything from sexual positions to swallowing cum to fucking up the ass finger licking dick sucking there was no limit to the happiness and fun he brought out and it always seemed not only he but everyone was amazingly and completely comfortable talking about sex pecker size tits fucking you name it a completely easy and joyous way with all of that (something I never had for sure something I always ran from afraid of or whatever but something lost and frozen deep inside me which this guy seemed to have thawed out by the time he was 3) and it went that way all the time except now if you want an example I can’t really give one because it was all the same nothing precise just the usual filth and I guess for sure he got laid a lot because he seemed to always leave with someone someone of the ‘female persuasion’ let’s say and we never really talked about what went on we just went on the next time we saw each other kind of right where we left off and this day he had something to say : "You know what you know what I can’t stand it’s the beaver-assed pussies who come waddling in here and these are guys mind you they come waddling in here all sensitive and nervous-like over things over wildlife and the atmosphere or the environment or cruelty to animals and all that shit and I do not want to hear about it and these guys are always the same head up their ass face in a book theory and literal and usually queer as all get-out too and they just burn me up so I sit here in a fog getting angry and having encounters and ideas that jog my memory (which ain’t always good to jog) and then I get all worked up and start getting loud and mean but whatever then they go away and the ladies come over and sometimes there’s girls here that I can’t exactly place but know I’ve seen before and liked and it’s from that point I start working for what the hell else I got to do – you follow me? – so it just becomes fun sleaze and wry jokes at their expense or at least at the expense of their tits or asses you know and then late at night you get the big girls in here the really crazy ones with names like Tyfanee or Bambee strippers or night-club girls and they really have no limits let me tell you no limits and by that time of night they don’t even care about the money although let me tell you if they were really any good by that time of night they’d be bedded down with some millionaire sugar-daddy already playing his cards for all they were worth however NOT these girls these are a different type but they start telling me their stories and problems and we just play it off like a joke or something and hey the next thing you know I’m their taster for the night I’m their social-worker cause and the next day what the hell I buy ‘em a breakfast and they’re happy can’t beat that can you?" so anyway he finally stopped talking and we had another drink and I bought him a bag of pretzels if you can call what they put in there for a buck fifty a bag of pretzels for it’s more like crumbs but you know New York prices and all and we’re sitting there across from the old Merchant’s Exchange building and there’s a few old pictures in older frames in the window that have been slowly water-stained and curled over the years but they bring back a great portrait of the old days barrel-fires bricked streets square old cars and lonely old men and everything and I realized that probably at one time this barroom was packed each moment with traders and banana merchants and auction contractors and foodstuffs brokers and all that and in the real heyday of the 1920’s for that stuff this was probably quite the booming joint and it sadly but proudly had apparently lived on its own all past that for even now Chanterelle or something was the name of the restaurant high-assed-end eating establishment now closed up which once last graced the ground floor of the beautiful merchant’s building and those people there who had to look out at this place here across the narrow street as they ate probably lost the entire picture missed the whole point and wound up just disliking this place as a leftover nasty and dirty shot and drink joint for wasted dirty old tired drinkers and if that’s the truth than fuck’em all as I would say because the grand tradition here is still somehow present in the high ceiling with its visual and proud demeanor and the wonderful back of the bar area and the little ante-room off the end and the tables and glass and stuff pretty much left as it was from some 1945 idealized version of movie alcoholism BE THAT FINE BY ME and then he said to me "you know I once heard of a guy and this was a true story who was 70 years old and living in Paterson New Jersey on the fading tail-end of an old music career in orchestral music that seemed to have gone nowhere and this was a long time ago mind you and the poverty and depression finally got to him so he wrote a farewell note to his wife "why should or how can a man exist and be powerless to earn means for his family?" and then he gave his daughter a last music lesson and swallowed a lethal dose of morphine now ain’t that a sad story?"