The Tender Bar: A Memoir

by J. R. Moehringer

  I saw that Joey D was right. Uncle Charlie was addicted to underdogs. And he didn’t just bet them, he became them. All of us were guilty of giving our hearts to athletes. Uncle Charlie gave them his soul. Seeing him foam at the mouth about Leonard, I was struck by the danger of identifying with anyone, let alone underdogs. And yet I couldn’t worry about Uncle Charlie anymore, because it was five-thirty in the morning and I had my own problems.

  After nearly five months at the Times I was still fetching sandwiches, still separating carbons, still the infamous and laughable Mr. Salty. I’d written a few microscopic briefs, and I’d contributed notes for a humdrum roundup of fan celebrations after the New York Giants won the Super Bowl. An “inauspicious debut,” Uncle Charlie called it. I’d expected that the Times would restore my self-confidence, but it was stripping away the little I had left. And to make everything worse the newspaper was threatening to strip me of my name.

  A top editor called me into his office. He was a big man with big glasses, a big bow tie, and a big problem with me. He’d heard from the copydesk that I’d been insisting my byline should read JR Moehringer, without dots. A copyboy insisting? It was heresy.

  “Is this true?” he asked.

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “No dots? You want your byline to read JR Moehringer, without dots?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “What does JR stand for?”

  Easy does it, I told myself. The editor was asking me to reveal my darkest truth, and I knew what would happen if I did. He’d decree that henceforth my byline read as my birth certificate: John Joseph Moehringer Jr. The men at Publicans would then know my real name, and I’d never be JR or Kid again. I’d be Johnny, or Joey—or Junior. Whatever meager identity I’d been able to forge in Publicans would disappear. Moreover, every time I was lucky enough to earn a byline in the Times it would be someone else’s name. It would be my father’s name, a reminder of him and a credit to him. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “JR,” I told the editor, feeling sick, “doesn’t stand for anything.”

  “JR is not your initials?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Dodged a bullet there. It was no lie to say JR wasn’t my initials.

  “JR is your legal first name? Just a J and an R?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Why did I drink that seventy-five dollars my mother sent me to change my name?

  “I need to study this,” the editor said. “It just doesn’t look right. JR. No dots. I’ll get back to you.”

  Later that night at Publicans I told Uncle Charlie about my meeting with the editor.

  “Why didn’t you just tell him your name?” he asked.

  “I don’t want people knowing I’m named after my father.”

  “Who’s named after whose father?” Colt said.

  I gave Uncle Charlie a pleading look. He pursed his lips. Colt looked at Uncle Charlie. Then me. Uncle Charlie shrugged. I shrugged. Colt lost interest.

  That was the great thing about Colt.

  The editor scowled at me, as if I’d brought him corned beef instead of tuna salad. He’d now spent ten minutes on me and my name, twice what he’d ever spent on any copyboy. “I’ve done some research,” he said. “It does seem there’s some precedent here. Were you aware that Harry S. Truman did not use a dot after his middle initial?”

  “No sir, I wasn’t.”

  “The S didn’t stand for anything. And e.e. cummings? Also no dots.”

  “I see.”

  “But by God we gave them dots anyway. The president, the poet, we gave them dots, whether they liked it nor not. And do you know why? Because it’s Times style. And do you know why? Because it looks ridiculous otherwise. And we’re not about to break with precedent, or with Times style, for a copyboy, are we? Hereafter you will be J dot R dot Moehringer.”

  The editor scratched a note in a folder, which I assumed was my personnel file. He looked up, shocked that I was still standing there.

  “Good day,” he said.

  I went out drinking with several copyboys. We sailed around midtown, laughing, making fun of the editors, imagining different things we could do to their sandwiches. We went to Rosie O’Grady’s, an Irish saloon that reminded me slightly of Publicans, then to a place across from the Times, a dive with peanut shells on the floor and men fast asleep at the bar, like babies in high chairs.

  A groan went up as we walked in. “What’s the matter?” I asked the bartender.

  “Leonard just won the fourth round.”

  He jerked his head toward a radio atop the cash register. With all the stress and turmoil about my name, I’d completely forgotten about the Super Fight. I said good-bye to my fellow copyboys and ran to Penn Station.

  I reached Publicans just as Uncle Charlie was returning from a movie theater in Syosset, where he, Colt, and Bob the Cop had watched the fight on closed circuit. “Who won?” I asked.

  Uncle Charlie, face glazed with sweat, shook his head. “J.R.,” he said, lighting a cigarette, “it was the fight to end all fights.”

  “Who won?”

  “Four hundred million people tuned in to this fight,” he said. “Every celebrity on the planet was ringside. Chevy Chase. Bo Derek. Billy Crystal. That bitch from Dynasty.”

  “Linda Evans?”

  “The other bitch.”

  “Joan Collins.”

  “Ex-wife of—?”

  “Anthony Newley.”

  “That’s my boy. And you’ll find this interesting. Sinatra was there.”

  “No.”

  “Trust me, J.R., no one even noticed him. This fight was too engrossing. This was a donnybrook. This was the last scene of The Quiet Man.”

  High praise. The fight at the end of The Quiet Man was deemed by every man in Publicans to be the finest in cinematic history, better than the fights in Rocky, Raging Bull, Cool Hand Luke, or From Here to Eternity.

  Uncle Charlie sat on a barstool and ordered a vodka with a cranberry splash and a shot of Sambuca on the side.

  “Who won?” I said.

  “Hagler’s in blue trunks,” he said. “Leonard’s in white, red piping down the sides and red tassels on his shoes. They both look—beautiful. Oiled up, 158 pounds of gleaming muscle, their bodies in tip-top condition. Roman gladiators. First round, Hagler stalks Leonard, and Leonard dances away. Like Astaire. No, fuck it, Astaire was clubfooted compared to Leonard. You never saw a man this light on his feet. Hagler wants to kill the son of a bitch. Small problem. He can’t find him. Leonard glides around in circles, Hagler chasing, and when Hagler stops, Leonard stops and throws a feathery combo, jab, jab, uppercut, jab, then dances away. Bye-bye. I’d like to stay and chat but—jab, jab—got to run. First round Bob the Cop and I award to Leonard, though I think Colt gives it to Hagler. Colt. Fucking Colt.”

  “Who won?” I said.

  “Second round, Leonard again, no question. He’s a genius, a master. An artiste. Stick, jab, dance. By the third round Hagler is starting to come unglued. He’s a madman.”

  Uncle Charlie slid off his stool and bent into a fighter’s crouch. People paused in their conversations, put down their drinks, and turned to see what he was doing.

  “Leonard is tormenting Hagler,” Uncle Charlie said. “Stick and jab, stick and jab, right hand, left hook, then he bounces away from Hagler, verbally taunting him all the while.”

  Uncle Charlie stuck, jabbed, taunted the shadows, his cigarette dangling from his lips. The crowd in the barroom now began to collect around Uncle Charlie, forming a circle.

  “Hagler is on the offensive,” Uncle Charlie said, “but Leonard is on a fucking pogo stick. He’s got a Buck Rogers jet pack on his back. Hagler has trained all his life for this, but Leonard has trained to render Hagler’s training useless, to make him feckless. You don’t mind if I say ‘feckless,’ do you?

  “Fourth round, Leonard is controlling the fight, so calm, so relaxed, that he brings his fist all the way behind his back an
d twirls it in the air, the old razzle-dazzle, and socks Hagler right in the breadbasket. Humiliating. No respect for the man. Smiling at him. Still, you get the feeling Leonard is teasing a wild tiger.

  “Fifth round, Leonard stops. No more dancing. Can’t dance. Tired. Fatigue setting in. Hagler catches Leonard with a right. Pow. Another. Bam. Each blow enough to kill you or me. Hagler sends in a hard left to the ribs. Stiff. Again. Bracing. Again. Hagler’s hammer has been cocked for four rounds—now he’s getting his chance to drop it! Wham! He bangs Leonard’s head and face! Leonard is hurt!”

  Uncle Charlie snapped a flurry of left-right combinations. The whole barroom had now come to a halt, no one being served, no one talking, everyone part of the circle around my uncle.

  “Hagler wobbles Leonard! But Leonard ducks, dives, holds, escapes. Still taunts Hagler. I’m still pretty, you scumbag. You still can’t touch me.”

  Uncle Charlie backpedaled. A moonwalking flamingo. The exertion seemed to be making him drunker. Like Leonard he should have fallen, should have been unconscious, but some supernatural force was keeping him on his feet. “Sixth, seventh, eighth rounds,” he said, “both fighters so weak they can hardly stand. Leonard doesn’t stop, though. If he stops he’s dead. You see in his eyes what he wants to do, what he’d do if he weren’t so tired. What both of them would do. You realize, J.R., how much the whole thing—everything—is about being tired. Every man sees his life as a prizefight, don’t let anyone tell you different. Follow? There’s nothing you can’t learn from boxing. The poets knew. Who am I thinking of? Which poet was a boxer?”

  “Byron? Keats?”

  “Whoever. You know what I’m saying. Ninth round. One of the great rounds of all time. Hagler throws Leonard into a corner and they stand toe-to-toe. Hagler unleashes the heavy artillery. He’s killing him. I’m screaming at Leonard, ‘Get out! Get out!’” Uncle Charlie fluttered his fists, trying to get out of the corner. “Bob the Cop turns to me and says, ‘It’s over. Leonard is done.’ But Leonard, don’t ask me how, punches his way out. He swats Hagler sideways and dances away and the crowd comes to its feet.”

  The crowd in the bar also stirred, and cheered, and leaned forward for the finish.

  “Tenth round. Hagler busts Leonard with an uppercut. Leonard counters—combination, right hand, left hook. Eleventh round. Hagler—left, right, left to the head. Jesus. Leonard answers—flurry, wham, flurry. Unbelievable.

  “Final round,” Uncle Charlie said. “The two men come out at the bell and what do they do? What do you suppose they do, J.R.?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They beckon each other. J.R., they thump their chests and pound their heads and motion. Come on, fucker! Come on! Imagine that kind of courage!”

  I thought I saw tears in Uncle Charlie’s eyes as he reenacted the last seconds. He circled my barstool, flicking jabs at my chin, and straight rights, and left hooks, each punch coming within a half inch of landing. Beads of sweat ran down his head. I thought of the time he’d broken his ribs in Publicans, playing the imaginary wall at Fenway, and I prayed he wouldn’t break any bones, his or mine, going the distance with the imaginary Hagler. “At the bell,” Uncle Charlie said, gasping, “Leonard is so tired, his cornermen have to carry him back to his corner.” Uncle Charlie acted as if cornermen were helping him to his barstool. “They announce the decision. The judges are split. One for Hagler, two for Leonard. Leonard wins. Biggest upset in boxing history. Don’t take my word for it. The announcers are saying the same thing. Biggest upset in history. Leonard is leaning against the ropes. He can’t support himself, but when they tell him he’s won—the joy in his face! He’s so tired—so tired, J.R.—but when you win you don’t really know how tired you are.”

  Uncle Charlie slumped forward. The barroom shook with applause. Everyone seemed to understand what the fight meant to Uncle Charlie, and it had little to do with whittling down his vigorish. I kissed him on his head and told him congratulations.

  “I felt sorry for Hagler,” Uncle Charlie said a while later, after he’d toweled off and caught his breath. “He looked so sad. So unmarvelous. Is that a word? You don’t mind if I say ‘unmarvelous,’ do you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know Hagler legally changed his name to Marvelous? Why would a man with all his money go to the trouble of legally changing his name? To something so silly? What would possess a man to do such a thing, J.R.? Why would he give a shit? What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  thirty-three | COPYGIRL

  As deftly as he mixed cocktails, Uncle Charlie mixed his customers. He had an uncanny knack for introducing people. He would point to one person’s chest, then another’s, then extol them to each other, then virtually command them to be friends or lovers. He was a catalyst even when he didn’t mean to be. At a dinner party in West Hampton I found myself seated next to two young newlyweds. I asked how they met, and they told me they had been at a bar, “a great old bar,” and they were both trying vainly to get the bartender’s attention. They started chatting about this bartender, how comically rude he was, and soon forgot all about him and focused on each other. I asked if this bartender happened to be bald, and if he was wearing dark glasses, and if he told them to keep their shirts on. Their mouths opened at the same moment, as if they were baby birds waiting to be fed.

  One of Uncle Charlie’s great matchmaking coups was Don and Dalton. No one but Uncle Charlie thought the urinal comptroller and the barroom poet could be pals. But Uncle Charlie made a point of introducing them because they were both offbeat geniuses, and both lawyers, and because he had a hunch. A short while later Don and Dalton decided to hang out a shingle together. Their new law firm was officially launched with a cocktail party at Publicans, where Don and Dalton intended to do much of their lawyering. A proud night for them, it was a triumph for Uncle Charlie, who presumed that by introducing Don and Dalton he was guaranteed free legal aid the rest of his life.

  The offices of Don and Dalton were on Plandome Road, three blocks from the bar, just above Louie the Greek’s diner, and the space came with a small apartment in the back. Don and Dalton were looking for a tenant, I heard someone along the bar say. I asked Don if they’d consider renting to me. “Don’t you want to see it first?” he asked. I didn’t.

  Grandma begged me not to go. Her eye was twitching terribly as she laid out her case. Aunt Ruth and the cousins had moved out again, so Grandpa’s house would be quieter and cleaner. There would be plenty of hot water. And think of the money you’ll save, she said—rents are so expensive. Also, she added softly, she enjoyed my company. She would miss me. Left unsaid was the other reason Grandma wanted me to stay, the saddest reason. She’d come to rely on the buffer I provided between her and Grandpa. I’d never taken Grandpa by the throat, but as I got older I had become proficient at distracting him when he was being mean.

  I told Grandma I had to leave. I needed privacy. What I couldn’t say was that I also needed sleep. I was groggy from being awakened every other night by her son. I needed a bed that wasn’t in Uncle Charlie’s nightly flight path. And besides, I wanted to say, but couldn’t: Real men don’t live with their grandmothers.

  Bob the Cop helped me move. Walking into Grandpa’s house he cast a cold eye on the bicentennial sofa and the duct-taped furniture and I could see him thinking: I’ve raided nicer joints than this. He loaded his car with my stuff—six boxes of books, three suitcases—and drove me up Plandome Road. Don handed us the keys to my new apartment. Two tiny rooms, one half bath. The carpet was fecal brown, the “bedroom” sat directly over Louie the Greek’s griddle. The smell of pork chops, lamb shanks, gyros, omelets, cheese fries, chocolate cake and Pepsi rose like steam through the floors. It was so smelly, Bob the Cop said, it was noisy.

  Bob the Cop plodded back and forth, taking in every detail, as if the apartment were a murder scene. At the back window he peered out the dirty venetian blinds. Parking lot. Dumpsters. Seagulls. A train roared into the
station next door, making the walls quiver. He snorted. “Out of the fire,” he said, “into the frying pan.”

  When Bob the Cop told the men at Publicans about my new bachelor pad, and the position of my bed, they razzed me about finding a girl willing to “ride the griddle.” They thought I was horny, like them. I informed them that I was lonely. I wanted someone with whom I could go for long walks, listen to Sinatra, read. They stared at me in horror.

  I confessed to the men that I had developed an excruciating crush on a copygirl at the Times. She reminded me of Sidney. Though she didn’t look like Sidney, she had that same ethereal detachment, which I associated with wealth. Copygirl was rich, I believed, or else, because she worked in the business section, her proximity to stories about wealth made her seem so. Either way, whenever she glided through the newsroom in a long tailored skirt and a tight silk blouse, a look of boredom and contempt on her face, all the copyboys stopped separating carbons, and all the male editors (and a few of the females) stopped reading to watch her over the tops of their bifocals. She trailed perfume behind her like a transparent pink streamer, and I purposely walked in her wake to catch a whiff. I couldn’t imagine how to approach her, and my helplessness and confusion worried me. My problems with women stemmed from some personality defect, I feared, which I self-diagnosed as hyper-empathy. Raised by my mother, minded by Grandma, influenced by Sheryl, I’d absorbed the female point of view. All the women who had tried to make me a man had done the opposite. This was why I had trouble approaching women. I liked them too much, and I was too much like them, to be predatory.