Personal Yummy #19
Following is the ninth excerpt that I’m sharing from my coming-of-age novel, The Grill on Murray Avenue—set in the nineties—about the inhabitants of an unassuming bar-and-grill in Squirrel Hill, a vibrant neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh. The story is told by Jenna, an idealistic, ambitious waitress who is at the center of it all.
If you’d like to become acquainted with the rest of The Grill’s characters, both the Kindle version and the paperback version of my novel are now available on Amazon.
Enjoy…
Irwin
“You’re different from most, you know.”
I am reaching and stretching, upon my tiptoes, for the large plastic container, full of colorful hard candy, that sits on the ledge above the register.
“Oh yeah, how’s that?” I answer, looking furtively over my shoulder as I place a yellow Jolly Rancher and a red cinnamon treat on top of the check that rests on the black plastic holder in my hand.
“I can just tell. From the way you work. Your attitude about every little thing… You know—you’re serious. You have a very good work ethic.”
I turn around slowly and smile, then walk a bit closer…
So he has been watching me, I think to myself, as I’ve thought—and sensed—so many times before. The way I move from table to table. The way my thin fingers rest upon the bar as black, fizzy Pepsi shoots from the gun into the ice-filled pint glass. The way a piece of soft hair lies astray upon my long, bare neck as I punch an order into the machine.
“That’s very sweet of you to say, Irwin,” I answer, looking thoughtfully at him, at his black, plentiful shock of hair, and at his black, thick-framed, thick-lensed glasses, as he sits at the bar having a beer. “And it’s even nicer of you to notice.”
“Oh, it wasn’t hard,” he quickly replies, chuckling in his innocent—yet-trying-to-appear-tough—way. “Not too hard at all.”
******
Everybody loves Irwin—or “Bubba,” as most are used to calling him, an oxymoron without a doubt—especially Curt and Nick and Mary Ellen (the kitchen manager and main evening-shift cook), who, in an instant, would lay down their lives for his. I’m not sure how or why or when or where they met—probably here at The Grill, where so many lifelong relationships have sprung and been nourished—but they are just about as close as people can get.
Frequently he arrives in the evenings when either Curt or Nick is bartending, all stocky-but-lean, five-foot-four of him strutting in—or attempting to strut in—like John Travolta dressed in too-blue blue jeans; a white, decaled, overly long T-shirt; and clunky, tired, open-laced high-tops. He then coolly pulls out a bar stool and sits “casually” upon it, one foot on the lower rung, the other placed firmly on the floor, legs spread wide, the empowering mound of gold and silver metal from West Penn Hospital—where he works as a receptionist—lying haphazardly on the bar. Next he orders a beer, in the most masculine voice he can find, and then takes a sip of it, slowly tapping his fingers on the bar and grooving his head up and down to the music, his chin in the lead.
After about an hour or two, when he gets up to leave, it’s obvious that he didn’t really come in for the beer—there is usually at least a quarter, sometimes more, of the liquid left in the only bottle he ordered. Rather, it was the friendship and the chatting that he was after, and—depending on who was working—the observing and the watching.
Some nights he arrives especially late, and just for Mary Ellen, who has called him in desperation. Either the sink is relentlessly clogged (with various scraps of food), the faucet is leaking all over the place, or some essential parts are getting rusty and old. So many times—and just in time—he appears in the kitchen through the back door, his glasses fogged up, but his mighty, experienced, red toolbox right beside him. Down on his knees he goes, flat on his back he lies, no dirt or wetness fazing him, his tools fitting perfectly in the grooves of his hands, like familiar friends. And in no time at all, and with a magical skill, the problem is gone. The sink drains effortlessly, the faucet is done crying, the parts glisten shiny and new. It hasn’t taken me long to realize that working at the hospital is his day job, but plumbing—it is his art.
When Irwin isn’t actually physically at The Grill, he is here over the phone, calling up Curt, again and again, for help on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette daily crossword puzzle, which he loves to challenge himself with (to make up for the challenge he apparently isn’t getting at the hospital). And he is right—Curt is the person to ask. He is especially good at the puzzles, doing them every now and then when he has the chance. I hear him dishing out answer after answer to Irwin—Barton…mardi…Cook…Waters…—while I imagine Irwin eagerly filling in square after square, using a number two pencil, making thick, deliberate letters. Every now and then I even get to participate, like the time Curt handed the phone to me, saying, “You’d better handle this one.” I picked up the phone, said hello, and there was Irwin, talking in a serious, earnest voice, like he was getting ready to operate: “Okay, you’re ready?… This has five letters, ending with an a. And here is what it says… Ready?… Okay… Af-ri-can dance…name means…‘to rub navels together.’ Have any—”
“Oh, oh!” I replied, cutting him off, so proud to know the answer. “It’s samba! The answer is samba!”
A few seconds of silence followed this outburst, but then Irwin responded with one of his own.
“Right!… Oh yeah, right! I think you’re right!… I would’ve never gotten that one!… That’s great! Thanks for your help! Now I should be able to get the rest of them!”
Sometimes, when he hasn’t had the chance to call during the day, he even brings the unfinished crossword puzzle in with him after work, interrogating anyone who seems interested—a raised eyebrow or a wrinkled forehead giving them away—passing the paper from person to person until each mystery is solved. “I think I know it, Irwin” or “Give me a second to think” are the kinds of expressions that are soon flying around the place, accompanied by hands scratching heads and shoulders hunched forward eagerly. When an answer is finally found, especially one that has taken an extra amount of time and effort, you would think that the Steelers just won the Super Bowl! The clapping, the yahooing, the smiling, the noise—there is just so much of it.
What a simple thing it is, this Irwin-inspired detective game, but how happy and involved—and connected—it makes all of us feel.
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