Sundays are the best day…
for observing freaks that is. They say that the freaks come out at night. Sunday nights, however, the real freaky freaks–as opposed to the poseur freaks–come out en masse. Over the last few weeks I have stumbled upon a local bar here in Queens that has turned into a gold mine of freakishness. (Let me take a second here to define what I mean by freak. First off I don’t mean that crazy, cool, but kind of weird hipster kid. When I say freak I mean the weird, mentally unstable, most likely smelly, disheveled, disorientated person. I mean the type of person that you look at in awe at the fact that they have survived on this earth long enough to reach adulthood. Maybe it proves the existence of a god since there is no way this person should be alive. That is what I mean by freak. Now that the semantics are out of the way let us continue on this journey).
The first time I sauntered into this bar a few weeks ago I was just looking for a little hole in the wall place where I could watch some baseball, drink a beer, and eat some decent pub grub. On the surface it didn’t look any different than the plethora of other little niche bars in the New York area. I was soon to find out different though. Around 7 PM the shift changed and the sky started to darken. A beer or two later and it was completely dark. I looked around and the change was drastic. The entire of the bar had changed. It had been populated by a bunch of commuters stopping off for a quick brewski before heading home, but that was no longer the case. The normal people had left, as quick as roaches fleeing when the lights are turned on, and had conveniently been replaced by a group of real fucking winners. I’m telling you these were some of the saddest people I had seen–until the next time I went back.
It’s amazing how much you can learn and see by just sitting back and watching people. So that’s just what I did sit back and watch. The most interesting person there was this young–she looked young but wound up being older than me–girl. This girl was a fucking true gem. She might as well of had C-R-A-Z-Y tattooed across her forehead. The craziness was just vibrating out of her body, it was uncanny. Anyways I sat back with growing curiosity and watched her and what I thought was her date. This dude must have been 60 so I also thought that maybe it was her dad. I just knew she was one of those crazy broads that had daddy issues so why wouldn’t she be going out with a dude old enough to be her daddy–but I digress. So I sat back and watched these two interact, and I have never wanted super hearing more than I did that night. Their whole demeanor and conversation looked so uncomfortable. I wish I could have heard it. Well the old man must have been a borderline freak because he boned out after a little bit, and the girl went outside to go smoke a cigarette. I decided to go outside also because well I was curious and the game was boring. I followed her out and fiddled around with my phone pretending that I was doing something important. I then gave her a sideways glance and caught her eye. This is where things got interesting.
“Hey whats up?” I asked.
“Smoking.” she stated bluntly, “Yeh I noticed that,” I quipped, all while thinking what a brain trust this broad is. “So how are you doing tonight?” This is when her sad tale of woe started.
“Well I’m doing really shitty, you know, I mean I just lost my job today and I was also evicted from my apartment. Lucky my friend is going to let my cat stay at his apartment but I can’t stay there.” That last part almost caused me to burst into uncontrollable laughter. The ‘lucky’ part is finding a place for your cat. Wow. Anyways she was standing there looking all sad and pathetic and I was doing my best not to laugh in her face when she finished up her cigarette and said her good-bye and walked back inside. The story didn’t end here though. Another beer or two later she walked out to smoke and once again I walked out shortly afterwards. Recognition came slowly to her, but eventually she recognized me and said hello. First we exchanged names, hers was Ellen, and then in need of more drama I started asking prying questions.
“So what kind of job did you have?” I asked. “Well I worked for some advertising firm in Manhattan.” Totally unbelievable, but whatever it’s her story not mine so I let her run with it. “Well sounds like a good job I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet in no time,” I say reassuringly. “Yeh I guess, I mean, I’m just worried about tonight,” she says with an air of concern. “Why?? What’s going on tonight? ” I excitedly ask her. Unbeknown to me the craziness was about to start. “Nothing,” and here she starts to get kind of weepy, “I just don’t have anywhere to stay tonight. I think I might have to spend the night in the park,” she bemoans.
“Damn that sucks. How come your friend is keeping your cat but won’t let you stay also?” I was bewildered that she had a friend that would allow her cat to stay at his house and not her. I still don’t think she owns a cat and the friend is probably just as much a figment of her imagination. “I dunno I’m just glad my cat has somewhere to stay.” Right as opposed to you having a place to stay. Anyways she continued to lament her sad situation. “It’s going to be a cold night tonight. I really wish I didn’t have to stay in the park. I wish I had somewhere to stay,” she said as she looked up at me with pleading eyes. She was really fishing with that last statement. It wasn’t an empty wish. She was basically asking me for a place to stay. She even looked at me with a sideways type glance and gave me the whole doe-eyed, sad, innocent look, but of course I’m not down with random freaks crashing at my house, so I made sure she understood that. “Well good luck with finding a place to stay and be careful in the park it attracts all kinds of crazy individuals, I said as I started to head back toward my beer.”
I went back to the bar and continued to watch the game–I think the Angels were playing–and like I said it was kind of a boring game, as most AL games tend to be. I noticed that the Ellen kept glancing over at me, but I kept my eyes looking forward. I didn’t want to encourage her. She ended up leaving shortly afterward, I assume she headed out to the park to get herself a good bench to sleep on. After she left the night quickly descended into a blur for me as I started to take shots of whiskey and before I knew it it was 4 AM and I had to go catch the bus home. That wouldn’t be the last time I would see Ellen. I saw her the next Sunday and her crazy, amazing story got even weirder.
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