WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND chapter one I ''d been back behind the bar of the Midtown Sheraton for about two weeks, after a six-month hiatus--the hiatus because my foot-dragging bartenders'' union took that long to get my job back after the corporation fired me. The company and union both hoping, no doubt, I''d starve to death in the interval. I was settling into, I thought, one of those quiet periods in life that folks with any sense clamor for after we''ve been exposed to too much excitement for too long. This particular afternoon, I was pondering the offerings in the Daily Racing Form''s past performance charts for Belmont, hoping to get one more bet down for the afternoon race card, blissfully unaware that unresolved mysteries and ghosts of barrooms past were waiting just beyond the next race. It was the lull between lunch and the cocktail hour on a Friday, and Alphonse, the manager, was huffily stomping through the lounge to let me know he didn''t like that I was reading the paper. This was nothing new. He''d been hovering around me like a mosquito since I''d been back on the job, waiting for me to make a mistake so he could fire me again. At the moment, he was skulking around back by the service bar.
But I didn''t pay much attention, since I''d already done most of the prep and restocked the coolers for the night shift. I worked mostly nights myself, despite the wear and tear on my psyche, because the money was better. And also because--even as I advanced into my forties--I was still afflicted with the delusion that Icould make it as an actor. Working nights meant I could catch a morning audition now and again. Not content to be insulted by pompous hotel managers day in and day out, I went out of my way to be demeaned by supercilious stage managers every couple of weeks. I worked the Friday day shift so I could spend an evening with my son. On the rare occasions I actually landed a part, I switched with the day bartenders, who were happy to pick up the extra bucks on the night shift. "McNulty," said Alphonse, rubbing the surface of the service bar with his manicured fingers.
"This bar is sticky." "Wipe it off," I suggested. "Are you refusing a direct order?" He snapped to attention, pulling himself up straight to his full five feet six inches, presumably extending the military metaphor. "You didn''t give an order, Alphonse." I pointed out. The company wanted him to build an ironclad case against me so the union couldn''t get my job back this time when he fired me. Alphonse was trying, but he wasn''t much of a strategist. "Besides," I said, "you can''t fire me for not wiping the bar.
It has to be something serious." Alphonse glared at me a few seconds, wiped his fingers on a bar towel, flipped it disdainfully onto the bar, then strode briskly out of the room, as if he had something important to do. The two customers nursing scotches at the bar snickered as he left, enjoying what they mistook for good-natured bantering. I didn''t get paid enough to be good-natured. And while Alphonse was a pretty good showman, good fellowship on his part was as phony as his European accent. I didn''t take much pleasure in provoking Alphonse. His nerves were shot anyway. He worked sixteen hours a day, made less money than I did, and worried himself sick over what his superiors thought of him.
On this afternoon, he was rattled because a new regional manager was coming in. Maybe he planned to impress the higher-up by firing me on the spot. Alphonse didn''t have real animosity toward me, just ambition. In the corporate world of food and beverages, one rises quickly and falls even faster. Alphonse, still on the ascent, had passed a number ofgraying and boozy hotel managers on the way down. I''d seen more of them than he had, but I wasn''t ambitious; I''d never wanted to rise any further than the front bar on the good nights. A few minutes later, Alphonse returned to the lounge, trotting alongside a man who stood head and shoulders taller than him, Alphonse''s fawning and obsequious manner suggesting the regional manager had arrived. The manager ignored him, striding swiftly and determinedly toward the bar, reading one of the balance sheets Alphonse had given him.
Not looking at me, he ordered a Campari and soda. I said, "Let''s see your money first." The man turned and lunged toward the bar in the same motion, his outraged expression on full throttle. But the corners of his eyes quickly wrinkled into a smile and those deep dimples formed in his cheeks. Big John had always admired audacity. He looked directly at me for just a second. "Jesus Christ," he bellowed. "Brian McNulty.
Hey, bro! How are you?" We shook hands and laughed heartily. I went back a long way with John Wolinski. A dozen or so years before, we''d been young and foolish together, working the stick at the Dockside Lounge in Atlantic City. Alphonse''s jaw dropped to the bar. When he recovered, he couldn''t make up his mind whether to join in the laughter or stand aside looking stern. He did a little of both and took on the aspect of the village idiot. I poured John''s Campari and soda and asked if he''d like a check. "Put it on my check," Alphonse said nobly.
"I don''t want it on your check, Alphonse," John said. "It isn''t going on my check," I said. "Swing it, bro," said Big John. We both laughed again. Alphonse''s Adam''s apple bobbed like he was swallowing goldfish. John and I made plans to have a drink when I finished my shift. In the meanwhile, he sat down at the corner of the bar to go over the inventory sheets with the trembling Alphonse, and I finished the prep for the night shift and mixed a few drinks for the few early cocktail hour tipplers. At about 5:30, the bar phone rang.
"John Wolinski," a man stammered. The voice sounded familiar, yet so far in the past, I couldn''t catch up with it. "Mr. Wolinski is the regional manager and is expected there," the voice said when I didn''t answer right away. Then it connected to its proper circuit in my memory. "Greg," I said. "Is that you?" "Who is this?" His tone was formal and cautious. "It''s me, Brian.
Brian McNulty." I hadn''t seen or spoken to Greg Phillips since he and John and I quit working together a decade before. "What the hell is going on? Is this old home week? John''s right here." "Brian." Greg''s tone softened into a semblance of the warm, friendly voice I''d known years before. "I wish I''d known you were in the city, man." He sounded wistful. "Man, I wish I''d known you were here before all this came down.
" "What came down?" "You don''t wanna know." He was right. I''d always been better off not knowing what John and Greg were up to. "I''ll get John." "Yeh, get Big John. He''ll know what to do. He always does." Greg''s mocking tone was not something I was used to when he talked about John in the past--not something Big John would be used to, either.
John listened gravely to Greg, then said a couple of things I couldn''t make out. He spoke softly and seemed to be reassuring Greg. John was good at that: He was the guy you looked to when things went bad. Greg''s cynicism aside, John always did come up with something. The only thing I heard him say clearly was, "It ain''t like that, bro." When John hung up, he looked troubled. I cashed out, with the bar clean and stocked and the first wave of cocktail hour patrons tended to--everything set up for Nick, the night guy coming on behind me. For, however little I cared what Alphonse thought of me, I cared what the other bartenders thought.
I left the bar the way I used to leave it for Big John at the Dockside before he had me moved to the night shift to be his partner. After John finished up his business with Alphonse, we went for adrink at the 55 down in the Village. The 55 is off Sheridan Square, a couple of doors from the Lion''s Head. I don''t know if it ever had a name, but in the years I''d been going there, it was known only by the numbers of its street address: 55 Christopher Street. John and I were on our second drinks, laughing and telling tales of the old days, when I spied Greg in the doorway, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, giving the joint the once-over. He didn''t take a step farther in than he had to until he was sure. It wasn''t hard to get one''s bearings in the 55: You came down a couple of steps into the joint; a long bar stretched from the front of the place to the back wall; there were bar stools and, a few feet behind the bar stools, a wall. Dull dark wood and dim lights--people came there to drink, not for the ambience.
Greg wore a lightweight black leather coat. With his granny glasses, his blow-dried blond hair, slightly long in the back to compensate for its receding in the front, he looked like an accountant on his night off. Because of his slight frame, his nervousness, his glasses, and his neatness, he was not someone who stood out in a crowd. He also hadn''t gained a pound in fifteen years. His movements were still quick and jittery, too, so that he probably burned up a day''s worth of calories just standing in the doorway, casing the joint. Greg never seemed quite real. He looked like a caricature of the eighties now, just as he had seemed a caricature of the sixties when he used to dress in leisure suits, like a record company executive. He''d dressed stylishly and impeccably, but without any character.
He wore clothes like a mannequin might. Nothing about how he looked gave you an entry into what he might be like as a person.