A Bar in New York Chantelle Gourlay
My shoulders tighten, like that feeling you get as a plane is about to take off and you’re on it. The room smells intoxicating—a mixture of rich whiskey, cigars, and red wine. Men clad in business suits and women with pursed lips and sultry expressions fill the cramped setting. The mood in here could quite literally be sliced through like butter, like that scene from Taxi Driver, where De Niro holds a gun to his reflection. Or like when Joe Pesci does the famous ‘What, do I amuse you?’ spiel in Goodfellas. I wish I was joking, but I’m really not. It’s like the whole world stopped. All the chatting and laughing from the other patrons in this dingy little bar on the east side of New York, not too far from Brooklyn, has stopped. This place feels like a small slice of 1940s New York in the middle of 2019. Timeless, except for the few women wearing ripped jeans and the punk looking man in the far corner with the ring through his septum. He sips on a pina colada awkwardly and I silently chuckle. What a sight! The eyes of the crowd are plastered on me. Women’s feline-like gazes, lined with black, fall upon my face. Men with sharp jawlines and slick hair glare through the smoky haze. It’s not hard to pick who the Mob are. ‘Hey, kid. You ain’t from ‘round here, are ya?’ says a dark, gravelly voice. ‘Johnny, the Boss, points right at me and my throat sticks. He looks just like Tony Soprano, except with more hair. I recently did a job for one of his guys that didn’t go to plan. He wasn’t too pleased about it, so I’d heard.
The thick scent of cigar smoke dances in the space between my nostrils and upper lip. The whiskey I just swallowed still lingers on my tongue. I didn’t think these kinds of places even existed anymore. I’ve been swept up in the inner workings of the New York Mob for the past five years, so nothing really surprises me anymore. I don’t even get nightmares. I used to at the start. After seeing a teenager’s brain get blasted apart at the opposing end of a pistol. Or after watching on as the owner of a smallgoods store in Manhattan had his throat cut. Now I am so accustomed to it that nothing scares me anymore. The past is the past, dwelling on it would just make me sloppy. I have to focus. I look around at the crowded bar—no exits nearby. I would have to jump my way through at least ten of these clowns before I made it to the door. And even then, there’s no telling how many have a gun hidden away in their overcoats. The sickly-sweet scents of women’s perfumes melt together and make my head spin. There ain’t no getting out of this alive, not without a gun or some other kind of weapon.
Despite the pressure building from every angle, it feels calm. The whispers have stopped but no one looks angry, not yet. There’s a soft piano that fills the empty space and if I didn’t know any better, I’d feel completely relaxed. Even the women with their dark, sultry eyes are smiling at me. No one is reaching their hands inside their coats for a gun or anything. Then Johnny, the Boss, stands up. Pointing a pistol right between my goddamn eyes. Here we go again …
What do you mean?’ ‘What? Am I over here speakin’ Chinese? You ain’t from ‘round here.’ ‘No.’
13
