UNCLE MERL'S BAR & GRILL
By
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright 2010
We sat quietly, watching the game and depleting Uncle Merl’s supplies. There was no doubt about it, in two hundred and fifty years, they had become fully Americanized… or maybe we had become Dragonized. It was obvious that Ebbets Field had left its mark on at least two of them.
“Hey, guys, how come you don’t step out of the closet? Let people know you’re still around.”
Campy’s eyes rolled over the top of the tiny scrap of paper he was holding in his claws.
“I mean, with the Equal Rights Laws and all...”
Over at the bar, Max had begun making strange gurgling sounds, as if he had a laugh stuck at the top of his throat. He swung his jowls over his shoulder and the rest of his body seemed to pull around in a perfect follow-through motion until he was facing me.
“Wat are yuh, ch’razy? Fool us once, shame on you! Fool us twice an’ we h’rip ya tuchases off an’ make you wear’em as hats!”
“Whoa! I was, uh, well…”
“Yeah, sure kid, we know. I dink da pernt Maxie here is tryin’ ta make is that there’s, a, well… there’s one more ding we gotta let ya know about.”
“Uh-oh! The last time someone took that tone of voice with me, my best friend tried telling me my old lady was fooling around with the entire Pitt football team—on the bench at half time!”
“It’s voice than dat!” Max lumbered back to his seat.
“Voice? ah, verse, I mean worse…worse than that?”
Max thought about it for a second. “H’okay! Mebbe it ain’t that bad, but it’s preddy ga’damn bad. Max pulled the cigar stub from his teeth and almost whacked Campy in the face with it.
“Fa’ Chris’sake, Max. Ya bin smokin’ that same El-Foundo-Onda-Groundo for da las’ fiddy years! Will ya get rid a’ dat ding! Jeezzzz, Kid. Ya see wat I gotta…”
“Forget the damn cigar, Campy! Just what is it that’s so bad?”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, after evy’thin hit da fan, it left Uncle Moil a little bit bent outa shape, so to speak. Actually—he ain’t never quite been da same…” From under an old Dodger cap, two red eyes locked onto mine. “He wanted to ‘undo’ his error, if you catch my drift!”
“Undo?”
“Undo! An’ dat sweet ole’ man tendin’ bar when you walked in today? He coulda kicked all yer asses with one wand tied behind his back. Oh, yeah. An’ when he went over the edge, it took six a’ us ta hold him down. Once we got him ta chill-out a liddle, he kinda made a deal wid us. Seein’ as ta how we was da ones who caught da shaftin’, we was the ones given da power ta ‘undo’ Uncle Moil’s mistake…”
“An’ if ya rh’eally inta pain, schrew up agin, see wad happens!”
“Uh, I don’t want to seem dense but, uh, can we be a little clearer on that last point?”
“Ya look like a size shix h’en sebbin h’eights ta me!”
“Uh, no… that’s doable, I can handle that!” I nodded vigorously only to have my right hand vigorously shaken amidst a barrage of ‘ha-hews’.
“Ho boy, I gotta shoot’im, it’s the only way!” Speculated Max as he tried to pry my hand loose and Campy simply continued the story.
“What Maxie here is tryin’ ta say…what’cha don’t know won’t hurt us, an’ vice voisa! Don’t worry ‘bout da pinky. Soon as the blood starts flowin’ it’ll woik again.”
“Whoa, time for a quick reality check. Let me see if I got this right. You guys want me to write all this into the story?”
“Jus’ like we tol’ja!”
“But you won’t show yourselves.”
“Yah!”
“So tell me. Who do you think is going to believe me?”
“Hey Camp, d’schmendrick’s got a point!”
“Okayokay, don’t worry, da Troot always takes care of itself.”
“Oh great, I feel so much better hearing you say that! I can see it all in print now…and by the way, if we mess up again, they’ll destroy us all!”
“Oi ge’val, don’ go makin’ mouses out mo’hills!”
“Okayokay. Look at it dis way. In the las’ twelve centuries, you only came close once!”
“ONCE?”
“Yeah, once…Okayokay…twice, but mainly, ah, once. It was the Second World War. Dat liddle creep, Hitler. Wow, did he rub us da wrong way!”
“Ya know, after seven’y-fi hundred years, ya tink ya seen it all! But dat putz-puller took d’prize. D’boy vas as mashugina as a schit-house h’rat!”
“Yeah. We got involved wid dat one!”
“Involved?” I said, somewhat cautiously. Campy seemed to study me for a moment and then rose and started walking to what I thought was a broom closet. “C’mon wid me, kid. I wanna show ya sompin’. Get a gander at dees babies!”
With beer mugs still in hand, we had entered into a room about the size of a small airplane hanger with a basketball net placed about twenty feet off the ground at each end.
“You guys play roundball?”
“Don’ even get me started, thas’ a whole ‘nudder story! Here. Get a load a’ dees! Any Idea what dees puppies are?” Campy pointed to a corner where six or seven crates, each somewhat smaller than a Volkswagen’s were neatly stacked.
“Here ya go, kid. Seven boxes a’ haf-life! Manhattan Projec’ not wit’standin’, he had’em foist!” He lifted the top box, gave it a good shaking and put his ear against it as if listening for a heartbeat. “Nod a peep! Dead’s a doornail! Da dopey bas’tid had’em stashed all over Europe, Asia, South America, even had a couple in the good ole’ US of A! Dat reminds me, one a’ dees days we gotta send somebody to pick up da one he lef’ in Clevelan’!”
“Are you telling me that there’s a live atomic bomb in Cleveland? Ohio?”
“Kid…you never been ta Clevelan’, have ya? Trust me, dey don’ call it ‘The Mistake on Da Lake’ for nuttin’! There’s nuttin’ there ta hoit! Seen da Indians play lately? Who’d miss’em, an’ besides…”
“Ahhh, hell, c’mon…”
“Okayokayokay! We’ll sen’ somb’body…sooner or lader.”
He turned back to the crates, tapping each one on the side and pressing an ear to the box to listen. It reminded me of someone looking to buy a used car and kicking the tires. There was no real reason for doing it, but it was sort of expected.
“Either it never occurred to’im to drop dees dings outa a’ airplane, or dey couldn’ figger out how ta get’em to go off on impact. See! Dat’s wat happens when ya do sompin’ in a hurry. So dey ran ‘round hidin’em under bushes, steps, so’s dey could detonate’em on da ground. When ya get into socialism, there’s always some moron who’ll volunteer ta stand dere and beat on a bomb wid a hammer! Lucky for your sorry backsides, they buried a few a’ dem underground.”
“Why’s that?”
“Choulonga had a couple a’ cousins that had gone ‘underground’… strange guys. I’ll never understand their music. Anyway, dey got toasted durin’ the underground phase of testin’. So we had a preddy good idea a’ wad dees dings could do! An’ when the Allies began beatin’ on Berlin’s door, we knew wat da liddle creep was plannin’ on doin’! Enough was enough. So me n’ Maxie went ta have a liddle ‘chat’ with him. Campy rested an elbow on the crates and spat. “We caught up wid’im in a bunker and “POOF”—no more problem!”
“Poof?”
“Poooooffff! Evy’body dinks dragons breathe fire. We don’t! We belch it. The harder ya belch, the more flame ya get. Da more flame ya get… da more heartboin ya get later on. We must a’ whacked da bas’tid wid evy’ting we had! ‘Cause dey was pumpin’ Maalox an’ Rolaids inta us for a week!”
Campy held his mug over his head and peered through the bottom. He lowered it and looked over the top of mine to see the level of the contents inside. “Let’s get back, kid. Looks like we both can use anudder beer.” As we walked towards the exit, he finished his tale. “We really don’t like doin’ stuff like dat, but he had it comin’. We gathered up his toys an’ put’em in the closet wid a nice, big lock on da door. We woulda given hell ta Harry Truman, too, but he threw us a coive! Dropped da damned dings outa airplanes. Never saw dem comin’!”
We barely made it back into the bar before the Butzh began flowing again. “You said there was a second time.”
“Wot?”
“A second time, Campy, you said there was a second time.”
“Oh! Dat? Ahhh… It was da year da Dodgers left Brooklyn for LA.”
“You were thinking of destroying the human race because the Dodgers left Brooklyn?”
“Well…Yeah! We was all preddy pissed at dem bums. It was the princi…”
“Isn’t that kind of thin?”
“Hey, wada ya want, we said we’re sorry!”
I thought about it for a moment. “Ah, I guess you had to be there! Who’s got the pitcher?”
“Mozel thov! Besides, after dat ting wit D’Second Vorld Vwar, we figgered it’d be only fair ta let’cha know wat could happen. An’ ta warn ya, we’d even give ya some signs ta look for foist!”
“Signs? You mean plagues and natural disasters, like in the Bible?”
“D’Bi… NO! It’ll be more obvious den dat! Da Boston Red Sox’ll go fom las’ place ta foist in a year, but lose to a lesser ball club… like D’Mets. D’nex’ year they’ll take the ‘merican League pennant by d’All Star break!”
“Yeah! An’ den they’ll win the Woild Series before God let’s’em off da hook for tradin’ Babe!”
“So’s ya know we mean business, they’ll sch’weep d’Dodgers, four straight!”
“You guys can do that?”
“Oi, can we do dat! H’remember d’Shixty-nine Mets? Those loxes couldn’t win a’ ass kickin’ contess’ wid a one legged man! We didn’ wanna see Gil Hodges go out on a loser! D’guy vas good ta us, always got us good seats!”
“So it all comes down to the Boston Red Sox?”
“Ya shouldn’ haf ta vorry! You seen’em play? YOUR GRAN’CHILDREN SHOULDN’T HAF TA VORRY! D’Shixty-nine Mets IS V’ONE TING, H’Red Sox, hoi! Wadda mess, I mean ta tell ya. The dumb bas’tids, dey h’really shouldn’ have traded Babe!”
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