Last night when I arrived at the bar Mrs Clown was sitting where I normally sit so I sat down kitty corner from her where she usually sits. She seemed eager to tell me something but she was sitting next to a seriously drunk Jay who predictably asked me how I was four or five times and how was my weekend seven times. Each time Jay asked me how my weekend was I changed my answer: "great...okay...mediocre...horrible...hectic...nothing going on....fantastic....". Neither Ruben Nine Toes or I have much patience for boring stories and so we kept interrupting Mrs Clown. This certainly seemed to frustrate her. Finally I said, "Mrs Clown as my favorite comic John Fox has explained to us many times, a story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. It needs to be short and to the point to hold our interest. If it is not nobody will listen to you."  This did not deter Mrs Clown from wanting to tell us something about Clown. When none of us would pay attention she turned her attention to Tobi, but Tobi was too far away to hear her clearly.
             When Tobi cuts my hair really short,  people complain that I look like Hawkeye. As Hawkeye was busy working on his crossword puzzle I pointed at him and said, "there's a big difference in the shape of our heads, I have a classic Roman shaped head whereas Hawkeye's wife's nick name for him is 'penis head'. That's because if you look at the back of his head his skull comes in a straight line down down to his neck." Everyone studied Hawkeye's head for a moment and thought that penis head was a perfect way of describing his glaring physical abnormality.
             Hawkeye said with a smile, "in high school my nick name was 'angle-side-side'." This made everyone laugh, but I'm not sure why.
            After Mrs Clown and Ruben left , a very drunk Touhy arrived with Miss Jones. He had been out with his policeman daughter, little Michaela. When I mentioned to Touhy that I hadn't noticed him at my Cavity Search play reading last Wednesday he started  immediately flailing his arms. He then went on to say that he hoped that I had not thought that the last time I saw him he felt that all the negative things he'd said about the bar were the way he felt, "it was just what other people said." I again thanked him for squealing on the people who were saying the negative things.
           Gracie claims the night bartenders talked her into some kind of lemon tasting beer for the summer. When Mike gave me a glass I almost spit it out. I told him not to toss it out just in case Street Jimmy showed up. Sure enough ten minutes later he did show up and I told him  we had an expensive new lemon beer. Of course Jimmy loved it and I let him have two more glasses. As soon as he finished the beer he started dancing to the juke box music. I complimented his dancing skills and told him that white boys should never try and dance unless their doing something like ballet. Jimmy agreed. I tossed him out when Mike told me that he tried to hit Russel for some money.


            This morning I was once again late to the bar. Faggypants was almost done cleaning. He had Street Jimmy's food carefully spread out on a table. I reminded him that Jimmy has a court date today.
I had to compliment Faggypants on his spiffy outfit: black and wihte shoes with yellow laces, cute below T shirt with a smiling couple in a conferrable and the words, "America, everyone hates us now!" Faggypants said it was a reference to our invasion of Iraq.
           Faggypants giggled, "I was hit on five times on my way here."
            While he was mopping he told me that when he was fourteen he sold beer and hot dogs at the Fresh Meadow golf course. It was one of the many golf courses owned by Joe Jemsek and the cops didn't care if he was underage selling beer because "my dad let them all play free. When a foursome would pull up they'd ask for four hot dogs, four beers, and four snickers bars and I'd tell them that will be forty bucks and they's say 'are you kidding' and I'd say I don't set the prices and then they'd tip me five bucks."
            When Jimmy arrived he grimaced after I reminded him he had to be in court. Even though I gave him enough for car fare he tried to get Faggypants to loan him his bus card. I told him no because he'd just lose it. Faggypants did, however, offer to loan Jimmy his student bus card. Jimmy thanked him for his generosity .
            We were listening to WFMT on the radio and because it was contralto tenor Alfred Deller's 100th birthday they played a couple of his songs. Neither Faggypants nor Jimmy could believe he was a man. When some swing music came on Jimmy said that was Al Capone gangster music. "He died of syphilis , Al Capone died from some bad pussy."
             Before he left for court Jimmy said he had to brush his teeth. Faggypants asked me if I'd drop him off somewhere downtown on my way to Indiana. I dropped him off on Columbus Drive behind the Art Institute . He wasn't sure what he was going to do.