Town Hall Pub

As he listened to the sounds of yelling coming from the hallway, Caleb found himself lonely and depressed. Everything in his life was falling apart. He could sense Nina slipping away from him. The night he had decided to move here everything had seemed so clear. His friend Doug’s girlfriend Nan had given him a tarot reading, and the cards said it was a good time for a change. They also said a relationship would be favorable. He knew it was a sign that their friend Nina was the woman for him, and he couldn’t lose her because he lived so far away. Doug wanted him to move in and change his lifestyle, get his shit together, and he agreed a change would probably do him good. He certainly wasn’t doing anything in Indiana, living off his girlfriend, in a loveless relationship based on convenience. He wasn’t even painting anymore. So he left the girl, threw his few possessions into his Honda Civic, and drove the three and a half hours to Chicago and Nina. 

 But now he was homeless, carless, and soon to be Nina-less, the way things were going. Doug and Nan threw him out of their place when he got laid off from his job. Then he got into a car accident, drunkenly driving home after Nina’s work’s Christmas party. The car was totaled. Nina had not been the same with him since her friend Donnie had died, even though he had done everything possible to comfort her. He even let her hang out with her ex-boyfriend Gus, whom he suspected wanted her back. Hell, he even drove Gus downtown to get his methadone the day they found out Donnie died. He felt unappreciated and taken advantage of, but if he complained to Nina, she would tell him to just break up with her then. That was the last thing he wanted. Nina would get mad when he spent the money his parents sent him occasionally on alcohol, but he had to drink sometimes. Otherwise he didn’t think he could make it through a day. Doug’s anger at him hurt him more than he would admit. He had done nothing wrong. He hadn’t quit his job, or gotten fired. They just had too many people. Nan and Doug didn’t even give him a chance to get another one, and he knew it wasn’t the job that led to his eviction. It was because Nan hated him. He didn’t know why. Maybe she was jealous, afraid he would take either Nina or Doug away from her. Or both. Sometimes he wondered if she had cursed him. She was a witch, after all, doing those tarot readings and stuff. Maybe that’s where the run of bad luck had come from. 

 He used the money his parents sent him to move into the Abbott, a transient hotel in Chicago’s gay neighborhood. The hotel was full of sex workers, drug addicts, and roaches. Sometimes he would lie in the pull-out bed and flick the lights on to watch the cockroaches scatter across the ceiling. He slept with the blankets pulled over his head so they wouldn't fall on him while he slept. Nina wouldn’t even visit him there. Her best friend Greg would, however, and they laughed about the situation all the time. But when Greg wasn’t around it didn’t seem so funny anymore. So here he was, in his decrepit hotel room, alone with the roaches. Greg was still sleeping, and his roommates wouldn’t wake him up. They didn’t like Caleb either. Nina was in school, and then she had rehearsal, and then she would probably give some other excuse for not being able to see him. Her distance was killing him.  He cried to her friend Jennifer about it one night, and Jennifer promised she’d talk to her about it. She also gave him some cocaine. So what that he hadn’t done hard drugs since he moved to Chicago. That obviously wasn’t doing him any good. He thought that Jennifer would have slept with him if he had tried, but he wouldn’t go that far. She made him swear that he wouldn’t tell Nina she gave him coke. That was a promise that was easy to make—Nina would kill them both. 

 Listening to the fight in the hallway, suddenly he couldn’t stand sitting in his roach-infested room anymore. He decided to go for a walk. The streets were bustling and busy. The neighborhood was so strange. People paid a ton of money to live there, and yet there were sleazy hotels and down-and-out denizens everywhere. There was an average of three to five bars on any given block—on the busy streets, that is. But the ones that weren't gay bars were expensive. Hell, the gay bars were too. Once or twice he considered letting some guy hit on him and buy him drinks, but he didn't have the heart to let them down.  

He turned onto a busy street he had never walked on before. Several blocks down he came to an interesting looking bar. The old-fashioned, wooden sign on the front said “Town-Hall Pub.” He liked the sound of it. It looked dark and divey inside: another plus. No rainbows in the window, so it might even be a straight bar. He had no money, but he decided to go in and check it out. As he walked in he noticed a counter on his right. A man with a white beard who looked uncannily like Jerry Garcia was playing chess with another middle-aged man with long brown stringy hair. They looked up as he entered. 

 “Afternoon,” the Jerry look-alike said. 

 “Hi,” Caleb said. 

 “Pull up a chair,” the brown haired man invited. 

 Caleb peered into the darkness behind them. They appeared to be the only ones there. “I can’t stay,” he said. “I don’t have any money. I just came in because I liked the sign.” 

 “That’s a good enough reason,” the white-haired man said. “Name’s Tom. This is Henry.”

 “Caleb.” 

 “Go ahead and pull up a chair, Caleb, this one’s on me.” 

 Caleb did so. Henry put a beer down in front of him. “Made this myself,” he told him. “What do you think?” 

 Caleb drank, considered. “It’s pretty good for homebrew,” he answered honestly. 

 “Good answer, my friend,” Tom laughed. “Where you from? You don’t strike me as a Chicago boy.” 

 “Indiana.” 

 “Not too far from home.” 

 Caleb almost laughed. “Feels pretty far to me sometimes,” he said. 

 “I’m from Oregon, myself. Henry here hails from California.” He pronounced it Ca-lee-forn-eye-ay. “Now we’re a long way from home.” 

 “Do you miss the West Coast?” 

 “Sometimes,” Tom replied. “But I love this town. There’s some good folks out here, for a big city. Chicago’s all right.” 

 “What brings you here?” Henry put in. 

 “A girl,” Caleb answered. “And the lure of opportunity.” 

 “Familiar story,” Henry nodded. 

 “How’s the girl?” Tom asked. 

 “Not so good, lately,” Caleb said. “I think she’d rather I go back to Indiana.”

 “Tough luck,” Tom said. “And the opportunity?”

 Caleb shook his head. “That’s not so great either. In less than two months I’ve lost my job, my place to stay, and my car. And I’m about to lose my girlfriend.” 

 Tom looked at him a minute, then turned to Henry. 

 “Give him a shot. Anything he wants. And give us each one of the same.” 

 “You’re the boss,” Henry said. “What are you shooting?” he asked Caleb. 

 “Jack Daniels,” Caleb replied. 

 “Sounds good,” Tom said. “You play chess, Caleb?”

 “Not in a while, but I used to be pretty good.” 

 “Well, you can’t be any worse than Henry here. When I’m through beating the piss out of him, maybe we can play a game.” Henry laughed and shook his head. 

 Caleb nodded and smiled. He pulled his chair closer and peered at the game. Henry put the shot in front of him and held one up himself. “Cheers!” 

“Cheers,” Caleb repeated, throwing back the shot. These guys were all right. Things were looking up, at least for a little while. 

 1997