The Ho Tavern
7318 N. Rogers
Chicago, IL 60626
R.I.P
19?? - October 11th, 2010
Thanks for the memories, old girl. You'll be missed.
Showing posts with label Rogers Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rogers Park. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The Queen of Rogers Park
You won't find the Queen sipping white wine at the Red Line,
or hear her voice float on a note strummed from the stage at the Heartland Café.
She doesn't take her morning coffee at Charmer's, or nibble cheese at Taste.
These places are just her painted face,
Her press-on nails, Her push-up bras, Her cans of spray-on tan.
They are the dress She wears to the ball,
the delicate china She pulls from the cupboard
when delicate company calls.
The real Queen is One Tough Chick with a scar on her lip
who steps out at night with a baggie of weed pressed beneath her breast.
She gots strong hands, stone knuckles. She can make fists when she wants to.
She'll press her belly against yours at the back of some dark bar, pull away,
and punch a tooth clean out your head. Then she'll wipe blood from your lips with her own and fix you with a gaze that says, "Baby, I'm sorry. Forgive me."
She drinks draft at the Ho, where old timers go
to tend friendships and feuds born on schoolyards.
Where the poker still pays and the bands don’t play, and
regulars still smoke
or hear her voice float on a note strummed from the stage at the Heartland Café.
She doesn't take her morning coffee at Charmer's, or nibble cheese at Taste.
These places are just her painted face,
Her press-on nails, Her push-up bras, Her cans of spray-on tan.
They are the dress She wears to the ball,
the delicate china She pulls from the cupboard
when delicate company calls.
The real Queen is One Tough Chick with a scar on her lip
who steps out at night with a baggie of weed pressed beneath her breast.
She gots strong hands, stone knuckles. She can make fists when she wants to.
She'll press her belly against yours at the back of some dark bar, pull away,
and punch a tooth clean out your head. Then she'll wipe blood from your lips with her own and fix you with a gaze that says, "Baby, I'm sorry. Forgive me."
She drinks draft at the Ho, where old timers go
to tend friendships and feuds born on schoolyards.
Where the poker still pays and the bands don’t play, and
regulars still smoke
because they’re regulars,
because they’re family,
because they’re home,
and stash their ash in tiny tins
emptied of tiny cough drops.
Her knees settle on fresh rose petals strewn
before votive velas burning in a sidewalk shrine on Rogers,
built by the strong brown hands of Luís, el Jalisqueño, en honor de su apá.
(te extraño, mi apá,
ya no luches más,
que te cuiden los ángeles,
que descanses en paz)
Llegaron juntos, de mojado, quince años atrás.
She roosts in the rafters of St. Henry's Church and
sails down Devon nestled in the back seat of Sanjay Patel’s cab
to the gates of Rosehill, where She stands guard beside the sad-eyed stone angels
who forever keep, but never judge, the grateful and ungrateful dead.
because they’re family,
because they’re home,
and stash their ash in tiny tins
emptied of tiny cough drops.
Her knees settle on fresh rose petals strewn
before votive velas burning in a sidewalk shrine on Rogers,
built by the strong brown hands of Luís, el Jalisqueño, en honor de su apá.
(te extraño, mi apá,
ya no luches más,
que te cuiden los ángeles,
que descanses en paz)
Llegaron juntos, de mojado, quince años atrás.
She roosts in the rafters of St. Henry's Church and
sails down Devon nestled in the back seat of Sanjay Patel’s cab
to the gates of Rosehill, where She stands guard beside the sad-eyed stone angels
who forever keep, but never judge, the grateful and ungrateful dead.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
No Lies
You can do just about anything else.
Kiss me and kick me,
Praise me and punch me,
Thank me and throttle me,
Caress me and curse me,
Grace and aggrieve me.
Go ahead. You choose.
Light up my life or shit in my shoes?
Bring your best and your worst to this party, baby, and stand them on the rail.
Chances are I'll swallow both down, wipe my lips, smile, and come back for more.
But lie to me just once, and this thing we do is done. Dead. Gone.
And no kidding.
Kiss me and kick me,
Praise me and punch me,
Thank me and throttle me,
Caress me and curse me,
Grace and aggrieve me.
Go ahead. You choose.
Light up my life or shit in my shoes?
Bring your best and your worst to this party, baby, and stand them on the rail.
Chances are I'll swallow both down, wipe my lips, smile, and come back for more.
But lie to me just once, and this thing we do is done. Dead. Gone.
And no kidding.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ramblings of a Literate Barfly
Morning at Cafe Ennui.
As I write these words, a snowy-haired black man wearing a kippa hobbles past my table, ragged tassels of a prayer shawl dangling beneath the bottom of his coal-gray sweatshirt. Knees locked, he plods painfully towards the service counter, hips lurching forward and back as he shifts his weight from side to side. The barrista, a teenage Mexican with a bald head and neat goatee, stares at him blankly. The old man reaches the counter, steadies himself with one hand. He plunges the other into his right front pocket, hauls out a fistful of change, and dumps it out next to the cash register. Eyes narrowed, he jabs at his loot with a gnarled index finger, plucking one coin after another out of the main pile and sliding it across the counter towards the barrista. He stops when he has counted out exactly one dollar and eighty-eight cents.
"One small coffee, please, " the old black Jew says.
I decided to start visiting coffee shops exactly one week after I decided to stop visiting taverns. I decided to stop visiting taverns because I had, by the age of twenty-eight, become a red-faced, bleary-eyed, heavy-gutted, chain-smoking, beer-swilling, shot-slamming, front-lawn napping, broad-daylight back-alley pissing, obnoxious loudmouth drunk. Which was a shame, because I really liked taverns.
My love of taverns was not synonymous with my lust for alcohol. Think about it: no one goes to a bar for the booze. Had it been all about the ethanol, I could have gotten loaded just as easily sitting around in my apartment. Plus, I could have done it cheaper. And in my underwear.
But instead, I sat around in taverns. And I sat around in taverns for the only reason anyone does: to be around other people. Other drunk people, sure, but so what? The important thing was I was a social drunk, a sociable drunk. A sociable drunk could be many things. I was, by turns, a happy drunk or a sad drunk, a loud drunk or a quiet drunk, a clever drunk or a stupid drunk, a witty drunk or a rambling drunk, a smiling drunk or a scowling drunk, a patient drunk or a fed-up drunk, a friendly drunk or even (but only rarely) a mean drunk. But so long as I was willing to pull my clothes on and trudge down to the nearest tavern, so long as I remained a sociable drunk, I would never be a lonely drunk. And lonely drunks were the only drunks who scared me.
For a moment, the barrista just stares at the scattering of coins the old man has pushed towards him. Then he uses his own index finger to count them again, plucking one at a time from the counter into his waiting palm. He is almost through counting whem he stops and frowns.
"Hey," the barrista says. "This one's Canadian."
The old man doesn't seem to hear him. He just stands with his eyes closed, fingers drumming the counter. His head bobs up and down slightly, as if to music.
"Sir," the barrista says, louder this time. "Did you hear me? I said this coin is no good."
The old man's eyes pop open. "What?"
The barrista holds the offending coin up between two fingers. "This coin is from Canada. It's no good. You gotta give me another quarter."
The old man grunts. He scans his main pile of change for a long time. Sweat is begins to glaze his forehead. "You said a quarter, right?"
"Yeah, a quarter. Twenty-five cents."
The old man stares, stares. He fishes a rumpled white handkercheif from his back pocket and wipes his mouth. The barrista doesn't speak or move. Finally, the old man pushes another coin in the barrista's direction.
"Okay," the kid says. He takes the quarter, turns around, fills a paper cup to the brim with hot coffee.
By the time he turns back around the old man has pocketed the remainder his change.
"Thank you." the old man says.
The kid nods.
The old Jew settles himself at the nearest table, carefully setting the steaming cup down in front of him. For nearly a minute, he just sits there, stone still and mute, eyes squeezed shut as if aginst some inner pain. But then his body begins to rock back and forth, gently. His lips begin to move, and the old man begins to pray.
In his 1993 novel Trainspotting, Irvine Walsh's protagonist, Marc Renton, lays out exactly what the general public fails to grasp about addiction: "People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it."
The "it" Renton is referring to is heroin, but the same holds true for booze. And make no mistake: the pleasure of it as every bit as real as the misery.
It has been raining all day. I squat in the alley outside Durland's tavern, back pressed against the damp brick wall. I am wild drunk and trying to light a cigarette. Trying and failing. A Marlboro Red dangles between my lips. Left hand cupped above it to shield it from the pattering rain. Right hand flick-flick-flicks away at a cheap lighter that spits sparks but brings forth no flame.
I don't see Tonya walking towards me. Don't hear her footfalls splashing through tiny puddles that glisten, like uncut jewels, beneath the sickly glare of the overhead streetlamp. The only sign of her presence, in that split second before she touches me, is a subtle tingling along my neck as atoms brush past, shifting away from the space she suddenly fills. That, and a breath of lavender perfume.
Then her cool palm against my cheek, fingernails tracing a line in the tender flesh below my jaw. She guides me to my feet, slips her hands beneath my shirt, digs into my shoulders with her nails.
She is drunk as I am. Eyes bloody red, her lips slightly parted, lower jaw slack. She kisses me. Our lips press together and my tongue slips past hers and she rakes my back, painfully. I plunge my hands into her hair, rain-drenched, slick and black as ravens' wings...
Is anything in life so exciting as a really great kiss? Had someone asked me before that day, I would have made a list. Now, I can only think of one thing: a really great kiss you weren't expecting.
And you just don't that many really great kisses in coffee shops.
As I write these words, a snowy-haired black man wearing a kippa hobbles past my table, ragged tassels of a prayer shawl dangling beneath the bottom of his coal-gray sweatshirt. Knees locked, he plods painfully towards the service counter, hips lurching forward and back as he shifts his weight from side to side. The barrista, a teenage Mexican with a bald head and neat goatee, stares at him blankly. The old man reaches the counter, steadies himself with one hand. He plunges the other into his right front pocket, hauls out a fistful of change, and dumps it out next to the cash register. Eyes narrowed, he jabs at his loot with a gnarled index finger, plucking one coin after another out of the main pile and sliding it across the counter towards the barrista. He stops when he has counted out exactly one dollar and eighty-eight cents.
"One small coffee, please, " the old black Jew says.
I decided to start visiting coffee shops exactly one week after I decided to stop visiting taverns. I decided to stop visiting taverns because I had, by the age of twenty-eight, become a red-faced, bleary-eyed, heavy-gutted, chain-smoking, beer-swilling, shot-slamming, front-lawn napping, broad-daylight back-alley pissing, obnoxious loudmouth drunk. Which was a shame, because I really liked taverns.
My love of taverns was not synonymous with my lust for alcohol. Think about it: no one goes to a bar for the booze. Had it been all about the ethanol, I could have gotten loaded just as easily sitting around in my apartment. Plus, I could have done it cheaper. And in my underwear.
But instead, I sat around in taverns. And I sat around in taverns for the only reason anyone does: to be around other people. Other drunk people, sure, but so what? The important thing was I was a social drunk, a sociable drunk. A sociable drunk could be many things. I was, by turns, a happy drunk or a sad drunk, a loud drunk or a quiet drunk, a clever drunk or a stupid drunk, a witty drunk or a rambling drunk, a smiling drunk or a scowling drunk, a patient drunk or a fed-up drunk, a friendly drunk or even (but only rarely) a mean drunk. But so long as I was willing to pull my clothes on and trudge down to the nearest tavern, so long as I remained a sociable drunk, I would never be a lonely drunk. And lonely drunks were the only drunks who scared me.
For a moment, the barrista just stares at the scattering of coins the old man has pushed towards him. Then he uses his own index finger to count them again, plucking one at a time from the counter into his waiting palm. He is almost through counting whem he stops and frowns.
"Hey," the barrista says. "This one's Canadian."
The old man doesn't seem to hear him. He just stands with his eyes closed, fingers drumming the counter. His head bobs up and down slightly, as if to music.
"Sir," the barrista says, louder this time. "Did you hear me? I said this coin is no good."
The old man's eyes pop open. "What?"
The barrista holds the offending coin up between two fingers. "This coin is from Canada. It's no good. You gotta give me another quarter."
The old man grunts. He scans his main pile of change for a long time. Sweat is begins to glaze his forehead. "You said a quarter, right?"
"Yeah, a quarter. Twenty-five cents."
The old man stares, stares. He fishes a rumpled white handkercheif from his back pocket and wipes his mouth. The barrista doesn't speak or move. Finally, the old man pushes another coin in the barrista's direction.
"Okay," the kid says. He takes the quarter, turns around, fills a paper cup to the brim with hot coffee.
By the time he turns back around the old man has pocketed the remainder his change.
"Thank you." the old man says.
The kid nods.
The old Jew settles himself at the nearest table, carefully setting the steaming cup down in front of him. For nearly a minute, he just sits there, stone still and mute, eyes squeezed shut as if aginst some inner pain. But then his body begins to rock back and forth, gently. His lips begin to move, and the old man begins to pray.
In his 1993 novel Trainspotting, Irvine Walsh's protagonist, Marc Renton, lays out exactly what the general public fails to grasp about addiction: "People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it."
The "it" Renton is referring to is heroin, but the same holds true for booze. And make no mistake: the pleasure of it as every bit as real as the misery.
It has been raining all day. I squat in the alley outside Durland's tavern, back pressed against the damp brick wall. I am wild drunk and trying to light a cigarette. Trying and failing. A Marlboro Red dangles between my lips. Left hand cupped above it to shield it from the pattering rain. Right hand flick-flick-flicks away at a cheap lighter that spits sparks but brings forth no flame.
I don't see Tonya walking towards me. Don't hear her footfalls splashing through tiny puddles that glisten, like uncut jewels, beneath the sickly glare of the overhead streetlamp. The only sign of her presence, in that split second before she touches me, is a subtle tingling along my neck as atoms brush past, shifting away from the space she suddenly fills. That, and a breath of lavender perfume.
Then her cool palm against my cheek, fingernails tracing a line in the tender flesh below my jaw. She guides me to my feet, slips her hands beneath my shirt, digs into my shoulders with her nails.
She is drunk as I am. Eyes bloody red, her lips slightly parted, lower jaw slack. She kisses me. Our lips press together and my tongue slips past hers and she rakes my back, painfully. I plunge my hands into her hair, rain-drenched, slick and black as ravens' wings...
Is anything in life so exciting as a really great kiss? Had someone asked me before that day, I would have made a list. Now, I can only think of one thing: a really great kiss you weren't expecting.
And you just don't that many really great kisses in coffee shops.
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