Credit Card Hell

“If there’s a hell below, then we’re all gonna go.”
-- Curtis Mayfield

The clock on the wall says ten o’clock.

The club is packed to the hinges and my body has fused with the wet bar to form a single, massive, smoking, drink-making machine: hands and feet churning like pistons; booze gushing from bottles, guns and spigots; cash registers singing “Overture 1812” in a chorus of beeps, clangs and clunks; and my brand new New Balance bar shoes, soaked to the socks from standing in middle of the disgusting oil slick that has formed below my well.

And then the engine seized as I have found myself smack in the middle of Credit Card Hell.

The clock on the wall says twelve o’clock and I am hunkered over a forest of plastic – trying to find the credit cards of two customers:

1) Tim Rappert – who wants four Red Hooks and yet another subtotal.

2) Susan Delillo – who is closing her tab of one virgin pina colada extra whipped cream.

I scan the tabs, “Robbins, Thomas, Bezkowarjany, Williams, Rappert. . . . Yes!”

I pull the tab, add the drinks, and subtotal.

The clock is ticking.

“Now where is the Delillo card?”

Time stands still when you are in Credit Card Hell. You can feel the crowd thirsting behind you, as surely as you feel the heart in your chest.

“Delillo, Dellilo – Dammit where is Dellilo?”

Bullets of sweat form on my face and neck and somebody is tapping an empty beer bottle on the bartop -- still no Delillo. My brain, much against my will, starts singing an old Hee Haw song. . .

“Where oh where are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and thought I found true love, but you met another and whoop...”

Her card is gone.

Meanwhile, Susan has taken to yelping and kicking the bottom of the bar in such a way that she resembles a jackal screwing a beehive.

Susan Dellilo has no credit card ethics. And that is not good.

For starters, credit card ethics deem, simply, that you learn how to use the card. So I don’t have to keep explaining -- to your wobbling, stewing, sopped, bastard asses - where you should sign, who gets the white slip, and that the word “gratuity” is not Latin for "Scribble illegibly here."

Credit card ethics deem that you never open a tab for one drink on a weeded Friday night -- certainly not for a virgin pina colada extra whipped cream.

Credit card recklessness rusts the machine. If the machine stalls, then you can’t get a drink. And when you can’t get a drink, well. . . (shudder), it’s just best not to go there.

I find Susan’s card under a bottle of Baileys. Relieved, I print the ticket in the amount of $3.50 and place it before her.

She draws a fat zero with a grumpy-face on the gratuity line and scowls as she walks off.

My heart sinks. I was counting on that fifty-cent tip to replace the ruined shoelaces on my new New Balance bar shoes.

Pox on you and yours oh cruel Ms. Delillo!

I scoop up the slip, toss it behind me, and look up at the crowd to assess the situation. It is not good. They are larger and angrier now – an enormous machine in their own right -- smoking and clanking and about to explode through the manifold.

“All right fuckers,” I shout, “everyone shut up and listen for a minute.”

Silence.

“As I see it, we have three problems. Number one: I need to re-lube.”

With that, I open a Fosters Oil Can, hold it toward the crowd, and toast. They lift their empty glasses or fists and toast me back.

I guzzle half the can.

“Number two: I have no idea which of you is next. And number three: there are just too damn many of you.”

With that, I grab two cases of Budweiser.

“So here’s the solution: For the next fifteen minutes I will be serving Budweiser bottles only. Not Heineken, Not Corona. Not screwdrivers. Not flash blended, flaming, greeny green grasshoppers garnished with a mint leaf. Just Budweiser: the lowest common denominator of every bar in America.

“Just raise your hands, tell me how many bottles, and have your cash ready. If you attempt to use a credit card, I will copy your account number, find out where you live, and rape your puppy.

“All right people, ready? Then raise your hands in the air. Wave them like you just don’t care.”

To my surprise, the hands do go up. Bottles of Bud are flying over the bar and the register is singing "Hey Big Spender.". I knock out the majority of the line in ten minutes.

Then I swig the rest of the Oil Can, take a round of drink orders, return to the well, and fire the pistons fast and furious – the way I like it – until the clock on the wall says 1:30am. "Last call, for alcohol."

Apologies to John Lee Hooker

EJD
2/27/02