The Parcel (A Bar Idyll)

Abstract

One three-foot-by-two-foot-by-two-foot recent rainy evening, you find yourself parcel. The walking parcel around is swathed with in a three foot-by tw -foot by-tw -foot parcel. The parcel is swathed in plain brown wrapping, suggesting that it was purchased at some kind of professional shop. White twine is double-spooled crosswise to facilitate a journey through the city. The brown paper is liver-spotted, puckered from the winter monsoon that hit early in the day and continues into the night. You don't tell anyone what is in the parcel. It will remain a mystery, while briefly turning you into a somewhat eccentric figure. It is the size of the package that makes it conspicuous, and you would have preferred to dump it off at home, but some things can't be helped, so here you are, carting it around. With the parcel under your arm, you negotiate the front door of your favorite bar, the Blue and Gold on 7th Street between First and Second Avenues. You order a bourbon and Coke from the Polish barmaid. Leave a fiver on the bar and while she fills your order, put a dollar in the increasingly-rare, allvinyl juke box (five songs for a dollar). Before selecting anything, ask the two old ladies drinking brandy (!) at the bar kvetching about nothing if they have any requests. It is imperative that you phrase it just so: ladies, any requests? One of them says, Elvis Presley, Always on My Mind, and proceeds to call out the song's number. some reason, despite the fact that she is obviously a regular, you are amazed that she knows the number and you think this is just the perfect touch. You pick the remaining four songs: Buffalo Springfield's For What It s Worth, which always reminds you of The Muppet Show ; Venus, Shocking Blue s spare original, not Bananarama's dancehall cover; Aretha Franklins Spanish Harlem; and Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, a tradition for you at this bar. But whoops! You press 175 instead of 173 and you follow the twisted path of the song numbers, hoping for something good, but then thinking anything would be good right now, and Sweet Baby Jesus it's George Baker's Little Green Bag. Bliss! A brilliant mistake.