I JUST LUUUVE THE FRENCH!
An excerpt from the memoir Happy Jacks: The Last Morro Bay Fisherman's Dive Bar
by Dell Franklin
Happy Hour In Happy Jack’s…
“You can’t trust that worthless sonofabitch,” Maggie, bulky in shawls and scarves, is telling Estelle, trying to be serious and influential. “Right this minute you know he’s up in the Bay area with that Snively, up to God knows what!”
The happy hour crew is going strong. Besides Estelle and best friend Maggie, Sheila (still jobless), and kindly, white-haired, crimson-faced Hubie (eccentric millionaire who resembles an overgrown rabbit), Eugene has joined them in a cluster at the elbow of the long bar, poolroom behind them, facing the coffee machine and rack of chips and nuts, the only nourishment sold in Happy Jack’s besides beef jerky, a stick of which Eugene, burly and seam-faced, gnaws on like an old tired dog with bad teeth
“But Snively’s gay,” Estelle explains to Maggie in a cheery voice, holding up another cigarette, which I light. “My Ed’s not gay. They’re just old friends from when Ed lived in the Big Sur. Snively’s an old man now His lover just died, and Ed’s taking care of his estate, because poor Snively’s heartbroken and sick himself.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that,” Maggie claims with more than her usual amount of cynicism, “Snively’s probably got the AIDS.”
Down at the other end of the bar, near the front door, where warm, bright sunshine infiltrates the gloom, smoke-murk and sewer stench, Beer Can Bessie sits off from a crew of dusty, muscular carpenters sucking down cold ones after a day of framing. The juke beats lightly, Sheila playing it after cadging money along the bar. Estelle supplies her with cigarettes.
“Oh Maggie, there’s nothing between those old guys, My Ed, he’s just helping out a friend, and Snively’s paying him, too.” Estelle sips Cinnamon Schnapps from a shotglass. “My Ed’s such a good, loyal friend.”
“Well, he wasn’t a very good friend to you,” she says, shoving her empty beer mug toward me. She allows me to light her cigarette and addresses the crew, though Hubie is not listening, being a person who prefers talking to and gesturing at himself in the back-bar mirror. “Here he lived with you all these years, never could hold a job, finally quit looking, and then gambled away his inheritance, never once took you to a nice restaurant, just gambled and drank it all up right here and gave you nothing but grief, because he’s a bad drunk, Estelle, hon, you know damn well I’m right.”
“I know it. I’m a happy drunk, and Ed’s just a nasty musty sour old bad-boy drunk. But he’s not drinking no more, and he’s been nothing but sweet to me since.”
“As well he should,” Maggie snorts with sarcasm.
”But he’s still tight as a clam. He hasn’t bought you a damn thing, or took you anywhere.”
“Well, he sends me money for rent.”
“As well he should. YOU saved his life. YOU’RE the one got him to the hospital when he was puking blood. YOU’RE the one nursed him back to health when he got home from the hospital. And now, first thing, soon as he’s feeling good, he runs off to this damn faggot Snively and God only knows what he’s up to now.”
Estelle winks at me, and I refill her beer mug and shotglass. Her bosom is ample, and she has splendid long-lashed blue eyes. When Ed’s gone, her children come around to mooch off her. She cleans houses and runs the hotdog stand across the street. Big Bill’s Hotdogs is wedged up against Katie’s Kitchen, a café that serves the best breakfasts and chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and country gravy in the area. Little old ladies come from as far away as Cayucos, Cambria and Los Osos to eat Big Bill’s hotdogs, mostly because Estelle is so kind and engaging with them and takes a deep, concerned interest in their lives and listens to them. They often bring her flowers or candy.
Maggie is suspicious that Eugene has a sly interest in bedding down Estelle, and it is a fact that Estelle, after one too many, has dragged somebody out of Happy Jack’s in what has been described as a breathless, passionate quickie.
“Well, old Ed, he never was a ball of fire in the old sack, hon,” she confesses to Maggie. “He was too busy drinkin’ alla time and you know he’s an intellectual. Why that man, he reads Plato and those Greek guys. Our apartment is full of books. When he was in the hospital, I finally got a chance to clean the place up after kicking him and that Glen out, and I found almost as many paperbacks as I did empty vodka bottles.”
“You got that right,” Eugene chimes in. “I never seen the guy when he wasn’t carrying around a book or two.”
Maggie lights up another cigarette and coughs, nearly gagging, collects herself, then addresses Estelle with a long suffering frown. “And that Glen guy. That’s another kettle of fish. Ed latched right onto that Glen, and that guy was awfully suspicious, saying he was a lawyer and all, when he looked to me like a sneaky pretty-boy little queer himself.”
Eugene nods. “That guy didn’t fit in here, and I don’t see how he’d fit in anywhere else if he didn’t fit in here.” He chaws jerky.
“Oh, I don’t think Glen was gay. He had all this money, and Ed just let him move in. It was terrible.” She now addresses the crew. Only Hubie, occupied with his conversation with himself in the mirror, is not listening. “Every day, Ed and Glen just sat at the kitchen table. They drank morning, noon and night. Hardly ever slept. They never ate, poor things. I’d go to work in the morning, and they’d still be talking, and when I came home in the evening there they sat, having the very same conversation. After a while they stunk something awful. Here Glen had a suitcase of these bee-yoo-ti-ful clothes, and he never wore any of ‘em, just that same old professors’ jacket and slacks and those brown loafers with tassels. He’s actually a handsome man. But anyway, he and Ed, they were drinking buddies. They were together for two months, in the kitchen! Until Glen ran out of money, and people came looking for him.”
“If he was a lawyer, I’m a brain surgeon,” Maggie growls with contempt. Maggie, who has not worked in years because of a bad back and various other maladies, and collects disability, is living with her third husband after burying two previous ones; Roy, her third fisherman, is also on disability and tries to come in here when Maggie is sleeping it off. “The man was a phony. And Ed hung onto him because he’d already milked you and this guy had enough money to keep him in vodka. Soon as Glen was broke, Ed was finished with him.”
“Well, that’s when Ed got sick, poor thing. And he didn’t leave Glen, either. Ed’s not that way. He’s loyal. They went collecting cans and bottles together so they could drink in the park. I only kicked Glen out when MY money came up missing. Glen’s in some rehab place now, poor thing “
Maggie lights a new cigarette, coughs, nearly gags. “I think Glen’s a thief and a damn pervert myself,” she croaks. “And either Ed was buggering him, or he was buggering Ed.”.
Sheila chimes in, “I wouldn’t put anything past that Glen. He gave me the creeps—a real weirdo.”
Maggie casts her a long, appraising look of disapproval. “He bought you enough drinks, dearie. You were pretty chummy with him.”
Estelle makes a face. “Oh phooey. Ed’s not gay. Neither of those two were interested in sex in the slightest. Ed’s only interested in drinking and gambling, and now it’s just gambling, and not much. Ed’s gone straight. He’s so intelligent. He’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. He writes poetry, beautiful poetry.”
Sheila nods. “That’s the truth. He just scribbles and scribbles.”
Ed writes his poetry when he’s drunk to the point of falling off his stool, and he bugs me for bar napkins on which he jots in a frenzy. Meanwhile, Hubie buys a round for those around the elbow; everybody thanks him effusively, but he just waves them away. Sometimes people feel obligated to talk to Hubie after he buys them a drink, but he’s impatient with such overtures, wishes only to be left alone in his conversation with himself.
“Ed’s a good writer, too,” Estelle goes on. “You know, he has a college degree, and children, and he was once a successful man.”
“Aaach!” Maggie scoffs bitterly. “He bummed around for years in the Big Sur. Stop sticking up for him. You know he’s a tramp.”
“Well, he’s doing better now,” I interject, pouring myself a shot of Stoli. “Give him credit for finally coming around after two thirds of a normal life span of total worthlessness and decadence. It’s never too late for a comeback.” I down my shot.
“Comeback?” Maggie snorts snottily. “All is forgiven, huh? Well, if I know Ed Stone, he’s waitin’ for his inheritance from Snively, so he can go on another of his benders. You oughta let him croak this time. I can’t believe you let him back in your house. You’re just too good, too trusting, after all these years, Estelle. You never learn.”
Well, I luuuve the man.” She smiles at me in her cutesy, mischievous little girl way, winking, and asks, in a sweet voice, if SHE can buy a round for all her wonderful friends. I pour out the round. Everybody thanks her. Maggie, who in decades of drinking in Happy Jack’s and the Circle Inn across the street has never been known to buy anybody a drink, much less a round, and tips sparingly, pats her hand, gives it a squeeze.
“I just want what’s best for you, dear. You know I love you.”
“I love YOU,” Estelle squeezes back.
Sheila says, “I just put in an application for bartender at the Sea Horse on the Embarcadero, and it looks like I’m gonna get it.”
Estelle gushes, beaming. “Wonderful! I’m so happy for you, hon.”
“When have you ever tended bar?” Maggie asks her.
“Down south.”
“Where?”
“At those clubs I danced in. We all took our turns between our acts.”
“I thought you had a bad back from dancing and a bad knee,” Maggie says, and coughs. “Didn’t you hurt your wrist, too?”
“They wanna start me out days, cuz they’re slow. I bet I can get a lotta fisherman in to see me. I’m stoked.”
“I’ll come see you,” Estelle says excitedly.
“So will I, babe,” says Eugene.
Maggie asks Sheila, “When’s the last time you stood on your feet for eight straight hours? You got more things wrong with you than Carter’s got liver pills, and you’re gonna tend bar at the Horse? Give…me…strength.” She sips her beer.
“Now now,” Estelle says.
“You tried to get her in at the hotdog stand, Estelle, and her feet hurt, her back hurt, ker knees hurt, so now she’s gonna tend bar? Sheila, when’s the last time you even HAD a job?”
“I’ve had lotsa jobs, Maggie, I worked at the Pizza Palace…”
“You didn’t even last a week. Hell, you don’t wanna work, and you know it. The day I see you behind the bar at the Sea Horse, that’ll be the day I know you wanna work instead of sitting on your ass and mooching off everybody, kid. So grow up.”
Sheila is close to tears, lips trembling, when suddenly Hubie stands and points at the mirror, his face an even deeper shade of crimson. “You sonofabitch!” he yelps in a fit of rage. “You owe me money! Hubie HATES you! Hubie’s NOT your friend, you sonofabitch!” His voice carries an hysterical stridency and he’s spluttering his words as Sheila rushes to him and places an arm around his shoulders and manages to sit him down, but Hubie is riled because somebody borrowed money from him when they thought he was too drunk to remember, but Hubie remembers everything about everybody, even when he’s blacked out. He is close to tears and his face is contorted like a very small child suffering from having his candy taken away and receiving a spanking for being bad. Estelle is also off her stool consoling Hubie, who settles down a little, not really aware of the girls doting.
I realize he has probably been at it longer than usual, for Hubie’s behavior is predicated strictly on his beer intake (he drinks no liquor). Around his fifth beer he becomes highly agitated and on the brink of descending into irrational derangement, and if I allow him to consume any more beer without sneaking him O’Doul’s from a bottle while feigning using the tap, he will go off worse than he is now, swinging his mug around spraying folks and spitting saliva, scattering nearby drinkers.
I also must be careful when substituting O’Doul’s, because Hubie, submerged as he is in the sauce and obsessed with those who have betrayed and swindled him, is still vigilant (even in the blackout stage!) of being short-changed on his beer, because, let’s face it, Hubie’s main priority in life is to achieve a certain level in his beer consumption that precipitates his rages which actually, when all is said and done, work as a strange therapeutic elixir.
The girls finally manage to calm him down and he goes back to pointing his index finger at the mirror and muttering threats of God knows what. During his eruption, two young couples, perhaps 30, started to come in but lingered just in the doorway while Hubie raged. They are still tentative, but I wave them in, and right off I realize they’re Europeans, and as they stand at the bar between the framers, who eye up the very attractive women, and the happy hour crew, and a scowling, disapproving Beer Can Bessie, I recognize their native tongue as French.
They order draft beers. Estelle motions me over and asks what language they’re speaking. “French,” I tell her. “They’re French, Estelle. I’m sure of it.”
Estelle is instantly off the stool and headed toward them as they move to a booth. Though French people are almost unanimously despised by Americans, and their response to us, even in our country, is aloof and smug at best, Estelle embraces them, welcoming them to America, telling them while they stand stiffly that she wants to go to France and see the Eiffel Tower and eat French food and asks them what part of France they are from, and the women say Paris and warm up to her, and when they sit down in the booth Estelle orders them four beers and I pour them and she tells me, before sitting down with them in a swoon, “I just luuuve the French!”
“Good Christ!” Beer Can Bessie snorts and walks out.
It’s not more than half an hour later when Estelle’s borrowing paper and pen from me to write down their addresses so she can visit them when she travels to France, which she hasn’t done yet, but has been wanting to do all her life.
by Dell Franklin
Happy Hour In Happy Jack’s…
“You can’t trust that worthless sonofabitch,” Maggie, bulky in shawls and scarves, is telling Estelle, trying to be serious and influential. “Right this minute you know he’s up in the Bay area with that Snively, up to God knows what!”
The happy hour crew is going strong. Besides Estelle and best friend Maggie, Sheila (still jobless), and kindly, white-haired, crimson-faced Hubie (eccentric millionaire who resembles an overgrown rabbit), Eugene has joined them in a cluster at the elbow of the long bar, poolroom behind them, facing the coffee machine and rack of chips and nuts, the only nourishment sold in Happy Jack’s besides beef jerky, a stick of which Eugene, burly and seam-faced, gnaws on like an old tired dog with bad teeth
“But Snively’s gay,” Estelle explains to Maggie in a cheery voice, holding up another cigarette, which I light. “My Ed’s not gay. They’re just old friends from when Ed lived in the Big Sur. Snively’s an old man now His lover just died, and Ed’s taking care of his estate, because poor Snively’s heartbroken and sick himself.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that,” Maggie claims with more than her usual amount of cynicism, “Snively’s probably got the AIDS.”
Down at the other end of the bar, near the front door, where warm, bright sunshine infiltrates the gloom, smoke-murk and sewer stench, Beer Can Bessie sits off from a crew of dusty, muscular carpenters sucking down cold ones after a day of framing. The juke beats lightly, Sheila playing it after cadging money along the bar. Estelle supplies her with cigarettes.
“Oh Maggie, there’s nothing between those old guys, My Ed, he’s just helping out a friend, and Snively’s paying him, too.” Estelle sips Cinnamon Schnapps from a shotglass. “My Ed’s such a good, loyal friend.”
“Well, he wasn’t a very good friend to you,” she says, shoving her empty beer mug toward me. She allows me to light her cigarette and addresses the crew, though Hubie is not listening, being a person who prefers talking to and gesturing at himself in the back-bar mirror. “Here he lived with you all these years, never could hold a job, finally quit looking, and then gambled away his inheritance, never once took you to a nice restaurant, just gambled and drank it all up right here and gave you nothing but grief, because he’s a bad drunk, Estelle, hon, you know damn well I’m right.”
“I know it. I’m a happy drunk, and Ed’s just a nasty musty sour old bad-boy drunk. But he’s not drinking no more, and he’s been nothing but sweet to me since.”
“As well he should,” Maggie snorts with sarcasm.
”But he’s still tight as a clam. He hasn’t bought you a damn thing, or took you anywhere.”
“Well, he sends me money for rent.”
“As well he should. YOU saved his life. YOU’RE the one got him to the hospital when he was puking blood. YOU’RE the one nursed him back to health when he got home from the hospital. And now, first thing, soon as he’s feeling good, he runs off to this damn faggot Snively and God only knows what he’s up to now.”
Estelle winks at me, and I refill her beer mug and shotglass. Her bosom is ample, and she has splendid long-lashed blue eyes. When Ed’s gone, her children come around to mooch off her. She cleans houses and runs the hotdog stand across the street. Big Bill’s Hotdogs is wedged up against Katie’s Kitchen, a café that serves the best breakfasts and chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and country gravy in the area. Little old ladies come from as far away as Cayucos, Cambria and Los Osos to eat Big Bill’s hotdogs, mostly because Estelle is so kind and engaging with them and takes a deep, concerned interest in their lives and listens to them. They often bring her flowers or candy.
Maggie is suspicious that Eugene has a sly interest in bedding down Estelle, and it is a fact that Estelle, after one too many, has dragged somebody out of Happy Jack’s in what has been described as a breathless, passionate quickie.
“Well, old Ed, he never was a ball of fire in the old sack, hon,” she confesses to Maggie. “He was too busy drinkin’ alla time and you know he’s an intellectual. Why that man, he reads Plato and those Greek guys. Our apartment is full of books. When he was in the hospital, I finally got a chance to clean the place up after kicking him and that Glen out, and I found almost as many paperbacks as I did empty vodka bottles.”
“You got that right,” Eugene chimes in. “I never seen the guy when he wasn’t carrying around a book or two.”
Maggie lights up another cigarette and coughs, nearly gagging, collects herself, then addresses Estelle with a long suffering frown. “And that Glen guy. That’s another kettle of fish. Ed latched right onto that Glen, and that guy was awfully suspicious, saying he was a lawyer and all, when he looked to me like a sneaky pretty-boy little queer himself.”
Eugene nods. “That guy didn’t fit in here, and I don’t see how he’d fit in anywhere else if he didn’t fit in here.” He chaws jerky.
“Oh, I don’t think Glen was gay. He had all this money, and Ed just let him move in. It was terrible.” She now addresses the crew. Only Hubie, occupied with his conversation with himself in the mirror, is not listening. “Every day, Ed and Glen just sat at the kitchen table. They drank morning, noon and night. Hardly ever slept. They never ate, poor things. I’d go to work in the morning, and they’d still be talking, and when I came home in the evening there they sat, having the very same conversation. After a while they stunk something awful. Here Glen had a suitcase of these bee-yoo-ti-ful clothes, and he never wore any of ‘em, just that same old professors’ jacket and slacks and those brown loafers with tassels. He’s actually a handsome man. But anyway, he and Ed, they were drinking buddies. They were together for two months, in the kitchen! Until Glen ran out of money, and people came looking for him.”
“If he was a lawyer, I’m a brain surgeon,” Maggie growls with contempt. Maggie, who has not worked in years because of a bad back and various other maladies, and collects disability, is living with her third husband after burying two previous ones; Roy, her third fisherman, is also on disability and tries to come in here when Maggie is sleeping it off. “The man was a phony. And Ed hung onto him because he’d already milked you and this guy had enough money to keep him in vodka. Soon as Glen was broke, Ed was finished with him.”
“Well, that’s when Ed got sick, poor thing. And he didn’t leave Glen, either. Ed’s not that way. He’s loyal. They went collecting cans and bottles together so they could drink in the park. I only kicked Glen out when MY money came up missing. Glen’s in some rehab place now, poor thing “
Maggie lights a new cigarette, coughs, nearly gags. “I think Glen’s a thief and a damn pervert myself,” she croaks. “And either Ed was buggering him, or he was buggering Ed.”.
Sheila chimes in, “I wouldn’t put anything past that Glen. He gave me the creeps—a real weirdo.”
Maggie casts her a long, appraising look of disapproval. “He bought you enough drinks, dearie. You were pretty chummy with him.”
Estelle makes a face. “Oh phooey. Ed’s not gay. Neither of those two were interested in sex in the slightest. Ed’s only interested in drinking and gambling, and now it’s just gambling, and not much. Ed’s gone straight. He’s so intelligent. He’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. He writes poetry, beautiful poetry.”
Sheila nods. “That’s the truth. He just scribbles and scribbles.”
Ed writes his poetry when he’s drunk to the point of falling off his stool, and he bugs me for bar napkins on which he jots in a frenzy. Meanwhile, Hubie buys a round for those around the elbow; everybody thanks him effusively, but he just waves them away. Sometimes people feel obligated to talk to Hubie after he buys them a drink, but he’s impatient with such overtures, wishes only to be left alone in his conversation with himself.
“Ed’s a good writer, too,” Estelle goes on. “You know, he has a college degree, and children, and he was once a successful man.”
“Aaach!” Maggie scoffs bitterly. “He bummed around for years in the Big Sur. Stop sticking up for him. You know he’s a tramp.”
“Well, he’s doing better now,” I interject, pouring myself a shot of Stoli. “Give him credit for finally coming around after two thirds of a normal life span of total worthlessness and decadence. It’s never too late for a comeback.” I down my shot.
“Comeback?” Maggie snorts snottily. “All is forgiven, huh? Well, if I know Ed Stone, he’s waitin’ for his inheritance from Snively, so he can go on another of his benders. You oughta let him croak this time. I can’t believe you let him back in your house. You’re just too good, too trusting, after all these years, Estelle. You never learn.”
Well, I luuuve the man.” She smiles at me in her cutesy, mischievous little girl way, winking, and asks, in a sweet voice, if SHE can buy a round for all her wonderful friends. I pour out the round. Everybody thanks her. Maggie, who in decades of drinking in Happy Jack’s and the Circle Inn across the street has never been known to buy anybody a drink, much less a round, and tips sparingly, pats her hand, gives it a squeeze.
“I just want what’s best for you, dear. You know I love you.”
“I love YOU,” Estelle squeezes back.
Sheila says, “I just put in an application for bartender at the Sea Horse on the Embarcadero, and it looks like I’m gonna get it.”
Estelle gushes, beaming. “Wonderful! I’m so happy for you, hon.”
“When have you ever tended bar?” Maggie asks her.
“Down south.”
“Where?”
“At those clubs I danced in. We all took our turns between our acts.”
“I thought you had a bad back from dancing and a bad knee,” Maggie says, and coughs. “Didn’t you hurt your wrist, too?”
“They wanna start me out days, cuz they’re slow. I bet I can get a lotta fisherman in to see me. I’m stoked.”
“I’ll come see you,” Estelle says excitedly.
“So will I, babe,” says Eugene.
Maggie asks Sheila, “When’s the last time you stood on your feet for eight straight hours? You got more things wrong with you than Carter’s got liver pills, and you’re gonna tend bar at the Horse? Give…me…strength.” She sips her beer.
“Now now,” Estelle says.
“You tried to get her in at the hotdog stand, Estelle, and her feet hurt, her back hurt, ker knees hurt, so now she’s gonna tend bar? Sheila, when’s the last time you even HAD a job?”
“I’ve had lotsa jobs, Maggie, I worked at the Pizza Palace…”
“You didn’t even last a week. Hell, you don’t wanna work, and you know it. The day I see you behind the bar at the Sea Horse, that’ll be the day I know you wanna work instead of sitting on your ass and mooching off everybody, kid. So grow up.”
Sheila is close to tears, lips trembling, when suddenly Hubie stands and points at the mirror, his face an even deeper shade of crimson. “You sonofabitch!” he yelps in a fit of rage. “You owe me money! Hubie HATES you! Hubie’s NOT your friend, you sonofabitch!” His voice carries an hysterical stridency and he’s spluttering his words as Sheila rushes to him and places an arm around his shoulders and manages to sit him down, but Hubie is riled because somebody borrowed money from him when they thought he was too drunk to remember, but Hubie remembers everything about everybody, even when he’s blacked out. He is close to tears and his face is contorted like a very small child suffering from having his candy taken away and receiving a spanking for being bad. Estelle is also off her stool consoling Hubie, who settles down a little, not really aware of the girls doting.
I realize he has probably been at it longer than usual, for Hubie’s behavior is predicated strictly on his beer intake (he drinks no liquor). Around his fifth beer he becomes highly agitated and on the brink of descending into irrational derangement, and if I allow him to consume any more beer without sneaking him O’Doul’s from a bottle while feigning using the tap, he will go off worse than he is now, swinging his mug around spraying folks and spitting saliva, scattering nearby drinkers.
I also must be careful when substituting O’Doul’s, because Hubie, submerged as he is in the sauce and obsessed with those who have betrayed and swindled him, is still vigilant (even in the blackout stage!) of being short-changed on his beer, because, let’s face it, Hubie’s main priority in life is to achieve a certain level in his beer consumption that precipitates his rages which actually, when all is said and done, work as a strange therapeutic elixir.
The girls finally manage to calm him down and he goes back to pointing his index finger at the mirror and muttering threats of God knows what. During his eruption, two young couples, perhaps 30, started to come in but lingered just in the doorway while Hubie raged. They are still tentative, but I wave them in, and right off I realize they’re Europeans, and as they stand at the bar between the framers, who eye up the very attractive women, and the happy hour crew, and a scowling, disapproving Beer Can Bessie, I recognize their native tongue as French.
They order draft beers. Estelle motions me over and asks what language they’re speaking. “French,” I tell her. “They’re French, Estelle. I’m sure of it.”
Estelle is instantly off the stool and headed toward them as they move to a booth. Though French people are almost unanimously despised by Americans, and their response to us, even in our country, is aloof and smug at best, Estelle embraces them, welcoming them to America, telling them while they stand stiffly that she wants to go to France and see the Eiffel Tower and eat French food and asks them what part of France they are from, and the women say Paris and warm up to her, and when they sit down in the booth Estelle orders them four beers and I pour them and she tells me, before sitting down with them in a swoon, “I just luuuve the French!”
“Good Christ!” Beer Can Bessie snorts and walks out.
It’s not more than half an hour later when Estelle’s borrowing paper and pen from me to write down their addresses so she can visit them when she travels to France, which she hasn’t done yet, but has been wanting to do all her life.
