Job Explodes in Flames—Then I Took Over a Drunken Madman’s Bar While He Fought Cardboard Cutouts
I was in my twenties when my place of employment burned down. I was an aspiring writer back then, which meant I worked at a hamburger joint and spent my spare time staring at a typewriter. So when the place went up in flames in the mid-nineties, I ended up at Jock’s Tavern.
I’d been drinking at Jock’s since around my twenty-third birthday. The place was owned by Jerry “Jock” Jakowski, a theater major whose respectable, well-meaning parents had bought him a bar to keep him from moving home and embarrassing them.
Jock was the only man I ever met who somehow made a severe drinking problem work to his advantage. He’d start drinking around three in the afternoon, and by the time the bar opened at five, he was already well into his cups. People came as much to see what kind of stunts he’d pull as they did to drink.
There were always stories. The regulars reminisced about the time a lesbian chucked an ashtray at him, or when he flooded a bathtub one floor above the bar and created a “water feature” dripping through the ceiling onto his awning. That sort of thing.
The night after the fire, I brought my typewriter to Jock’s and set it on a table—so I could stare at it while I drank a beer. It had worked for Hemingway, after all. Jock, having heard about the fire, was as sympathetic as he was capable of being.
“Hear your job got torched!” he called across the room, grinning. “Why don’t you come work for me?”
“Really?” I asked.
“Sure! You do the bartending stuff, and I’ll just manage the place.”
To his credit, Jock stuck with this arrangement even after he sobered up. It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized I’d never mixed anything more complicated than food coloring.
For the first couple of weeks, I leaned into the problem by introducing myself as the world’s worst bartender—a title I wore with pride. Luckily, Jock’s wasn’t the kind of bar where anyone ordered martinis; mostly, I just poured beers. After a few months, though, the regulars began to point out that I was getting the hang of things—and that maybe I was no longer living up to my nickname.
That’s when I started inventing drinks. On Sundays, when I came in to clean, I’d experiment—mixing bottles to see what looked and tasted good. Soon I was creating drinks on the spot, which made me a hit with the college crowd: “Give me something blue!” they’d say. “Now make me something green!”
The setup worked well for both me and Jock, who took it as his cue to get drunk at other bars while I ran the place. I’d hear “Jock sightings” all night—people reporting they’d seen him three blocks away, arguing with a cardboard cutout of a local realtor. It an be said that working for him was a little like working for Bigfoot
To the best of my knowledge, I’m the inventor of the world’s only silver-colored drink. With the right ingredients and proportions, it shimmered silver and tasted like Swedish Fish. We called it the Silverfish. I also came up with “Alien Blood,” a neon-yellow drink that glowed under the lights.
At the time, I was dating a girl who won stuffed aliens from claw machines. She’d bring them in and leave them on the awning above the bar. When someone ordered an Alien Blood, we’d bring one down to sit with the customer while they drank. The students loved it—half the time they came in just for the novelty of drinking beside a little alien.
Jock’s is far in my past now, although I still dust off my bartending skills when my wife throws a party. The place was sold a few years ago and turned into an upscale tavern. I still stop in sometimes, but it isn’t the same. When I ask for an Alien Blood, nobody knows what I’m talking about.
- Lou Bernard is a writer and paranormal investigator from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife, son, and two dogs. He can be reached at loulhpa@gmail.com.