Minneapolis, MN- Part two- Elsie's bowling alley

Author's note: This second act of the Minneapolis evening runs about five pages, double-spaced. Again, there are inconsequential footnotes. enjoy.


I won’t go into all of the finer details, rules of etiquette, and archetypes of karaoke just yet. Because this night was interesting enough so far without them.

After a few more songs, a couple more drinks, and quite a few more laughs, Bret and I parted ways with Jennifer in the Nye’s parking lot. The rain had stopped in the Twin Cities and a light fog was just starting to drift in from the Mississippi River just a couple blocks away. The red lights from Nye’s blooded the thin haze, and should’ve been a warning.

Red sky at night, karaoke singers take flight.

My good friend, Michelle Carr, made a good observation when I was visiting in Bloomington, Illinois, about a week later. She said, “Not much good happens after midnight.” Thinking back on my bar days, I would say that’s about right. Or maybe I might amend to say that not much good happens after midnight if you’re still out on the town. And when I tell you of the adventure I had in Bloomington, you’ll really agree. But I won’t have been there for another week or so (how about that for verb-tense?).

For now, Bret and I left Nye’s Polonaise for Elsie’s Bowling Alley. Okay, a brief word about bowling alleys. Any bowling alley worth its salt hosts at least one of two things. Either “Cosmic Bowling” (with the flashing lights, black lights, disco balls and such) or karaoke. Personally, I prefer my bowling straight, without all the bells and whistles, but in the right mood, cosmic bowling can be a hoot. And the kids like it. But I’m not a bowler, at least not professionally. I sing karaoke. And as it was a Saturday, which meant Elsie’s had karaoke.

I’m sure you can imagine the stark difference between singing in a Polish restaurant/bar/polka hall versus the darkened lounge of a bowling alley past midnight on a Saturday night.[1]

I knew going over this late that I might not get a song in, but I figured I’d throw out the tip money again and see where that got me. Didn’t figure it happened too often in Elsie’s. Stepping out of my truck, I put on my cowboy hat and made my way inside. Bret and I sidled up to the bar, just on the other side of the beer taps. At the opposite end of the bar the singing was in full, drunken force. Vocals too loud. I looked around for the songbook as Bret ordered up a round of tequilas and beers.

“I’ve been sipping my tequila, tonight,” he hollored at me over an inebriated Pat Benetar. I had noticed him doing just that at Nye’s. Personally, I’m a whiskey sipper. Tequila is usually just in shots, but I nodded anyway. He held up the glass (must’ve been doubles) and examined the liquid gold. “I’ve never done it before tonight,” he said. “Just seemed right. And it’s pretty good.”

So it was decided. We would sip our tequila, and it wasn’t bad. At some point I grabbed a book just before a guy in his mid-thirties, a little portly with a thick shock of black hair and matching goatee, started collecting them from the bar. I handed him my request with a few bucks and said, “I’d really appreciate it.” Later in the evening, after I had already done my song, he walked by and said I did a good job, and he appreciated it, but I think he was one of the few. My version of Waylon’s “Lonesome, Onry, and Mean,” while more-than-adequately rendered was appreciated by relatively few in the bar this particular evening. Bret told me it sounded great… but he had never heard the song before.

After an adventure through the small bowling alley to the restrooms, I returned to find a pack of Lucky Strikes on the bar next to my drink. I had been trying to not smoke, but tonight I was failing.

“A little luck for the writer,” Bret said. Or maybe it was, “You can’t be a writer without a little luck.” Or possibly, “A little luck for the rest of your trip.” Whatever it was, from a fellow writer, it was cool. I still have the pack of Lucky Strikes almost four months later, but the reason I still have them is more than just because of the luck. I’m getting to it, don’t worry.

The other thing I noticed was a woman a couple seats Bret. She was clearly intoxicated, swaying on her barstool, occasionally grabbing the bar to keep from going over. She wore Daisy Duke cutoff shorts, showing off a nice set of legs. She might’ve even been wearing a red-and-white checked midrift shirt tied in the middle. Or maybe that was just my boyhood fantasies kicking in. Point being, D. was a reasonably attractive woman, who had definitely seen better days. Like maybe the past five or ten years had been especially hard on her.

I think Bret might have said a word or two in her general direction. Maybe we all toasted, but for whatever reason, she decided to start a conversation with Bret and me. Now I’m half-deaf to begin with, not to mention the blaring music, so I couldn’t catch most of what she was saying. Something about not getting to sing, or maybe she didn’t get to sing enough, or they didn’t play the song she wanted. She cursed the young bartender when he passed by, but he only smiled and shook his head, keeping himself busy. I was only hearing about every ninth word, and she really seemed more to be talking with Bret anyway, so I took the liberty of looking around.[2]

When I turned back, D. had started singing to Bret. I found out later the song was by Loretta Lynn, but all I heard at the time was her spelling D-I-V-O-R-C-E repeatedly. This might have been all it took, because Bret abandoned me there to go to the bathroom. I paused for a moment, probably could’ve even gotten away without saying anything in the loud bar until Bret returned to take up conversation. But I was curious, always have been curious about strangers. People in general, really.

“Rough night?” I asked and slid over a couple stool away from D.

“You can say that again,” she said.

“Rough night?”

D. laughed. Yeah, she had probably been a heartbreaker in high school. Probably in college, as well, but I doubted she went. And then she told me her story. Stories, rather. My earlier approximation that she had seen some hard years was correct. It was a common story. Woman and a series of wrong guys. In D.’s case, especially bad guys. She had a daughter in her early teens; she lit up when talking about her, but then she would darken and say that she should be home. In between these comments, she would tell me how she took strength from Patsy Cline, but especially Loretta Lynn. She detailed out many of Loretta’s life struggles and successes. D. told me that she was trying to live the life of a strong woman, but when it came right down to it, she admitted to me that she couldn’t leave the life she was living now even if she wanted to. During all of this, I caught Bret scribbling something a couple seats down from us, but I pawned it off to another writer in an interesting environment. I offered D. a few words of encouragement and inspiration, much as I could. Said she sparkled when she talked about her daughter, and that was real important, and told her she deserved a better man. When we all stood to leave I offered her a ride if she needed one, but was relieved to find out that she just lived around the corner.

We stepped out into the damp night, and I watched her walk down the sidewalk.

“Take care, sweetie,” I called, and she raised a hand before rounding the corner. I hoped some of the things I said to her would make a difference, make her life a little better, but I thought she might not even remember we talked at all. Maybe somewhere in her subconscious.

“That was interesting,” Bret said and laughed.

“She’s got a tough road to hoe,” I said. I looked down the sidewalk for just another moment.
“I’ll follow you,” I said to Bret.

I climbed back in my truck and started it up. Just over 1600 miles of my trip so far under my belt. I was in the “B’s” of my music collection. Black Heart Conspiracy was playing. Moody music, a little on the darker side, heavy on the instrumental. Fitting of the circumstances wrapping up the evening at Elsie’s. Again, I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie. I opened the Lucky Strikes and noticed something scrawled on the front cover in pencil. PABLO, look up. There were arrows. Inside the lid, under PABLO again, scribbled much darker this time was written, D’s husband incarcerated.

I’m not sure why he wrote it, maybe because he was worried that I was hitting on her. Or maybe simply so I would remember it for this very moment of relating the story (I’ve left out some of the details out of consideration). Whatever it was, I laughed good and hard to know what he had been so busy writing down in the bar.

Apparently he could hear better than he was admitting.

Funny afternote: On the drive home, I noticed that I was feeling very energized, buzzing almost. Jaw felt tight, and I found myself obsessively rubbing my tongue on the roof of my mouth. It was a strong enough sensation for the drive that when we got back to the Guild residence, I asked Bret if he had slipped an upper in my drink. He laughed, and I could tell by his reaction that he hadn't. I was still skittish for about another half-hour and was left to wonder if D. had perhaps put some sort of reverse-Mickey Finn in my beer. To what end, I couldn't possibly imagine.

[1] I think Elsie’s might have also had the cosmic bowling. At some point when I went to find the bathroom, I wandered past their maybe ten lanes. Black lights, glowing green strips signaling the runway down to the strike. But no one seemed to be playing. It was kind of eerie, actually, in a David Lynch sort of way.
[2] Turns out Bret was only catching about every fourth word D. was saying, and that even that was mostly incoherent.