Rememberance of things Pabst

I might have told this story before but we played a lot of pranks in the Quiet Man pub. Eddie the owner was nice as could be but he would start drinking around two in the afternoon and by 6 or so he would be insane. If we were lucky he would get drunk enough to go down to the office to sleep it off. If not he would stay up there and bust every body’s balls until they left the bar. A great businessman let me tell you.

Besides thinking he was the Duke he also had a fantasy that he was a Green Beret in Vietnam. He would tell people that all the time. Of course every now and then he would run into someone who had actually been in Vietnam who would ask him a few questions and then would proceed to try to kick the living shit out of him. Everyone would have to pile in to break it up because Eddie couldn’t fight for shit. He was a big guy about 6’4” but out of shape and he had a bad limp. He told people he had been wounded in Vietnam but he had actually been hit by a taxicab on duty on 42nd St. which is how he got enough money to buy the bar. So the Vietnam thing was a real pain in the ass.

What was even worse was the juke box. When Eddie got his load on and started talking about the Green Berets he would go to the juke box and eject all the songs that were lined up and play the Ballard of the Green Berets about twenty times in a row. Now first of all the dudes that had played songs got pissed. And nobody wants to hear any song twenty times in a row least of all the Ballard of the Green Berets. That was a bar clearer let me tell you.

Now the best thing to do was buy Eddie a bunch of shots because he would buy you back and if you were a good enough drinker would could get him smashed so he would go down to the office. What he used to do is strip down to his underwear and sleep on the couch. The problem is if he woke up to take a piss. If you were lucky he pissed himself down on the couch. But if he woke up he would come upstairs in his under shorts wearing his gun belt and his wingtip shoes. I told you he was an ex-cop right?

Now the real danger with this is that he was totally incoherent and paranoid and crazy. If he came upstairs when people were there he would get in a beef with the customers. But he often came up at five or so when everyone had left he would be standing there wobbling. And something would move or the cat would run away. Man that cat was really scared of Eddie because he would always think that someone had broken in and would take out his piece and let off a couple of shots. He shot out a mirror or three, lamps, banquets and tons of liquor bottles. But the worst was the tin man. There was a full set of armor set up on a stand next to the mantle piece. The cat would love to lay on the mantle piece because the heating duct ran though there to the old chimney and it was very warm and toasty. But when the cat heard Eddie she would tense up and then run like hell for the kitchen. She would almost always brush against the suit of armor and it would move or clank or something. And Eddie would shoot it. I mean it look like a burglar right? You would come into the bar and Eddie would see you and buy you a drink and go “Damn it boys, the tin man took another bullet last night.”


So we used to tell these stories all the time to newbie’s at the bar. I would always bring the new accountants who started at the firm to the bar to introduce them and for drinks and stuff. One day this Chinese guy Dave started at the firm. Now Chinese people like to drink but most of them can’t keep up simple because of a body weight issue. I mean he was hanging with a couple of Irish guys who had been drinking since they were 12 years old and weighed over 250 so we could adsorb a lot. Anyway he got totally shit faced and fell asleep. It was funny as shit. You must have done stuff like that. You know took funny photos of the guy. Propped him up with stupid signs and what not. But then I had an inspiration. I thought let’s put him in the suit of armor. Which we did. How we did it with out him waking up I don’t know. But we did. And we kept drinking. Eventually he wakes up and starts screaming. “Man what are you assholes doing. You can’t leave me like this. That idiot is going to shoot me. Please I gotta pee. Please.” Now we knew that Eddie had gone to Florida two days ago but we didn’t tell him. We shut all the lights and told him not to worry about it and were singing and joking like we were all drunk and leaving him there. It was pretty funny.

Eventually we relented and came back and let him out of the armor and we had a few more drinks and laughed about it. It was a great story to tell for years after that.

We called it the night of “The Chink in the Armor.”