Chapter 5.
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The Theatrical was a glitzy restaurant on Vincent Avenue, a road that Clevelanders called ‘Short Vincent’ since it was a truncated road running a single city block between East 6th and East 9th. From the 1920s through the ‘60s, Short Vincent was the heart of Cleveland’s nightlife, home to the Roxy Theater, the city’s premier venue for big-name acts. Before performing, stars like Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, and Judy Garland drank and dined at the nearby Theatrical, elbow to elbow with celebs like Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, the New York mobster, the boss of bosses, Vito Genovese… and, with less fanfare, working stiffs like Frank, Umberto, and Boots.
Times change. Since the late ‘60s, Cleveland City Council pushed for urban renewal. Over the years, contractors demolished the district brick by brick, razing gritty bars to raise slick modern office towers in their place.
Regardless, the Theatrical and Roxy hung tough, two pit bulls with lock-jaw. Sure, they had lost some luster. Instead of booking household names like Tony Bennett, the Roxy featured classy but less popular entertainers. And since the nightlife had shifted towards the suburbs, the restaurant now focused on the lunch and happy hour crowd. But the food was still good, the drinks still strong, and the prices not bad. A great place for office workers on one-martini lunches or working stiffs looking for a tasty burger and frosty beer.
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Frank opened the door, holding it as Umberto slipped past, reading the marquee over the Roxy. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson headlined that night, and he shook his head. He loved jazz, but he’d miss Peterson being stuck listening to his granddaughter Peggy’s violin concert. Ugh. Still, family is family, and Peggy was his princess.
He shut the door, sniffing onions, beef, cigarettes, and booze. His mouth watering, Frank shuffled after Umberto, who wove through the busy lunch-hour dining crowd with a fleetness of foot you’d never expect from the overweight guy.
Frank shivered. Until the moist heat hit him, Frank was unaware that the cold had chilled him to the bone. The thermometer had plummeted since the morning, another cold-front moving in. But Frank thawed as he bopped past the well-dressed business crowd towards the bar, where the guys sat at several crunched-together pub tables, eating burgers and drinking booze and beers while yucking it up.
Boots looked up, wiping burger grease from his mouth with his napkin. “Where you guys been? Hell, I’m on my second beer.” He scooted aside, making room for them, and Frank snagged two unoccupied chairs, dragging them into place.
“Looking for Corny, walked past his post on Public Square,” he said, sitting and panning the busy dining room for their waitress.
Boots sipped his beer. “Crap, that’s right. I forgot. He okay?”
The barmaid’s eye caught Frank, and he motioned her over, saying, “No one vending nothing today. Too cold by half.”
Boots nodded in understanding as the chipper brunette barmaid handed Frank and Umberto menus, taking their drink order. Frank ordered a Jameson neat with a beer chaser. Umberto ordered his usual, Amaretto and scotch, a ‘Godfather.’ The barmaid scurried to the bar, and Frank read the menu, debating whether to go with the Americana bacon burger or their Italian sausage, onion and green pepper sandwich when a voice emerged from the background buzz.
He turned to see Bo.
“What’s that?” Frank asked.
“Concerned about Bad Leg, eh?”
Frank nodded. “Think he may have died, but aren’t sure, so we were checking.”
Bo snorted. “First it’s Otto, and now it’s Bad Leg. What is it with you and n****rs, Frankie?”
Not here, not now, Frank thought. I mean, between Howard being a putz and now this fool itching for a fight? Jesus, what a day.
But noting the challenge on Bo’s face combined with the idiot’s pure ignorance, Frank stood to face him. Bo stood a touch taller than Frank, maybe six-three. Outweighed Frank, too, but much of that weight was flab. Frank stood speechless, playing chicken.
Turned out Bo sucked at playing chicken and broke, asking, “Well, what are you, some kinda n****r lover?”
The barmaid delivered the drinks, evidently hearing Bo since her gaze flicked between them for a heartbeat before scurrying to the dumpy-looking crewcut manager behind the bar, whispering in his ear. The manager stood, hitching up his pants, gesturing towards the bouncer. Frank put them out of mind and stared at Bo, sipping his whiskey.
“Well, I like most people I’ve met. Love a handful. The colored people I know ain’t no different from white folk, so I like most and love a couple.”
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That ought to have ended it, since Bo wasn’t clever enough to troll a response. Problem was, Bo knew his daughter from school, and Bo escalated tensions.
“Ah, like your Black son-in-law? Your Mary Lou’s a n****r lover too. Helped them pinkos register them in Mississippi, and married a n****r.”
Frank’s Irish boiled, and he felt the back of his neck turning red as hot steel, but he breathed deep, reeling in his anger.
“Hector’s Puerto Rican, a scientist who worked for Uncle Sam in Los Alamos for a decade, doing top-secret work to help us defeat Godless commies.”
His expression slack, Bo shrugged his shoulder, as if unimpressed. “But he ain’t white.”
Frank raised his palms, pleading for peace. “Well, like most Puerto Ricans, he’s part European, part—Wait.” He stopped dead, realizing he was apologizing to a nimrod. “You know, I owe you nothing. You're an idiot. Hector’s a better man on his worse days than you on your best.”
Bo smirked. “Whatever. Your baby girl must’ve gotten plenty of n****r cock in Mississippi. Likes that dark meat. How’s it feel, knowing your girl’s giving her poontang to them gorillas?”
Frank narrowed his eyes and curled his lips, his heart pounding and hackle up. “She’s better married to Hector than to a no-account shit kicker like you, an uneducated fool with a chip on his shoulder.”
Triggered, Bo sprang and swung at Frank, hitting him in the jaw. Surprised more than hurt, Frank’s knees buckled, but held. Fire in his belly, he faced Bo as Umberto shot from his seat, grabbing at Bo’s arm. Another topper, Delany Chase, tackled Umberto, and the two bumped into a table, sending glasses, beer bottles, and plates shattering to the floor.
Alert, Frank assumed a classic boxing stance, his body perpendicular to Bo and hands raised, protecting his face. Bo charged, swinging with wild abandon. Frank ducked and weaved, blocking Bo’s flurry. Frustration drawing his lips tight and eyes narrow, Bo changed tactics and bull-rushed. Frank sidestepped, and Bo shot by, tripping on Delany and crashing to the ground, running into several tables, knocking plates and glasses and beer bottles to the ground.
Frank offered Bo a hand-up.
“Enough of this crap, Bo, okay? Let me buy you a beer.”
Bo shunned the hand and stood, thumbing his nose. “Enough nothing, you n****r lover, who lets his girl be fu—”
Jackass was besmirching his daughter.
Enough.
Frank howled with primal rage, anger flooding his limbs. White-hot, he leaped forward, grabbed Bo by the shirt collar, and smashed him against a post. Bo swung, and Frank ducked, surprising even himself with his dexterity. Frank got so close Bo’s punches could not connect with force, and Frank lifted the squirming guy off the floor by his flannel’s collar, forcing Bo to his tippy-toes.
Frank cocked his arm. “Keep my girl out of your mouth, understand?”
Fear in his darting, ferret eyes, Bo nodded and Frank released him, the man collapsing like dirty laundry. Frank remained wary, not trusting Bo as Umberto handed him his jacket in a not-so-subtle suggestion that they should leave. As he reached for the jacket, Bo charged again. But Frank was ready, pivoting clear and landing a roundhouse punch square on Bo’s nose, which exploded into a bloody mess. Enraged, Bo swung wildly several times, but couldn’t connect with Frank, who dodged and blocked the punches. And then he threw a jab, connecting with Bo's face. And another. And another. And then a right-cross.
Frank sent Bo crashing. Out, cold. Delany rushed forward, leaning over his buddy, splashing water on his face to revive him, snagging a napkin and holding it to Bo’s nose, which gushed blood.
As if waking from a dream, Frank noticed his pounding heart and heard the excited voices around him. The crewcut manager, whom he’d forgotten in his laser-focus on Bo, screamed orders. Before he could get his bearings, Umberto and Boots grabbed an elbow each, hustling him towards the door.
“Let’s go, Frankie,” Umberto said, his black eyes darting side to side as they reached the sidewalk. “Cops.”
After hitting the near-frigid air outside, Frank’s adrenaline subsided. And he realized he’d been in an actual knock-down, drag-out fisticuffs, the first fistfight he’d been in since the service.
The threesome bustled up Short Vincent and Frank shook his sore hand, flexing and relaxing it. “Christ, that hurts,”
“Guarantee, it hurts less than Bo’s nose,” Boots said, looking over his shoulder as they turned the corner onto East 9th. “One hell of a club you got there.”
“Think I broke his nose?”
Umberto laughed, steering the crew towards Euclid. “Squashed it flat.”
Boots clapped Frank on his back. “Mohammed freaking Ali, I tell ya.”
“Here, here,” Umberto said, as his ear cocked towards the roar of sirens that seemed to come from East 6th, so he turned towards 9th. “Not bad for an old guy.”
Umberto led them into the Chop House, and they watched a cherry-topped Dodge Dart roll up Short Vincent from the foyer. Once it disappeared around the corner, they drifted through the door.
“C’mon champ,” Boots said to Frank, his face goofy with a grin, “first drink’s on me.”
Still amazed by the surreal character of a normal life gone crazy, Frank followed Boots towards three unoccupied seats as the cherry wood bar.
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About twenty minutes later, cops nowhere in sight, Frank, Boots, and Umberto hoofed it for Buehler’s Taphouse on Superior, the Chop House being too expensive for a working man. But when they got there, it was closed, a stocky bouncer-type saying that the owner had a heart attack, so they were waiting on the night manager to open. Slump-shouldered and starving, Frank and his posse crossed the street to Hagan’s, a low-rent pub near Muni Stadium. They crashed in the back of the joint, ordering from the cadaverous, wrinkled mess of a bartender. His hand growing painful and stiff, Frank requested a pint glass of ice and a towel to ice his hand.
The burgers tasted okay, if overcooked: miles short of Theatrical quality, sad to say. Cheaper, though. And while the food and booze revived Frank, even his buddies’ calling him Ali and his fight “The Thrilla in Manilla” couldn’t fill the damp chill sitting in the middle of his soul. No accounting for it. The victory should have him pumped with pride. He’d bashed that fool, who had been insulting his daughter. If anyone deserved a smashed nose, Bo did. And yet, the cold pit remained.