Having a Drink with Stephanie & Geo
I like “Smokey.” He’s not a bad guy, just not a guy I wanna deal with right now. A few schooners deep, each one accompanied by two shots of Four Roses, and all of that washing over a mind scrambled by who knows what. The man’s one of the few still chasing the real thing. A weathered soul who lights his Winstons in defiance of the winter winds. All while functioning alcoholics fifteen years his junior puff on gas station vape pens back within the bar’s warmth. “Babies with their bottles,” he calls ‘em.
“Well, Ron…I’ll be…seeing ya,” he mercifully forced out through a coughing fit that’d followed nearly an hour of conspiratorial rambling. “Old lady comes looking…don’t tell her you seen me.”
I hadn’t settled on a specific time with my soon-to-be-former neighbors—and of course, Stephanie and Geo were under no obligation to delay their moving preparations for one last drink with me—I just didn’t want to be waiting here too long. Trapped, politely feigning interest in the uninteresting. Trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” clapped some stooge at the other end of the bar as a cable news report played out.
Anxiously scratching the haggard hairs of his neck, he scanned the room for someone to take the bait whether they be friend or foe. No one was interested in a worldview informed by the dumbest dredges of Facebook, however. Especially the local restaurant kids who’d started arriving.
I gave it twenty minutes, but it took only ten before one of the them began loudly airing grievances about their “situationship.” A romantic entanglement with enough red flags to be diplomatically recognized as the communist nation of “McKenna.”
The drama playing out among this group of hospitality workers was just one camera crew and a few green tea shots away from being a reality show on the Bravo network (and not one of the good ones). Better to have this as background noise, though, than to have one of ‘em corner you with their war stories from the industry trenches. As if you’ve never worked a goddamn day in your life.
The moment called for some TouchTunes terrorism, and regardless of season, no juke box choice disrupts quite as beautifully, awkwardly, and hilariously as “The Christmas Shoes.” Apparently uninterested in hearing the ballad of a little boy trying to bribe his dying mom’s way into heaven via Jesus’ only true material desire (quality, fashionable footwear)—the disgruntled food service comrades shuffled outside to bum real cigarettes from an already returning Smokey.
Sir, I wanna buy these shoes for my mama, please
It's Christmas Eve, and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, daddy says there's not much time
You see, she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful, if mama meets Jesus tonight
We re-established contact as I transited the secret passage between drinking establishment and dwelling. Stephanie & Geo had a few more errands to knock out, but they’d be back soon enough with time for both a proper goodbye and for me to finish my laundry. One of the numerous benefits that comes with living above a bar is that you can wash your clothes between beers, and as they headed out the door, I wondered if they’d miss this. Not just the convenience, but also the dryer that’d been stuck on “1 minute left” for much longer than a minute and wasn’t overly picky about taking quarters.
A clear veteran of laundromat service, every cycle of the repurposed machine was a roll of the dice. Denied a merciful retirement, it usually chugged along in faithful service, but had lately started roaring with a mechanical howl that made one wonder: was each new day a gift, or a curse, from the appliance gods? Either way, I now prayed for their blessings: “Please, just let me finish these towels.”
And blessing were granted upon me.
Once I finished folding my towels in the manner I’d learned from an episode of Step-by-Step, I found myself back down in the confines of a familiar watering hole. One that was quickly becoming crowded as I snagged a seat at the end of the bar closest to the door. The occasional blast of air felt refreshing despite the low-40s cold, and during one of those revolutions—there appeared Geo, bearing the same friendly expression he had when we first met a few years back. And right alongside him: Stephanie, ready for us all to rapidly exchange random anecdotes in what was essentially the recreation room of our apartment “complex.”
A few years ago, while balancing a large box from Mikey’s, Geo had introduced himself while holding the door for my dog and I—a kind gesture from a dude who clearly had good taste in pizza. Coincidentally, Mikey’s Late Night Slice would later be the site for one of my best memories with Stephanie. Running into each other at the combination bar/pizza parlor, we both decided to catch the streetcar home at the end of the night, except it never came and no buses were scheduled nearby. Threadbare transit service is to be expected in Cincinnati and the walk wasn’t usually too bad, but on this particular night it took about half an hour in the pouring rain. Yet, despite being completely soaked and having chatted the whole way back, we still stood in the stairwell and gossiped about all the local happenings.
The stairwell and the bar below, that’s where I most often ran into these folks and would find myself happily stuck in a cycle of laughter and conversation. They operated on a kind of a serendipitous, sitcom-style schedule, appearing just when you needed to see them most. Walking the dog late at night at the end of a rough day? Here comes Geo, returning to the neighborhood with a smile and his luggage after a work trip. Not feeling overly confident? Here comes Stephanie to tell you that her friend thinks you look like “a sexy Drew Carey.” All that to say, these two quickly became the best neighbors I could’ve asked for. Neighbors who then became friends.
While I’d found my apartment after finding the bar, they’d found the bar after finding their place—becoming the inaugural tenants of a renovated building that’d once served as a flophouse.
“My favorite and first memory would be meeting Miss Lori and signing my lease at that table when this bar was empty,” Stephanie said while motioning towards the wall. “She walked me through the whole bar and told me the story of how she acquired every piece in here and how nasty the place used to be before she bought it.”
Having once boasted a rather rough reputation (that’s strangely and partially documented in the 1994 film Milk Money starring Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris (a story for another time))—the building, its bar, and its classic neon sign had been saved thanks to Lori Meeker. A beloved figure throughout Cincinnati, she wasn’t the type of person you’d associate with the pejorative form of “landlord.” She gave folks a chance, looked out for everyone, and knew the names of both people and pets—someone who hadn’t just renovated and saved a historic building, but made the place a home. And now, in this moment, we toasted to her memory.
Stephanie and Geo weren’t just area residents or bar regulars, though, our block had occasionally been a place of part-time employment for them. They’d met and married while in service to a cruise line, but now only Geo sailed the high seas with Stephanie having traded ocean employment for a career in the skies. As if they didn’t have enough interesting stories and experiences from their respective jobs, the two also helped out at Deme Kitchen.
“First time I ever worked there as a server. That’s one of my best memories from having lived here,” said Geo while nodding his head.
After Lori’s tragic passing and her bar’s sudden, temporary closure, the next-door Chinese restaurant had become the de-facto neighborhood drinking establishment. Known for both its food and its personalities, “Deme” (pronounced Dem-ayy or Dem-eee depending on who you run into) was a place that both Stephanie and Geo were particularly fond of.
“I loved those famous kickbacks at Eric’s apartment,” Stephanie said while remembering a legendary Deme employee/friend/neighbor who’d once lived above the restaurant. “Those were so good. Eight people in a That 70’s Show-esque circle. It was spiritual, really. Rest in peace, Eric,” she said solemnly before raising her glass and clarifying: “He’s not dead, he just in Honolulu.”
The rest of our evening, a weeknight that we’d all truly known was never going to end “early” (got that laundry done, though), faded into what my microphone recorded as random, muffled conversation. The most decipherable bits of which seemed to indicate that I was using “Who Let the Dogs Out” for another one of my anarchistic juke box assaults.
Eventually, friends from Deme Kitchen joined us, the bar’s new owner offered up another toast to Lori’s memory, Smokey worked his way into a round, and I even brought the dog down to say goodbye. With a growing and adoring crowd offering up more “final” drinks to the Atlanta-bound couple, I thought the doors closing behind me might be the last time I’d see Stephanie and Geo. At least for a while.
Geo and Stephanie in the red neon light of The Bay Horse Cafe & Roadhouse.
But I ran into them the next afternoon after they’d overslept a bit from having been sent off in proper fashion the night before.
Egypt, sexy Drew Carey, Anna, Stephanie, and Geo.
Months later: the dryer’s been replaced, Smokey’s still hanging around, a new Chinese spot opened where Deme Kitchen was, and from what I’ve heard: my former neighbors are doing well in their new home down south. Their door mat is still here—the one with a pineapple on it that serves as a daily reminder of just how many more stairs still lay ahead—and I’ve thought about taking it for my own, but I don’t know if anyone else has moved into their old place. In fact, I don’t really know anybody in the building anymore, which is another indication that this chapter of my life here is coming to an end. And when it does, that’ll be ok. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had had a more-than-decent life on this block, and, great neighbors.
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