Showdown at the Woodley Cafe

The night was dark. I was slouching through town, feeling unfamiliar in a crowd of strangers, trying to forget myself amid the crush trying to get noticed. I needed a stiff drink, there was definitely a stiff drink out there who was head over heels for me, and I knew there had to be a place where we could get acquainted. I walked into the nearest bar ’cause the farthest one was too many steps away.

Then I saw them, three goons that weren’t looking for trouble because trouble had heard they were looking and skipped town on the next Chinatown bus. That was trouble’s mistake, because everybody knows the Chinatown bus is as likely to leave you by the side of the road with your luggage on fire and soaked with antifreeze as drop you on a stinking street corner with a chopstick up your nose and a wonton up your ass. But never mind that. Back to the goons. It was like the Dating Game in one of Chuck Barris’s cocaine-fueled fever dreams: Bachelor #1 was probably the one they called the Kid, his innocent face all smiles after beating the latest murder rap with the help of a few guys named Ben Franklin. Bachelor #2 looked like he dug his bivouac next door to the Unabomber and made his own moccasins out of Ted Nugent’s hide. And Bachelor #3, well, he was the softspoken one, which means he might ask your opinion of Freddy Adu but shiv you even if he agreed with your take on the kid. I knew I should have kept on walking past that dive but then I caught their eye and it was too late to leave early.

The Shiv gestured to a seat next to him and I had to sit down. At that moment the waitron cashed in her years of training and asked for drink orders.

“What Scotch do you have?” the Shiv asked, and I hoped for my own sake she had whatever swill he was hoping to swig.

“We got Jack Daniels,” she responded, and then I knew it was all over for her and me both.

Then the Kid leaned forward. “They say you got quite an arm.”

“Do they,” I responded, playing it cool. If things went my way I might have a chance at getting out of there without it being feet first. “I wonder if they know what they’re talking about.”

Unabomber looked up from his half-sized glass of beer. I wondered if I was dressed as Dorothy because that bar was sure starting to look like Oz. “You see this nose?” He pulled a giant plastic nose out of his pocket and slammed it on the table.

Now I knew I was in crazytown but I thought it best not to point that out to the natives. “Yeah, I see that nose.”

“You beat the Kid at arm-wrestling, you get the nose. You lose, Shiv here gets yours.”

“Simple proposition,” I remarked. It might have confused the teetotaling waitron but it was crystal clear to me. “Let’s go for it.”

I clasped hands with the Kid and we planted our elbows on the table. At first, he was holding back on me, I could tell, letting me wear myself out early and then he could swoop in for the kill. So I kept it low-key, not showing off, knowing that the longer it went the more likely I would keep one of my favorite facial features. Actually, who am I kidding, I’m not a huge fan of my nose but I wasn’t ready to give it up for adoption to that bunch of jokers.

Time was ticking by and the Kid was looking a little less confident. I didn’t have him yet, though. I just kept my eyes on that nose and hoped that my arm didn’t leg out. At last I saw him start to crumble like Big Dig concrete, and finally I banged his arm to the table harder than Woody Hayes punched out Charlie Bauman in the Gator Bowl.

For a minute it was quieter than a room full of people sleeping through Elvis Costello’s North. Then I stood up, picked up the nose, and gave a salute. I figured I’d hit the road before their patience ran thin like Gene Keady’s combover. “Here’s to otolaryngology,” I said, picking up my drink and draining it in one shot.

That was one hell of a night in Washington, D.C.

Notes: cross-posted to Costello-l; visit here for a couple more pics!