Catch the Blue Train.
Salvatore Difalco

Gents went in the hazily lit front entrance and ladies and escorts slipped through a steel side door—a vestige of less liberal mores and times. Pat P. and Vince C. walked me to the front entrance, both costumed for a 1970s discotheque. Lanky Pat had on a metallic taupe rayon shirt and high-waisted, pleated ivory pants. The more diminutive Vince had gone with a patterned aqua silk shirt open to the nipples and baby blue slacks sans belt. He’d even dug up a species of robin’s egg blue tuxedo shoes to complete the ensemble. Never one to ramble lockstep with the herd, I was wearing bluejeans and a gray sweatshirt I hadn’t laundered in weeks. 

 

Dismissing my hesitation, they held my arms strongly and moved me closer to the entrance. I didn’t really want to be there. I’d fallen into a terrible depression after my wife of ten years left me and had walled myself off from the world—that is to say, I had wallowed myself off from the world. Luckily, I had friends who cared about my wellbeing. And this is when good friends should come through, I might add, when they can help you keep your head above water, when they’ll stand by your side and assist you as you stagger along. That said, they’ll not want to hear about the mangled marriage or the hebephrenic ex or the impending divorce. They don’t think you’re special or particularly worthy of shoulder-rubbing in that regard. Separation and divorce are commonplace, almost the norm these days and not the exception. The whole sad thing is nothing earth-shattering to all but the afflicted parties and even then not always. So you just shut your mouth about that and whatever. 

 

Were Pat and Vince my good friends, my confidantes, my brothers in arms as it were, or in any way my intimates? I would argue they were not. I would argue that I barely knew them, that every minute I spent with them was one of discovery. I might also argue that I had little claim to any true friends, and that I was a short step removed from actual solipsism. Everyone sorts out their shit their own way, I would argue. 

 

The boys pulled me up to the glass and brass doors with a hammered green tin sign that said Genesse Tavern. I’d read enough books to know that green might have meant something deeper than suggested at first glance, like the green light in The Great Gatsby, though probably not. I think my fragile psyche spared me the frippery of symbolism. That said, the green tin sign pleased the eye and perhaps subconsciously promised a warm welcome. The formidable doorman, with Jimmy stitched in gold on his black golf shirt, stood there stone-faced with his massive tattooed arms crossed, militating against any loose impression of metaphoric open arms. But this may have been particular to Jimmy and not the tavern per se. I wondered if he was married and having problems at home. Domestic harmony doesn’t engender angry men—but was he angry? He looked like he could make guys shit their pants by punching them in certain areas of the abdomen. He had no nose and no neck. But was he angry?

 

“We’re here to fix up our friend,” Pat said. 

 

“Yeah,” Vince said, “he’s all fucked up.” 

 

The doorman clenched his teeth and growled something. Pat nodded as though he understood what he was saying. As I passed him, the doorman looked inside my skull with his dead black eyes. Maybe he grasped the depth of my malaise—but constituted as he was, felt little sympathy. Or maybe tumbleweeds were blowing across the charred desert of his mind and I did not signify at all to him.

 

“Guys,” I said, “I’m not into this.” 

 

Pat wrenched my wrist and told me to shut up. “We’re saving your life,” he said. “You should be thanking us. Or maybe paying us, know what I’m saying?”

 

I chuckled mirthlessly. The idea of someone paying two guys to go out with him and pretend they were his friends was laughable, true, but also pathetic. 

 

Green lanterns shedding a low, throbbing light with the consistency of a gas illumined the joint. It smelled like musk oil in there, urine, and stale beer. Someone in a dark corner blew a tenor saxophone, accompanied by whispering drums and a softly thrumming bass. Had no idea the place featured a jazz trio. I’d have likely come long ago, being a jazz enthusiast, had I known. Were they any good? I shut my eyes and sampled their groove. All right. They weren’t bad! But I doubt anyone else paid them any heed. Drunkards in dark gray and brown raiments lined the main bar, many with their heads bowed, mute and desolate. Were they all suffering marriage woes or recovering from heartbreaking separations? Joining them to drown my own sorrows briefly crossed my mind. We continued into the side section, where men and women hunched in dimly-lit booths sipped cocktails and chatted, the women reminiscent of brightly colored parrots, painted and perfumed, the ruddy men freshly-shaven and Old-Spiced. We sat in a booth with me on the inside, Pat blocking my escape. 

 

“Why we sitting in the ladies section?” Vince wanted to know, as did I. 

 

“So’s we can have a little parley here, see,” Pat said. 

 

“Are we negotiating something?” I asked. “And why didn’t you tell me about the band? Who the hell likes jazz in these parts?”    
“What’s the big deal?” Pat said. “People like it just fine. You like it, no?”

 

“That’s jazz?” Vince said, knitting his brows. 

 

It was. And who would’ve thought I’d be listening to jazz at the Genesse Tavern? As is so often the case, I could never anticipate what would become eventualities. That is to say, events become eventualities for me only retrospectively. Such as my wife leaving. How did I not anticipate the move? All the signs were there, presumably. The signs are always there. You have to train yourself to see them—or rather steel yourself—and to feel them. But perhaps none of this makes sense to an outsider. At the end of the day, all we can hope for is that our best efforts satisfy the client. 

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Pat asked me. 

 

“I’m taking notes,” I said.     

 

Indeed, I’d brought along my trusty green notepad and pen. On the advice of my therapist, Dr. Emily Boccaccio, I’d begun journaling, in private and in public. I had chosen a green journal because the alternative was a red one with all of its connotations. She told me not to hesitate putting pen to paper when I felt so inclined. Would it draw attention, or suspicion? Perhaps, but most people had their eyes glued to their phones and scarcely paid attention to others unless they were doing something offensive, and writing in a notepad could not be thus construed except by an analphabet or a maniac. 

 

“He’s taking notes,” Pat said to Vince, who shrugged. “I said he’s taking notes, you fucking hump.” 

 

“So what, he’s taking notes,” Vince said. “Who cares? Maybe he needs to do it. Let’s order a pitcher of beer, I’m dying of thirst.” 

 

Pat wanted to know what I was writing. 

 

“Details,” I said, “observations, little this and thats.” He wanted to know for what purpose. “My therapist, Pat,” I said, “I’m writing things down on the advice of my therapist. She thinks the journaling will help me work things out, you know. But do I really need to explain this to you?” 

 

Pat sneered. “He’s writing stories about us, Vince.” 

 

Vince smiled. “That’s good, no?”

 

“That’s not good!” Pat shouted loudly enough to be heard over the music. 

 

The band broke into a tune that sounded familiar. “They’re playing Coltrane,” I said. I couldn’t believe it. Coltrane, in these parts? It seemed inconceivable. At best, a Led Zeppelin cover band could be expected, or maybe some yahoos playing a northern species of country or blue grass. The jazz band was doing a slowed down version of In A Sentimental Mood. Pat and Vince looked at me blankly. “You have no idea who Coltrane is, right?” When neither responded, I jotted this down in my notes.

​

“What did you just write?” Pat asked, pointing at my notepad. “Are you making criticisms of us? So what if we don’t know who this Coleman dude is. Do you think anyone else in here knows?”

 

“I’ve never heard of him,” Vince offered, “and this music is depressing.”

 

“You’re depressing,” I said.

 

Pat leaned in to me. “You gonna write that down, too?”

 

Why was I with these two characters? Perhaps, lacking flesh and blood friends, I had conjured them up like djinns in order to play out my psychodrama, and having summoned them, I felt an obligation to not only to understand them, but to use them well. Did we go way back? From a socio-historical perspective, no, though in some psychological sense we did. But categorically, no. We were all but strangers. Perhaps I haven’t made that abundantly clear. And I was as strange to them as they were to me. That is something to admit at this point. Were they hired guns, as it were? Or contract players? That type of thing? No money ever exchanged hands and nothing was signed. And the existence of Pat and Vince finds both its genesis and development in the green notebook I had been filling before and after I entered the tavern.

 

A passing waiter with a Van Dyke beard paused and frowned at Pat who sat there inexplicably staring at his red-paisley vest. “With you in a sec,” the waiter said. 

 

“What was that?” I asked Pat.

 

“I have an aversion to red paisley.”

 

“You don’t say.”

 

I rubbed my eyes and stifled a yawn. I was tired. “I’m tired, guys,” I said. Pat pointed out that we hadn’t even had our first pitcher yet and that my note-taking was getting under his skin. “This isn’t fun or feasible for me unless I can journal,” I said, “no matter how much beer we will drink or not drink.” It had become my safety blanket.

 

Pat mulled it over, then said, “Okay, take your fucking notes.” 

 

The waiter came for our order. He glowered at Pat. It was okay if he didn’t like Pat. He could be hard to like—just one of those guys, I surmised, though maybe in the real walk of life he would prove to be the more faithful and ardent friend of my two companions, Vince being something of a lug. The band struck up Cousin Mary, which gave me pause as my ex was named Mary. Mary, Mary, what have you done to me, Mary? Thinking of her strangled my stomach. More than that. If I let myself fall into the Mary rabbit hole, I could very well suffer another nervous breakdown or a psychic implosion. I was terribly close to a complete collapse. 

 

My mood swelled, soared, and sank with that wailing saxophone. I tried to catch a glimpse of the band, but even though smoking had long been prohibited, a haze enveloped them, their faces and instruments obscured. 

 

The pitcher of beer arrived and it had a green hue that puzzled me. Had I missed something? Was it St. Patrick’s Day? I looked to the others for confirmation of the oddity but they were oblivious and I didn’t want to make too much of it. Was it a sign or a symbol? I thought not. Sometimes beer is green. I paid and tipped the waiter healthily. I wondered if he liked jazz. We locked eyes and he nodded. He was cool with me. I was cool with him. I filled my glass and drank. Pat and Vince followed suit. 

 

“Can I ask a few questions?” I suggested. “I need details to, like, flesh you out.” 

 

Vince looked at me as though I were citing phrases from the Koran in Arabic. 

 

“Flesh us out?” Pat said. “The fuck does that mean?” 

 

How could I explain? But was this exercise necessary? Would Dr. Boccaccio approve of my approach? Did it matter? The health of my mind had a direct correlation to the state of my heart. And I don’t mean the muscle pumping blood through my veins. I mean my metaphoric heart, the one that had been tenderized and shredded by Mary. Of course, I blame myself completely for the break up. I should have been more attentive, more loving, more giving, more sensitive, less brutish, less vulgar, less detached, and less of whatever I amounted to in total that repulsed her. 

 

“I’m a Leo,” Vince said apropos of nothing. “And I like long walks on the beach,” he added as though trying to secure a date. “And I’m big into Van Halen.”

 

I blinked, then jotted it all down. “What else?” I said. 

 

“Blondes, I like blondes,” he said. “Big bosoms, I also like, if I’m being honest.”

​

“And lemme guess,” I said, “your favorite color is blue, right? 

 

“Yeah, yeah, man. He’s right. I’m all about blue, every which way. What about turn offs? I should tell you those—like, Brussel’s sprouts, ew.”

 

“I love Brussel’s sprouts,” Pat said.

 

“They smell like garbage,” Vince said.

 

“You smell like garbage.”

 

“Enough,” I said. “This is unhelpful.”    

 

The two fell silent, ogling each other with scarcely contained hostility. Okay, I thought, at least a more complete picture of Vince was emerging—a stock minor character, granted a line or two, but mainly serving as a balancing third wheel, or almost like animated furniture. Pat, on the other hand, was far more driven and complex, far darker. A preexisting tension existed between us; I wondered about its nature. 

 

“So, Pat,” I said, “let’s dive in, shall we? Let’s start by explaining this red paisley thing.” And it was funny, I had conceived next to nothing about him—his ethnicity, his religion, his height, weight, family situation, whether he worked or not, what he had in mind by bringing me to the Genesee. 

 

The band sprang into Blue Train—a tune that had one time made me realize how meaningless my life was—and Vince bobbed his head. I felt no urge to bob my head. Pat didn’t like the music, so he didn’t bob his head, indeed, if it could be imagined, he did what amounted to the opposite of bobbing his head. 

 

“You okay?” Vince asked me. “You look, I don’t know—funny.”

 

“I’m fine, man. Just a little indigestion.”

 

“You know what’ll fix that?” Vince said. “A couple of pickled eggs.”

 

“They have pickled eggs here?” Pat looked toward the bar.

 

“They used to, back in the day.”

 

“I don’t see any jars on the bar.”

 

“Will you guys shut up about the pickled fucking eggs!” I cried. 

 

Pat turned to me. “Relax, man. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

 

“Is that right? Tell me about yourself, Pat. I know fuck all about you, bro. You act like we’ve been friends forever, but you know that’s not true. I doubt you have any memories of me beyond this evening.”

 

Breathing steadily through his open mouth, Pat said nothing. 

 

A puzzled Vince sniffed and stared at the back of his hands as if they might provide him with a roadmap to understanding. 

 

“So spill it,” I said.

 

“This is all you need to know. I’m of Sardinian descent—”

 

“You’re Sardinian?” Vince remarked, his mouth agape.

 

“I am. My father hailed from Sardinia, okay. It’s not that weird. My father died a few years back and I live with my mother. My brother Joey passed away last year in a motorcycle accident. He was wearing a red-paisley shirt that day. I’m currently unemployed. I have no idea why we came here, to be perfectly frank. That jazz music jangles my nerves. And I know you’re going through some emotional shit, but the details are vague and maybe they should be. If I’m here to help you somehow, I don’t think I’m equipped to do so. So why are we here, at the Genesee? Whenever I try to think of the reason, I encounter an enormous blankness in my mind.” 

 

“You guys are giving me a headache,” Vince said. “Let’s have some fun. I feel like dancing. Do you guys feel like dancing?”

 

The band began After the Rain, and as much as it pleased me, it made me feel heavy. I stopped writing and looked around. A profound sadness overtook me. Why was I playing this game? My eyes welled up but I fought back tears. Hadn’t I shed enough tears? I had to see this exercise through, no matter how ridiculous. I picked up the pen.

 

“Maybe we should switch venues,” Pat said, but he seemed to be speaking as from a considerable distance.

 

“Where do you wanna go?” Vince asked. His voice, too, seemed distant.

 

Pat looked at Vince blankly. Vince was about to say something, but reconsidered. The two seemed to shrink a little.

 

I wrote all this down as quickly as I could and when my pen suddenly ran out of ink, I summoned the waiter again, hoping he had a pen on his person he could spare. He checked his apron and produced a blue Bic.

 

“Thanks, man,” I said. 

 

“Not a problem,” he said. “Are you okay?”

 

“Is anybody okay? What the hell does that mean anyway, right?”

 

The waiter looked at me with soft eyes and nodded.

 

“By the way, cool vest.”

 

“Thanks. It’s vintage.”

 

“Yeah? Listen, let me ask you something.”

 

“Shoot.”

 

“Do you know who John Coltrane is?”

 

“Of course I do. The band’s been covering his tunes all night.”

 

“What’s the band’s name?”

 

“Chasin’ the Trane.”

 

The waiter’s answer filled me with inexpressible joy. I wanted to kiss the man on both cheeks and ask him to give me his telephone number so I could call him some time and chat or arrange a coffee date. I glanced at Pat and Vince, who sat there with their mouths open. I felt bad for them. But by now they’d become unnecessary ciphers.