Spats

 

Not the original but close enuff

 

 

You’d think I’d be used to winter, being born in New England and all. I ain’t. When I was much younger, when I didn’t sport this old man’s gut and flab, I was as skinny as a rat with no attendant layers of blubber to insulate and keep me warm.

With the worst of winter, I’d shiver, my feet could go numb and a couple of times the skin on the inside of my wrists would turn white then a worrisome grayish color, the second step to frostbite I was told.

With those physical burdens, you have to psychologically steel yourself against them. I ended fighting it off in my mind as there were few other answers to bitingly cold weather. I didn’t ask to learn tenacity, in order to resist it till I could warm up again, but learn it I did.

Inside my home, we had forced air heat with registers that blew out hot air like a hair dryer. As long as I could remember, if I’d hear the furnace click on, I’d rush to one, crouch by it and bathe myself in the 120 degree air that came out of it. I wasn’t the only one to do this, my brother did and I caught my Mom standing in front of them once in a while too.

Today, I can push my office chair with a good shove of my feet and roll over to a register if the furnace comes on to luxuriate in that hot air stream.

Here’s some further evidence my family may have had lousy peripheral circulation. At the wedding of my brother’s friend way back in 1980, my brother and I (and others) had to go shake hands with the groom’s and bride’s family, who were all lined up. I shook the hand of some aunt of the bride when she commented, “My! Your hand is ice cold!!” I just smiled and moved on but was within earshot when my brother, who was next in line, shook her hand. She exclaims...”YOU too!?”

“We’re related...brothers.” He tells her.

She then almost shouts out...”Wow!...the Cold Hand Brothers!”

**

So I told you all that to tell you my main story about Spats bar that was on Angel and Thayer Streets.

I have always loved, in winter, small, cozy and almost claustrophobic bars and restaurants that weren’t cheap on their heating. I loved them more if their décor was darker as well. The more like the hibernation tunnel of chipmunk, the better!

I honestly don’t remember when I first went to Spats or how I found out about it. I think it was through a college friend who introduced me to it as we did hang out there at times, and another time I remember after a Roger Waters concert.

I do remember one time we were there, when the Ollie North hearings were happening and on TV at the bar that day. Day drinking...you can do that in your early 20’s then as you have the time, also the DWI laws weren’t as draconian as today and you can go home and sleep your drunk off w/o it interfering with your career, which at that age, we had none.

So the both of us are good and drunk and I start to loudly proclaim my love and support for Col. North, knowing that the clientele of the bar is full of Brown U. commies, pinkos and Democrats. (I am still one by the way, just more conservative about money now).

For my own personal goofing around to fuck with the Brown people, I say "I lovvvve Ollie!,” like some teen girl ogling a poster of some heart throb teen boy band singer. It was loud enough to make it through the bar.

Next to me, M. sternly and with a bit of an angry shout, but quiet enough for only us to hear says, “Would you SHUT up! You know WHERE we are...don’t you??!!!”

But I’m am having fun and I yelp out some other love lorn thing about North and Reagan as well. Then I noticed I got some ugly stares from some guys at a table near us.

I stop. Those Brown U kids aren’t enjoying my joke.

So that’s probably how I started at Spats.

**

My first “real” job was with a social service agency and I made some fast friends there. One was Brian, who was three years older than my 24 yrs. Brian, was a terrible goof/dweeb/mechanic/electronic component soldering/ slightly clueless, Member of Densa guy with retard strength (I apologize for that but I need to give you an accurate idea!). On the other hand he was very chatty and I found out later, a fiercely loyal friend who did have a brain once he turned it on. He also loved to eat. I once mention Spats to him as they had the best and most disgustingly large nacho plate around with heaps of guacamole, sour cream and lava-like rivers of molten cheese...and Brian begged me to take him there.

We spent the winter of ‘88 there, usually after work, drinking beer and eating those piles of nachos. I enjoyed that time because it was winter. Spats was conducive to coziness as it had low ceilings that were covered in filthy, ancient copper plate. The building, if you walked around the bar and the restaurant next door was a rabbit warren of hallways, misshapen walls and creaky uneven floors. All bar stools and tables were slightly uncomfortably too close to one another but that didn’t bug me at all. The rest of the décor was sort of slap hazard but that was OK with me, it spoke of personality and not corporate sameness. The place had soul.

Plus, the nicest thing about Spats is that in the winter, they blasted the heat.

I can remember stepping out of it one time at 1AM, with Brian, into a screaming north-west biting wind and I didn’t care. I was toasty warm from spending a night there. His pick up and my car were probably the only two parked on Angel st and the ride home, with the heater blasting, wasn’t long at all. I was full with food, well warmed up and had a manageable beer buzz to avoid the Pawtucket cops that late at night.

While Brian and I spent time there that winter, I spied a waitress, Laura. She was a brunette gamine...(Gee, what a surprise...what I was always attracted to!) who usually wore a hippy like scarf through the loops of her pants as a belt. That pile of thick wavy hair of hers…god..do I have a hair fetish? I bet I do.

I also knew what Brian didn’t due to his naivete, that female bartenders and waitresses get hit on all the time and IF you expect to move on one, you had better go real slow.

I had told Brian I thought Laura was too cute for words and he picked up on that I liked her. One night, I see him go to the bathroom and when he returns he stops to lean into the kitchen and speaks to her. I can see this happening and I swore I knew what he was telling her, thinking he was helping me out.

“See that guy over there..in that booth...he ADORES you and wants to ask you out!”

Brian comes back and I ask him why he was talking to her. 

“Oh, nothing, just told her how we preferred her over other waitresses.”

Liar...

In a minute after that, Laura comes to our table and quickly asks me, “Are you a Townie? You look like one.”

“Yes, I live up the road.”

She pauses, thinks...and finally she says, “Oh…”

That pause and that “Oh” meant, End of the Road.

Later on Brian in his ignorance trustfully asks me...“What’s a townie?”

“It’s a local...someone who doesn’t attend the Ivy League college and isn’t rich…You and I are ‘townies’ compared to the Brown kids that go here. We don’t ‘belong.’” I tell him.

**

I miss Spats. I miss the bronzed shoe or “spat” that was affixed to the door as the door handle you pulled to open it. I miss Brian, who left us so many years ago.

But..there is another too small place nearby I like in winter that is warm enough too, Quinns. Though I can’t chase college aged Laura’s anymore nor eat a garbage can lid sized plate of nachos by myself, I can settle in it with a beer, talk to those in retirement who remember the good days when life and music were the best.