Crabby Shack

 

 

The Fun Mafia Story

I never got used to clam flats or it’s mud, they just plain stink. I found that to be true about of wharves where commercial vessels tie up at as well. The water is stagnant, the docks stink of tar and creosote and the first stage of fish processing starts there, which can reek. But guess what, they put restaurants right next to them because those places can be tourist magnets.

The town wharf in Plymouth is no different, it too has long docks and restaurants and Barn and I went to one that’s now called the Crabby Shack next to Cap’n John’s Boats.

“Oh, you’ll get used to the smell. I have.” says he.

“Yeah, you lived here on and off for 60 years...your nostrils are fried from it!”

The waitress comes and Barn whips out his license, shows it to her and we order a couple of beers. I ask “Do they card everyone, no matter what age?” and he tells me he did that so we get townie prices. I find out townie prices are what businesses will charge locals instead of the ‘non-consenting rape prices’ they hit the tourists with.

“I’m just proving to her ‘we’re from here’ and it’ll knock off a good 30-40% on the final bill.”

I get my fave, fried scallops and he his clams w/ bellies (which are killer too) and we dig in. As we eat, I ask him how the hell he ended up in Rhode Island anyway, where I first met him to begin with that long ago.

In 1985 he had just finished up another stint with the 2^nd fleet but this time as a retired civilian (teaching history to the sailors who were advancing their educations while at sea) and that shadowy job he used to do when active as a Commander.

So he’s back home for a few months, gets bored and starts applying for positions as a professor of history around New England. He gets hired by two places, Bryant U and Rhode Island College.

“So a month before classes start, I look for and find a really cheap apartment on Penn St in Providence, in it’s Little Italy off Atwells Ave...you know where.”

He tells me he gets moved in and starts exploring the neighborhood on foot.

“I made the best decision! I got an apartment for nothing and if I walk a few streets down...all the best Italian stores and restaurants are there!”

About a block down from his place, Barn sees a very small bar that has all it’s windows and doors wide open to the street. He walks by it, thinks and then goes back to get a beer and maybe meet some of the neighbors that live there.

As he goes in, there’s a bartender and in the corner, a group of guys drinking and playing cards at a table. He sallies up to the bar and orders a beer.

“Uh...I can’t really serve you.” the bartender says.

“Why? Barn asks surprised. “You’re open, wide open for everyone to see….you served THOSE guys there in the corner.” The guys in the corner stop playing and look up.

The bartender is nervous and then says, “We’re not that kind of bar here...perhaps you should try another place.”

Barn was undeterred and didn’t quite understand why the place, wide open to the street, isn’t serving him.

The bartender then says, “Look, don’t take this personal but this is a private club...you have to be a member to drink here.”

To which Barn says..”Ohhhh, I get it. OK, fine….can I Join?”

Once Barn says that the guys in the corner start laughing.

He goes on. “They all started laughing at what I said but not a loud as this big fat guy that was there. He was wearing black pants, white shoes and a white shirt opened so low that his fat man titties were nearly out.”

The fat one, laughing had also said: “Huh! Huh! Huh! You hear that! He wants to join our club!”

Another one at the table tells Barn, “Youze don’ understand..this a real special club for special guys!”

Out of curiosity, the fat one asks Barn his name.

“Barn Barufaldi” He tells them.

The guys stop laughing and fat man asks, “Where’s your family from in Italy?”

“Cento, north of Bologna...nearing the Italian Alps.” Barn tells him.

After hearing this the fat one says. “Hey Luca, get this guy a beer! It’s on us!”

So Barn drinks it and talks to the guys. After that he thanks them and leaves.

A day or so later, he tells his landlord who lives on the first floor the same story about that bar.

“Do you anything about the Patriarca family?” the landlord asks.

“I have heard of them…” Barn says.

The landlord tells Barn he had walked into one of their little neighborhood hang outs and the fat one ran gambling operations.

“Ohhhhhh…” sez Barn “that sort of explains things.”

But Barn isn’t scared not shooed off when he returns to it.

After a few more visits to that bar, fat man finds out Barn is a professor at RIC and is teaching a class his daughter is in. She’s is having a great time at RIC and loves Barn’s class because Barn was helping her get along as she had trouble at times, scholastically. He hadn’t known prior that she was the daughter of anyone of merit.

The guy, taking a liking to Barn tells him, “Look, youze is new here..youze need anything, have any problems, youze come to me. I can help. OK?”

****

By the time I graduated RIC, the history department head had changed from Norman Smith to George Kellner, whom Barn detested. Apparently Kellner couldn’t stand Barn either, but Kellner was the Dept head and/or “boss” now.

Barn would show up to his classes dressed head to toe in sweat pants, shirts. Sometimes in some real Guido white pants and flashy shirts and many times in his tennis get up, sweating like a pig from whacking a ball around on the college’s courts. To look at him you’d never guess he was a professor and certainly not dressed like the staid conservative history profs that populated the history department, some looking like they taught at stuffy Cambridge.

“Once Kellner got the department head job, I knew he was going to use it to push me out. He never liked me one bit.” Barn had liked to do things, ‘his way’ but at the same time uphold classes/college’s reputation.

“I can prove to the Dean, that all of my exams, fully satisfy validity and reliability scores..can Kellner claim the same? I’d love to know!”

Barn liked too blow off departmental meetings or show up very late to them. When Norman Smith ran the place, he was pretty liberal, easy going and would just tell Barn what was discussed later on or a week later. It was no big deal. Kellner however…

“Nice of you to join us Mr. Barufaldi.” Kellner told him one time, as Barn came in late to the meeting, looking like a pig from playing tennis.

Kellner then wants Barn to run a summer session course as no one else seems to want to do.

“No.” Barn tells him.

“NO?! I need YOU to take over this course!” Kellner tells him, getting visibly pissed as Barn tells me.

Barney sits down at the table, clacking his tennis racket on it and says, “I won’t be here. In a week, I’ll be flying to Brisbane...I’m spending the entire summer in Australia...why don’t YOU pick up that course.”

“Ron” Barn says, “His face got beet red! Kellner wanted to kill me!”

“Mr. Barufaldi, I feel your heart isn’t really ‘with’ our department, I would like to see more cooperation! We need someone to fill that spot.”

To which Barn gets up, picks up his racket and as he is leaving the room, turns around to tell Kellner “No” again and that he already planned and paid for his trip there. Now being a bit miffed, he fires a shot at him as he asks Kellner when was the last time he was published in a a major journal. As a professor, “Publish or Perish” is a real thing. Along with your teaching job, you have to keep researching and publishing articles to keep adding to that body of knowledge. It’s a sort of unwritten law with professors and that culture.

As Barney waited for an answer from Kellner, he says, “I’ll answer that for you...you HAVEN’T published anything in over five years….know when I did last? 13 months ago in the Contemporary European History journal!”

****

Later on Barn tells that same story to fat man from the bar to which he suggests he can, with a few friends, “Slap Kellner around a bit..just to send a message.”

“You were going to have Kellner put under a contract?” I ask.

“You know...I thought of it..for a bit..but decided it wasn’t worth it, Kellner was a prick and I was going to quit RIC and Bryant U anyways after I came back from Australia. I knew I wanted to keep traveling, do that old Navy job again...but still...fat man was going to do this w/o payment and it did sound fun! God, Kellner was this close to motivating me.”

***

The waitress arrives with the bill it was was surprisingly cheap for what we ordered after all. I was expecting it to be much higher but townie prices do work, if you’re a local. Every time I had gone to Plymouth, I’d gas up the car, do some food shopping here at home instead of being overcharged there.

It’s nice to have connections at times.