Pub Crawl: Tale of the Drunkard’s Son
Growing up under the shadow of alcoholism
Golden hour. Indian summer sun setting. Sweltering autumn air lifting on a crisp evening breeze.
Currents flow, cycling past shuttered shoe factories and forgotten mills. Riding through working-class neighborhoods, past dusty DPW yards, past where the road just crumbles away and fades into scrub. Swinging fast and wide, leaning into the turn, skidding to a stop in a dirt lot where a front yard used to be. Up the worn steps of a nondescript house marked only by a flagpole and small plaque. It’s two hours past quitting time and this watering hole is the first of likely many.
The Italian-American Veteran’s Club. “The I.T.” to locals. A “social club” officially, but in reality just another dingy dive bar where everybody knows your name and somebody can supply a steady stream of fifty cent Naragansett’s or Haffenreffer’s.
I nod to the barkeep, who knows my face and knows my routine. I work my way through the crowd of neither Italians nor Veterans, eventually making my round of nods and glances then silently slip out the back.
A quick roll to my next stop, across the brook behind the gas station near the old fuel yard. Blink and you’ll miss it is the unmarked entrance to The Ancient Order of Hibernians. The A.O.H…
