Pub Crawl: Tale of the Drunkard’s Son

Growing up under the shadow of alcoholism

Image by author.

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. Pub. Yet another anti-social social club typically reserved for family and friends. Where a drop in the IRA hat allows almost anyone to take a seat. A slight step up from the I.T. only in that the beers here are heady and dark and get pulled from a row of brass taps. The micks are a livelier bunch than the vets, and between the music and the malarkey, stay long enough and you’re sure to see fists flying.

My last stop between here and home has a name which eludes me, but is either Mickey’s or Dicky’s or Nicky’s or Jack’s. Perhaps each at some point, but each a forgettable hole in the wall. Down the abandoned end of Maple Street where people no longer go, across from the auto parts store, down past the old cobbler’s shop is another unmarked door, heavy oak with worn bronze handle. Down a dark narrow hallway the depth of the building sits a space at the back just wide enough for a bar, its tender, and patrons.