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Farrell's Basic Bar
Saturday, August 4 2001
I took Gretchen's advice and decided to open an account with a local Brooklyn Bank called Astoria Federal, one of whose branches was only two blocks away from where we live. Before setting out to do our bank business, we each took hits of an illicit serotonin-unleashing substance.
For some reason Astoria was overrun with customers when we arrived and by the time it was my turn to have my paperwork done, our serotonin was already being unleashed. In retrospect, reflecting on my dealings with the pleasant middle-aged African American bank lady, I have to say that no matter what you're doing, even official bank business, it's a lot more fun while under the influence of MDMA. In this case, I had a strong and refreshing feeling of empathy for the bank lady, wishing to make her task as smooth and entertaining as possible. So I joked around with her freely, but not obnoxiously. When, for example, she had me fill out my W-9 form and she explained that I'd have to pay tax if my accrued two percent interest exceeded $20, I said, "Yeah, I'll really make out like a bandit on that two percent!"
Unfortunately, every time I take ecstasy it seems its effect lasts less and less time. In this case, the best part of the experience happened entirely within the bank and barely spanned twenty minutes. I was already mourning the passing of the best part of the trip as we stepped out onto 7th Avenue. (Compare this to the time I took Dextromethorphan and did some bank business.)
We walked up to Prospect Park and just lay in the grass looking at the sky near the edge of the woods. But I wasn't really in the mood to lie around and made several forays among the trees to find plants, preferably sassafras. I couldn't find any, but I did find Giant Ragweed, Black Cherry and lots of knotted little fragments of toilet paper. (Among the flora of urban rivers we find the Brown River Cucumber and the White River Weed.)
Back at the house we watched Romy and Michele's High School Reunion on videotape, since it is one of Gretchen's favorite movies. My favorite scene in the movie was the one where Romy and Michele are driving a borrowed Jaguar from Los Angeles to their high school reunion in Tucson, Arizona, dressed in their idea of "business women" suits. They stop for food at a diner and ask the crinkled old woman behind the counter "Is there a 'business women's special'? Because we're, like, business women?"
Interestingly, my mother is now attending her 45th high school reunion up in the suburbs of Boston, though she didn't even think to visit me as she passed through New York. Like everyone else who ponders such things, I can think of only two reasons to go to a high school reunion: to rub your old classmates' noses in your success or to fuck someone you never had the balls to approach back in the day. For both these reasons, then, 45th reunions seem sort of beside the point. Everything in human sociology comes down to fucking or fighting, doesn't it? Maybe I'll feel differently in 30 years.
Gretchen's friend Eulala (I'd been writing it as "Yolayla") came over and after considerable conversation (can Eulala talk!), we decided to sneak into the Pavilion Theater over on the southeast side of Prospect Park (in the neighborhood of Windsor Terrace). The movie we planned to see was Legally Blonde.
Some time ago Gretchen discovered that she could sneak into movies at the Pavilion by entering it through a café attached to its side. We followed her, walking with all the necessary assertiveness and self-assurance this way and that while ushers in red uniforms paid us no attention. The way into several theaters seemed to be effectively guarded, but not Legally Blonde, at least not after we entered through the café. Soon we were in, sitting in the second row from the screen and no one had shouted after us, "excuse me, can I help you?"
As predictable Hollywood movies of this particular comic genre go, Legally Blonde wasn't especially bad. The idea that Barbie Doll blondes from Los Angeles can succeed in the courtrooms of the East Coast by tapping into their vast wealth of fashion and hair-care knowledge might not be the most subversive message I've seen in a movie, but it was good for a few laughs. I do think, however, that the movie could have worked a little harder on authenticity. The middle aged white trash manicurist whom Elle befriends should have spoken with an amusingly thick Boston accent, for example.
After the movie, we all got icecream from the ice cream man and went over to a nearby bar called Farrell's. It was a noisy place with austere yellowish wood paneling and loud customers drinking beer from huge styrofoam cups. The plump man behind the bar looked about as authentic as a bartender can look. Gretchen tried to order some sort of complicated drink and he apologized that Farrell's is "just a basic bar," so she ordered a shot of something instead. Eulala ordered a gin and tonic after I'd placed my order for "a big styrofoam cup of Budweiser."
Eulala told us that Farrell's has something of a reputation for the fights its customers get into. I could see the environment as somewhat conducive to fights, much like a Kansas wheat field is conducive to tornadoes. Voices are loud but unintelligible as they bounce repeatedly back and forth off the yellow wooden walls, so people tend to shout. Words could be misconstrued. Next thing you know, people are throwing chairs. This tendency toward violence probably explains the use of styrofoam cups.
Several times to pay phone (718 788-8779) rang and it was always for the bartender, sometimes by someone looking for one of the customers. I got the impression that the bar didn't have a proper non-pay phone.
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