Just what a best-selling author needs.

The Peculier Pub is famous for its hundreds of brands of beer. When Paul Bowman entered the pub, there sat Senior and Junior guzzling Weissebier, frequently chased with shots of Sambuci, for which Kamikazes were soon substituted. Senior immediately befriended Paul, to the drunken extent that Paul counted his lucky stars the next painful day for getting home to Brooklyn alive in a cab that seemed to be careening like a toboggan on wheels, spiraling around an endless section of sewer pipe to nowhere.

When Paul met Senior, who was obviously a wealthy man, he had a weird hunch that he had encountered by chance or by the deliberate machinations of Providence the patron and mentor who would recognize his talents and skills, who would see him as the national treasure he was, and who would free him to work in the most artistic of fashions. Paul had that same feeling he sometimes had when he heard the right song playing just before he turned on a radio.

"Tell me about yourself, " Senior ordered, "Where do you come from and what do you do?"

"I'm from a small town out West. I was a business executive there, but quit my job and came to New York to write and to dance. I've been writing to amuse myself for a long time, but I've just begun to dance and I really like it."

"Hey, I like you. You've got brass balls! Say, meet my son, here. He's an award-winning film maker," Senior stated matter-of-factly, then tossed back another shot. Junior had been staring at his beer glass; he looked up with a countenance that said, "Here we go again, Dad's hooked another one," and offered Paul a limp hand to shake.

"Like I said, you've got brass balls to come here out of the blue like that. Well, at least you came to the right place. What are you working on now?" Senior asked.

"I've just completed a series of articles about dance in New York City."

"Where is your work? I want to see it now," Senior leaned over and leered at Paul. "You give it to me and I'll tell you what, if I like it I'll back you up."

"I don't have copies with me," Paul said, as if that were the end of it. He felt like he was on the verge of winning a jackpot, yet he did not want to blow it by seeming too eager. But he had no reason for reticence.

"Look, look here, look, uh, what did you say your name was?" Senior was well into his cups by now, his head lolling about, but he managed to stay in command.

"Paul. Paul Bowman."

"Look here, Paul Bowman," Senior ordered, now staring at Paul's face, "if your stuff is as good as you seem to be, I'm going to back you up. Understand?"

"Yes," Paul felt his heart thumping at the prospects.

"You send your stuff to John Wilson, Senior, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, zip code, zip code, oh what the hell, just send it along to me. Everybody knows me."

"What street is that?"

"Never mind that. Here, better yet, I'll be at this steel company when I get back from Nashville," Senior declared, handing Paul a card he had extracted from his jacket pocket. "You just send it there. and send my boy a copy too. Son, give, uh, Paul here your address. My boy's an art critic you know, and if he says your stuff is good, you're in like flint. Say, where do you live?"

"Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn!" shouted Senior incredulously. "What in hell's name are you doing there?"

"A lot of talent has come from Brooklyn," Paul offered defensively.

"Yeah, sure, FROM Brooklyn. All bad roads lead TO Brooklyn, or to New Jersey. You're an oddball with brass balls and, I tell you, you should be living in the Village. I'll tell you what, you ready for another beer?"

"Sure."

"Give the man a beer, and shots all around here." Senior ordered again. "What was I saying? Yes, whether I like your stuff or not, and don't you send me any shit, if you want to live in the Village, I'll put you up in the Village. That's the least I can do."

Paul's heart joyfully skipped a beat at Senior's offer, for he had been hoping that by some stroke of good fortune in the throes of his poverty that he would be removed to the Village for good. That is where he took his dance classes for several hours each day, and where he was making so many warm-hearted friends like Senior.

Yes, Paul mused over his seventh beer, Yes, while living in the Village, I will write and dance with my head and my feet in harmony, my spirit unhampered by dismal rides to the transit system's worst stop, a nauseating cavern where unprepossessing vagrants slumber in the reeking scent of urine at one foot of the fabulous Village.

To live in the Village had been Paul's fondest dream ever since he read stories in his youth about the famous writers there, the jazz, the Communists, the Beatniks, and all the rest that lives and has its being in such exotic places. But the monthly rent for an apartment there exceeded his entire budget for six months. As far as Paul knew, at the end of that budget stood, if he failed, penniless poverty on the Bowery, or chanting Hare Krishna in the park, or a leap off the Brooklyn Bridge--he had ruled out the Empire State Building on the grounds someone else might get hurt.

"But he's drunk," Paul said to himself sometime later, after he had bade Senior farewell and hailed a cab to Brooklyn, having decided to splurge on cab fare given his high hopes and besotted spirits. "I know better than to believe in bar talk anyway. I'm no kid!" 


(excerpt from the author's NO HARD FEELINGS)