Jocko’s Bar on Chapel Street

A New Haven story of the 1970s

All through the fall and into winter I'd spent long evenings drinking alone in Jocko's Bar on Chapel Street. Did you know it? Maybe you never went there. It’s long gone now. This was 1971.

It was a dingy place where ladies of the night whose peroxide had gone wrong, and old alcoholics whose lives had, relived the fifties to the sound of Elvis on the jukebox. The plastic upholstery in the booths had cracked and been repaired with electrician's tape – and cracked again, disgorging dirty-brown padding like cotton bales. Though so close to Yale, most Yalies went elsewhere: Hungry Charley's or George and Harry's or Mory's. I went to Jocko’s because, after a few surly dismissals of ladies, I could drink my beer in peace – or at least in solitude.

That night, as one of the King's greatest hits quivered out of the jukebox, I could almost feel the sympathetic vibration from the action regions of the ladies – could almost see the tears glistening in the corners of their eyes. Not sure but that maybe they were really glistening in mine, though.

New Haven depressed me. Cold weather arrived too soon for this Texas boy, and hung on much too long. But at last spring was sort of sticking its head a little way out of its winter shell to see if it was time – maybe yes, maybe no. How could you tell up there in the north? But maybe there was hope on that front.

Grad school! Ugh! No hope there. But for practical purposes I’d given that up in October, so it was more a dull ache by then, instead of a critical depression.

So it was neither the weather nor school that forced me to flee. For that I had to thank "the one true love of my life." Could it really be over, the bliss that had made pointless life worth living? If only it had lasted forever, instead of … let's see … not quite a semester.

Incredible as it may seem, we met right there in Jocko's. His first words disappeared in the jukebox Elvis din, but I knew what they were. I saw his intention in his eyes.

That first night we stayed at Jocko’s drinking and talking – sometimes shouting over the Elvis laments – till last call. When they threw us out, we lingered on the sidewalk watching the Old Heidelberg across the street empty. Maybe both, but me for sure, lamented silently that it had to end so soon. Then our eyes locked, and a raised eyebrow (no words needed) said it didn't have to end, not yet. Arm-in-arm (since it was dark we could) we crossed the flagstones between Edwards and Branford (solemn-faced duo who did not approve), ascended the spiral stairs to his room, and then … You know what then. I don't need to spell it out – unless you want me to.

Later, as I moved my fingers along the curve of his back, slipped my hand between his stomach and the sheet, kissed the back of his neck, I had no doubts: this was love and it would last forever.

Even the indisputable facts of his person seemed improbable: those dark eyes, that fair skin, blond hair, broad chest. His rich doctor father had sent him north to Yale from Richmond in the time-honored golden Southern boy tradition. Everything he did, he did with the self-assurance of wealth, intelligence and beauty. Everyone noticed. Like an orchid, he throve on the vapor of admiration which naturally, inevitably engulfed him.

You know how it is when you’re young and you feel in your soul that you can never love so much again? That’s how I felt as the days with him turned into weeks and months. Certainly it would last forever.

What a fool I was, fool for love. Need I say the words? It didn't.

It cuts to the core remembering the last afternoon, how he ripped open my chest and took a butcher knife to my heart. Do you think that’s over the top? It’s not. I was sitting on the grass in the Cross Campus, looking at the purple hints of wisteria festooning the beige stone of Berkeley College. I ran my finger along the seams of new-laid turf and watched the undergraduates frolicking in the out-of-season (and certain to be short-lived) warmth of early-spring sun.

The Harkness Carillon pealed out it's afternoon medley as he walked through the Gothic doors of Sterling Library. He was a half-hour late. He crossed the street slowly, and moved slowly down the steps and across the grass. He wanted everyone to have the chance to watch him.

I bit my thumbnail into the quick watching him myself.

"You drew blood this time," he said as he sat down beside me.

"Butch, isn't it?" I said, wiping the blood on my jeans.

The conversation flagged as he looked at the undergrads, and I looked at him. Finally I dug my fingers under a turf tile and said, "What's up?"

That got things going. He told me about family and career and "having fun" and "something a little different." In all, it took five minutes, but after the first few words I wasn’t hearing. I closed my eyes and used all my effort to keep from crying. I desperately didn’t want to be a maudlin piece of work, at least till later.

"So that's what's up. No hard feelings? You're a really swell guy."

When I looked up he was going. I took a used Kleenex out of my pocket and blotted the blood on my finger, and the last couple of tears I hadn't actually cried – and I headed straight to Jocko's. I intended to stay there drinking and bawling until I died  broken hearted, or until they threw me out, whichever came first.

As you can guess, they threw me out. Does anyone ever really die for love?

I don't much remember what happened next. Eventually I knew that morning had broken – and the way I felt, maybe all my bones had too. My stomach bubbled like the witches' brew. Eye of newt and tongue of dog, wool of bat and toe of frog mixed and mingled in my mouth. "Hell-broth boil and bubble" indeed.

As if by magic – perhaps the weird sisters managed it, since I couldn’t have – I found myself sitting in a stuffy car of the early train to New York. The air wouldn’t start until the train did, so it would take a while to clear. The dirt-gray upholstery gave off that familiar commuter train aroma of body odor and wool trousers – the accumulated rush hour stink of 40 years. Smelling it, still with the lingering taste of newt on my dog tongue, was like putting another faggot (maybe me) under the cauldron. Since you couldn’t flush the toilets while the train was in the station, what would I do if the cauldron boiled over before we started to move? It's little uncertainties like that that add excitement to the life of dirt-gray upholstery.

Then there was that first back-and-forth jolt; we were moving. The early passengers leaving New Haven settled into their seats. How I envied them. "Settle" was a concept that completely eluded me; it was all I could manage to cling precariously to my own seat. The snap of plastic lids removed from Styrofoam coffee cups thundered through the car. The sound of mothers cooing their toddlers back to sleep assaulted my ears. The conductor punched his way down the aisle, cramming coupons into the slots on seat backs, his scowl daring us to move and forget our stubs. He punched my ticket with a deafening click. The slats of light and dark from a passing freight car slapped my face. Only a couple of excruciating hours and I’d be in the City – hours watching the ugly backside of Connecticut flash by outside. Not even escape was easy!

But I was going FROM as much as going TO, so I had no clear idea what I expected to find there. New Haven was bleak; New York might be even bleaker unless I found something to take my mind off HIM. (To be continued …)