Roosevelt's Fantasy Bar

Or here's a bit of a memoir.

I think five of us lived there. I can’t remember for sure. There might have been six or seven of us. It wasn’t less than five. It’s some kind of church now. Then it was a store that had been converted into a rental. My room had been the storefront. I was close enough to the sidewalk that sleep was almost impossible.

Above my room was a flat roof. There was a door that led to that roof from one of the other rooms. On Saturday nights, when the weather was good, we would take chairs out and sit on the roof and wait for the show.

The show started around 1:30 am. It didn’t get hopping until the bars closed at two. That’s when Roosevelt’s Fantasy Bar let out. Roosevelt’s was directly across the street.

We lived in that house for a year. We went to Roosevelt’s once. That was to get takeout during the day. It was not what you would call a friendly bar. I knew someone who drank there once. He said the bathroom was like a swap meet for drugs. Just a bunch of folks in there trying to lowball the other dealers on price. He said it was not the spot to leave empty-handed, at least if you wanted to leave on your feet.

It was summer. The tar on the roof was warm and soft. The legs of the chairs sunk into the roof. That was a plus. There was no railing. It was a 12-foot drop to the sidewalk in the front. Thin walkways bordered by wrought iron fencing separated the properties. If you were going to fall, the sidewalk was safer, at least you wouldn’t get impaled on wrought iron spikes.

Closing time rolled around and the booze and heat had some Roosevelt’s patrons ready for whatever. A fight broke out almost as soon as the last group left Roosevelt’s. Two men were fighting over one woman. As the pair of men squared up, someone implored the woman to stop the fight. She didn’t. She just screamed, “I love them both.” We were quiet.

The fight was sloppy. Neither man really got hurt. One highlight was when the tangled up scrappers moved from the street to the sidewalk. That’s when the down spouting got ripped from a house. The dude who had the spouting in his hand swung it with all his might to the body of his opponent. It was aluminum. The spouting folded around the midsection of the man it hit. We were no longer quiet.

The cat who had swung the piece of aluminum was stunned just long enough to get punched in the face and hurt. By then the police had arrived.

As the police dealt with the fighters, the woman was still bellowing about how she loved both of them.

With the police focused on the fight, one of the bar patrons walked to his car. He was parked behind where the cops had pulled into an open space. He hopped in his car, started it and drove right into the back of the police cruiser.