Forgot.... About the black neighborhood bar.

I forgot -

So, the other week when my one friend from school with the hippie biker parents had her birthday get-together at the black neighborhood bar and students from school and some people from the restaurant where she works came, this one old Jamaican guy ("Leroy") who owns a garage about a 10min. drive south of the neighborhood but lives in the neighborhood and always comes in for a glass of wine at her restaurant came and joined everyone. He was quite the person...

We both ended up at the bar at the same time, me to get a pitcher and him to get a mixed drink for himself, and while we were standing there talking, he would tap the big black lady in a head-to-toe pink jogging outfit, and then turn away and hide his face from her with the brim of his baseball cap and pretend like he wasn't doing anything, so she'd look up at me like I was bothering her, and while I still didn't realize what was happening, he did this again, and then I realized what was happening, and I told her that it was him tapping her, and she saw him and was like, "Oh, you!", and swatted her hand, and it turns out that they had known each other for like 20 years but hadn't seen each other in a while.

Later, me and him were talking, and he started to say what an awful place the tiki bar that used to be open across the street was, and how it was the only bar open till 4am, so all the drunks and disorderlies and people up to no good late at night used to come in, especially since they also had food till 4am, and the whole place would get out of control, but the old (black) guy who owned it ("Tiki Teddy"), was too cheap to hire extra staff, so he would try to be barman/waiter/doorman while keeping a watch on everything, and meanwhile prostitutes would be having sex in the bathroom, just like they used to do at this 24-hour Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood that recently closed down, and a lot of drug deals would be going on, and it was like that till one day someone shot the ceiling up and then Tiki Teddy decided it was too much for him and his wife at their age and he closed the place down.

The place also had really good fish and chips, Leroy said, and the waitresses would steal from the customers' purses.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," I was like. "You miss it?"

"I do," Leroy said, and got a sad look on his face.