Familiar Places
By Collin Hockenbury
As I walked around St. Matthews, I was reminded of this heartfelt letter from Frank the Tank.
Like the Godfather, my home wasn’t really my home anymore.
I wasn’t in a ghost town—not yet, anyway. Cars still hummed up and down Shelbyville and Breckenridge and Chenoweth and Frankfort. A few other people were on the sidewalks. But no one went in anywhere, and no one came out. The windows of the St. Matthews staples were all dark, and on the other side of the ones I could see through, the chairs were turned upside down on the tables. No one manned the registers. Neon “Open” signs glowed, but they were lying. We weren’t really welcome inside.
Other quarantine days have left me longing for the future. Picturing it. The day I’m in the living room watching the news, and Fauci comes on the air and says, “Brothers and sisters, the virus has gone.” (I’m not sure why his declaration is so Pope-like in my fantasy.) I look down at the sweatpants, midcalves and sandals combo I’ve had on for as long as I can remember. I run my hand through my oily patchwork of hair, now a festering, uncut mullet. And as my eyes scan the tube of Clorox wipes on the coffee table in front of me, it all sets in. I drop from the couch to my knees, burst into tears of joyful relief, and pry open the lid, removing the last moist square from the little plastic sphincter to dab my eyes. The phone rings: it’s the fellas. Beers. Daps. “Rockstar” by Nickelback on repeat. Right now.
One can dream.
This wasn’t one of those days. Instead of imagining how freedom would look, I considered the past, conjuring up memories tied to my favorite places as I walked past them.
One high school summer:
A much tanner, skinnier version of me walks into Plehn’s ready to decimate some baked goods. Having said that, it’s also lunchtime. A sandwich may be in order. I go all in. Three smiley face cookies, a TruMoo chocolate milk, a turkey sammie and a bag of chips. The monetary damage will be considerable, but it’s worth it. A good friend works here, and she’s the one who gestures to the register so she can ring me up. She recites my items back to me as she enters them, rubbing my excessive haul in my face: “…large chocolate milk and one, two, three cookies. Okay, Collin, your total is one dollar and seventeen cents.”
“I… hmm?”
“One-seventeen, please.”
I’m not the quickest. It takes me a second to realize she’s brokering a fine deal. I fumble two dollars out of my wallet and tell her to keep the change, like an idiot. Then I exit with a large paper bag and eat its contents in my car before I drive home.
Jenny’s had a hard day. She’s in her third year of med school and her surgery rotation is taking a toll. Just come over, her text says. We’ll watch some Schitt’s Creek or something. Hell yeah we will, but not before I surprise you with your favorite: chicken pad see ew, spice level 5 because you’re a frickin’ savage.
The surprise is a success. I pocket my invisible brownie points then inhale a modest helping of dumplings and level 2 fried rice, because I like to actually taste my food. SC hits the spot, too, just not in a dunked-in-soy-sauce kind of way.
My friend is drunk. Drunk enough to ask Lucy the bartender something stupid. We’re at the side of the bar near the staircase to the second floor, which I often forget exists. The place is packed, so it takes forever for us to order. I commandeer a Coors Light, and I’m about to give Lucy my last name when my friend asks if they sell cigs here. No is the obvious response. She turns around, nullifying his 15-minute wait time. Two guys in camo UK hats laugh in his face.
Just then, the DJ digs into his shallow bag of party tricks and pulls out my personal favorite: interjecting “My mind is telling me nooo!” from the beginning of “Bump n’ Grind” into whatever song is playing without a hint of finesse. No fade-in. No mixing in some instrumentals. Nothing. He just interrupts Usher while he’s trying to sing “Yeah!” with Lil Jon. Eventually he lets R. Kelly get into the opening verses. It’s only a matter of time before he plays “Face Down” by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, his playlist’s crowning jewel, his ace in the hole. (I wonder if my friend was able to bum a cig by the time he did. Probably not.)
DiOrio’s after midnight is never as simple as it sounds. You think, surely to God I won’t see those same six dudes I went to high school with here again, and yet there they are, every time. You meet their glazed-over eyes and make friendly conversation about absolutely nothing. Then you wait too long for a pizza that is going to burn your mouth. On this particular night, all of these things happened and then some.
I’m with David and Reed, and when they hungry, we eatin’. They order the 30-inch behemoth, all BBQ chicken, and when it’s ready, we get it out the shop door but can’t fit it into our Uber. Reed calculates some angles and figures out how to jimmy it inside like he’s a veteran furniture mover. Then when we get to Reed’s, Dave shifts the box from his lap and the entire pie slides out of the cardboard and onto the floor of the car. We calmly fold the massive dough parachute up and stuff it back in the box—it’s like packing up a tent after a camping trip. Every guy eats three slices that night, carefully picking the hairs and grass off.
There was probably dog shit on that ‘za. And it still burned me. But it was good. It always is.
I’m four years old, and Graeter’s is my favorite thing in the world. I like it more than my family, more than our labrador, more than cartoons, more than my coloring books. And my dad just asked me if I want to go get some. Do I want to go get Graeter’s? Does a cat have an ass?
He packs me and my sister into the car. As soon as it’s in drive, I start terrorizing her. Tickling her, poking her, generally having fun at her expense. My dad warns me.
“Keep it up and we’re going home.”
Yeah f--king right, dad. I keep going. Rubbing her bald infant head and shaking her car seat. My dad whips the car into the nearest driveway and turns us around. I’m in utter panic mode. I hysterically promise to change my ways.
“Please! Please! I’ll be good! No more! Chocolate ice cream! Graeter’s! Dad! Please!”
“Collin, I’m serious.”
“Yes, dad. I’ll be good. Please, dad.”
He turns around again, setting course for Graeter’s. I let out a sigh and relax into the back seat. Then a smug smile forms on my face.
“I knew you’d turn around.”
Skrrrrt. My dad hits a U-turn in the middle of the street this time.
“No! No! Nooo!”
When we get back to the house, he takes my sister out of her car seat and calmly goes up the front steps and inside. I howl like a banshee in our Ford Explorer, banging on the windows, choking out desperate pleas through my tears.
“I-I-I’m so-reeeee! Pl-pleeeease!”
But he just leaves me in there, going berserk.
God only knows when I finally accepted defeat and went inside. And God only knows the size of the chocolate chip I might have found in my ice cream that day. It’s one of a handful of mysteries that still haunt me.
Louisville’s finest. The G Spot. Mecca.
I’m not sure when the clientele became so young, but it did. Those sticky floors belong to the college kids now. They all wear t-shirts with front pockets that say Vineyard Vines and Derby Days and Sigma Tau Upsilon. They have backwards hats with front flow poking through the strap hole. They sing “Wagon Wheel” like it’s the first time they’ve heard it. They take tequila shots like they’re filled with liquid gold.
I was one of those kids once. Happy just to be there, peeing every 12 minutes in that tiny bathroom by the ATM. I always seemed to get the middle urinal, and it always seemed to be between two fat guys—one of them usually announced his arrival by hocking on the urinal cake before he unzipped. I didn’t care. I was in the prime of my life. I was with my friends. I had no responsibility except to stop at the Mini Mart for Frito’s Flavor Twists on the way back to Pat, Jeb and Sully’s place on Macon.
Too many memories to count in Gerstle’s. Probably because most of them are hazy.
If there’s a silver lining to this Corona business, it’s gratitude. The appreciation for the little things when normal life returns will be as unprecedented as the situation we find ourselves in. A bartender handing you a crisp IPA. A dance floor. A pizza shared among friends.
Wait, are 95% of my fondest memories about food or beer?
Sigh.
