Car Bombs

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I went over to The Front Page, as advertised, at four pm, sharp. The weather was teetering on the edge of being cold, and I was wearing just a t-shirt with the words “Drinks well with others” emblazoned on the front of the emerald green cotton fabric. I did not want to wear a jacket- this was one of the pivot points in the season, temperature-wise.

Walking up to the bar’s entrance on Wilson Boulevard, I noticed the place appeared dead as a doornail, and I wondered if the power had gone out. No one was on the patio under the umbrellas, despite the moderate temperature. I had the distinct feeling that when I tugged on the door I would find it locked in some Twilight Zone episode of life.

But it was open, and I walked into a silent bar. Well, I was early, by an hour from the usual five o’clock arrival. Still, it was a little eerie. I had feared that I would not be able to get my usual seat at the apex of the truncated angle of the bar where I can talk to the people on both sides.

Matt-the-bartender is a former AAA baseball pitcher who had aspirations to go to The Show. In his words, he had a “reliable 90+ fastball until I threw my arm away,” and said that there had been a fair crowd earlier, and he expected things to pick up once Sean, Christina and Brian arrived to serve the throng to come.

I unpacked my smart phone from the belt-holster and brought up the Kindle version of the Book Group tome we were assigned this month. I was pleased I had something to occupy myself while I waited for playmates. This month we have a marvelous read called “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, a spectacular account of World War Two life in France and Germany told from the perspective of a blind French girls and German electronic prodigy.

I was just reading a chapter set in the German-occupied town of St. Malo, wondering whether the Boches had arrested the maimed veteran who slept atop the portal to the chapel off the town square when Jon-without, K2, Ms C and Heather 2 arrived in short order. Things descended into joyful anarchy quickly as the bar rapidly filled up.

“Do you feel that this is a matter of cultural appropriation?” asked Jon-without quizzically. “I mean, some of the people wearing the Green here at the bar are obviously not actually from Ireland.”

“Well, a quarter of me is,” I said. “But I suppose by today’s standards, I could get in trouble for drinking tequila and wearing a green sombrero.”

“The only ones who can’t take offense are the actual Irish, I think,” said K2 contemplating the rich dark texture of his Old Fashioned. “But there are a few things to remember about cultural appropriation. In Ireland, this would have been a holy day and back in the day, the pubs would have been closed. Green,” he continued solemnly, “would not have been the color of the day. That hue is known to attract Fairies, and not the good kind. And Patrick himself was a Brit, and a Roman Brit, to boot. And there are no indigenous serpents in the Emerald Isle,” he concluded resolutely.

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We all agreed enthusiastically that whatever St. Patrick;s Day might have been, we liked the fact that it is now an all-American holiday, as rooted in our culture as Cinco de Mayo and the 4th of July, we got on with the business at hand. Which was drinking beverages that were not their usual color.

The mixed drinks were spiked with green food dye, as was the beer. The special de jour naturally was corned beef, cabbage and mashed taters- another American invention, K2 informed us, “Since the ingredients were sold to the Irish of New York by Kosher-keeping Jewish merchants.”

I snorted into my vodka. I decided to pass on the special, since my leftover corned-beef-and-cabbage had already been relegated to the freezer- and concentrated on the matter at hand: Car Bombs.

Don’t get alarmed. I am not talking about the ones the IRA used in The Troubles, or the Vehicle-borne IEDs the jihadis blow up in the souk. The term of art refers to a Celtic variation on the Boilermaker theme. Some take their shot of whiskey neat with a beer chaser, while others will simply drop the shot glass into the beer and chug the whole thing as what Fleet Sailors might call a “Depth Charger.”

Jon-without and I had stuck to our traditional cocktails- albeit green-tinged- but we were determined to conclude the evening with a Car Bomb. Heather was courageous enough to demonstrate the technique after the three quarters filled glasses of Guinness arrived with shots of Bailey’s Irish Cream on the side.

“Now here is how it is done, gentlemen.” She picked up the shot glass and dropped it with precision in to the middle of the dark rich creamy Irish brew. Then she reached out, raised the glass and drained it all in a series deep swallows.

I had to document the historic event as she went through the steps:

Step 1:
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