Good Time Charlie's is a great watering hole. From four-to-seven p.m., every evening Monday through Friday they advertised a "happy hour". Happy hour in this Las Vegas establishment, allowed a guy to buy two-for-one Chivas Regal scotches for a mere pittance of a buck-and-a-half. This is top-shelf scotch, man! The buffet they set up was plentiful and free! This buffet included all kinds of lunchmeats, hot Swedish Meatballs, and prime cuts of hot beef. The smiling chef carved hefty portions for me from a huge hunk of cow. Breads, potatoes, desserts, and all kinds of other delicacies were displayed on the serving table with artistic flair.
I thought that maybe, the great artist Picasso was slinging hash in their kitchen! What a gorgeous canvas of food! I remember crashing weddings that didn't have a spread like this one! I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything since the plastic sandwich at O'Hare airport, and only ate peanuts and junk food at Frank's place the night before. I ate huge platefuls of everything that evening.
"Charlie's" had comfortable sofas and chairs scattered throughout the place to rest my weary bones. The lounge had a beautiful bar with two, huge, saltwater fish tanks. A clylindrical tube connected the tanks. The tube was about four feet long, and eight inches in diameter. A patron could sip his drink at the bar and languidly watch the brightly colored salt-water fish swim ffrom one tank to the other. The booze and beautiful fish helped created this wonderful, relaxed, hypnotic solitude in me. My mind drifted to some non-existent ethereal beach in the Carribean. I feared that if I relaxed too much, I might end up with my head on the bar. I guarded against this possibility, by reminding myself of what shame I would feel, being ejected hastily by some large, ruddy-faced, bartender.
The hookers in the bar were plentiful, and friendly as hell! This bar was way off the strip, and these girls weren't "Triple-A", but as the night progressed they all started looking pretty damned good to me! The old adage, "The girls always look prettier at closing time", holds true! If a guy played his cards right, he could bargain them down for sexual favors. Played-out hookers always welcome bargain basement prices late in the evening. That first evening, Frank and I were really tired after stuffing ourselves with the buffet. We both went home early, and hit the sack. I vowed to go back and party at this good, old bar named: "Good Time Charlie's".
A man can't beat a place where he can get drunk on top-shelf booze for pennies; eat a variegated, tasty buffet for free, and get laid, all for under a hundred bucks. I loved Las Vegas with all my heart. What wasn't there to love, about a place like this? I was in my element.
*** from "The Journey" Memoirs of a south side Chicago kind of Guy...available on amazon.com
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