It’s Right Across the Bridge.
Larry regularly declared, “Pitcairn’s the only place in Pittsburgh that has more bars than churches!”
I’m not sure if that was factual, or even why it inspired pride in Larry. I wish I had somehow counted the churches – which I never saw – and compared that number to the handful of bars we frequented.
Since we lived on the other end of Pitcairn – a full ten minutes’ walk from Barry’s – we started exploring some of those neighborhood bars. The Sharwood Lounge, always pronounced incorrectly as “The Sherwood,” was only a three-minute walk from our new apartment. It was bigger than Barry’s and it had a pool table, so I enjoyed drinking there immensely.
Unfortunately for Larry, The Sharwood had a much younger crowd – my age, instead of gray-hairs. This included young men who, quite consistently, believed it was okay to talk to me whenever Larry wasn’t looking. Larry would go to the bathroom, or across the street to buy cigarettes, and he’d come back to someone hitting on his ol’ lady.
I didn’t mind, as I often got free beers – and occasionally cocaine – out of the deal. Larry, however, didn’t like The Sharwood as much as I did.
“But I can play pool,” I whined, when Larry wanted to go elsewhere.
“I know a different place we can play,” he said. “It’s right across the bridge.”
I hadn’t ever seen a bridge but, sure enough, there’s an enormous bridge right at the end of Main Street. It goes into a minuscule town called Wall.
Apparently someone had named a town after a slab of concrete, or maybe plaster.
Larry and I started going “right across the bridge” to Paul’s Place whenever I wasn’t working. For Larry, they had Miller Lite on tap. For me, they had a great jukebox, featuring not only country and classic rock but also one of my favorite songs by the Talking Heads. And they had a pool table!
Owner Paul was there every night, sometimes bartending, sometimes not, but always drinking.
Larry and I went straight to Paul’s after work, because Paul’s Place had hamburgers and pickled eggs and reheated frozen pizza, which meant we could start drinking at dinner time.
We’d sit down at a table because the bar was too crowded with other people eating their pickled eggs, and we’d have our dinner and a couple of draft beers. We’d listen to the jukebox and sometimes play a game of pool. Eventually, the after-work crowd would clear out, and we’d move our glasses to the bar to sit where we were more comfortable.
I loved those high, spinning chairs. Plus I always wanted to be as close to the alcohol as possible.
Then, as we sat at the bar drinking, Paul’s Place would slowly fill up again as the night crowd descended. They’d stay for hours, getting drunker and louder as the night wore on, and then they’d shuffle out the door to go home.
Larry and I would stay through both waves, drinking and laughing and having a good ol’ time. We got to know Paul really well. Sometimes he’d get us a beer at 1:59 a.m. and allow us to drink it before shooing us out the door.
Then we’d wander out to the bike, put on our helmets, and drive the two minutes across the bridge to our home.
We loved the camaraderie there. But every night, as we pulled into Paul’s Place, I was inexplicably drawn to the drab, window-less building next door.