No, it's not a cafe, really. I don't remember anyone ever eating there. It was a bar. With ugly red booths and a very odd clientele. Refugees and retirees from the working classes shared the small joint with artsy college students drawn there for the same reason: a draft beer was forty five cents. This was in the 1980s, for those who think I'm old enough to remember Prohibition. When you were really low on cash, that's where you went.
I don't remember if I ever sat in those booths. It was always too crowded in there. And some of my memories are very cloudy, as one can imagine from drinking cheap beer. Were those twins I used to have a crush on patrons? I seem to remember walking them home from there once or twice. Conveniently, their place was on my way home, that I know is true. I know many of my friends in my English classes hung out there and talked shop: poets we loved, singers we hated.
One cool thing about the jukebox in the place: it had both Al Green's AND Talking Heads' versions of "Take Me to the River." You'd often hear em back to back. (I never got close enough to the machine to see if someone had cleverly put them on either side of the same piece of wax.) Of course, no one in the bar could agree on anything, except the Beatles. We'd all sing to their stuff, brief moments of transcending class/age boundaries.
I attended a conference back in the 'burgh a few months ago. I took some time off from it to drive up to the North Oakland area of the city, where the bar was, and near my old apartment. I didn't look for parking, just was curious to see what was there. Would loved to have seen if the booths were as ugly as ever. and I wonder how much those drafts cost now.
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