Week Two: The Moose

So it is a Friday night in the middle of winter in southern New Jersey and I am sitting in the Moose Lodge.

The Moose Lodge, or "the Moose," as it is commonly known, is basically an institution for union workers across the country. To be honest, I don't know too much about its origins but I do know that it is an exclusive club of sorts and that you can find three things there: cheap beer, cheap and decent food, and working class folk.

On this particular evening, last Friday, I was reflective.

"Two weeks ago I was sitting at a country club in Kampala preparing a statement for the government and eating tikka masala and now I am in south Jersery drinking Yeungling and contemplating the merits of bratwurst, isn't that odd?" I asked Chas.

"You too good for bratwurst?" he asked.

"No, of course not. I like being here. Actually, I LOVE being here...I just find it all ironic in some way..." I replied.

"Baby, it IS ironic but that's what makes it good. And remember what I told you...they can't take your birthday away," he responded.

That is Chas's favorite reply to my self-destructive musings that occur, thankfully, with admittedly less frequency these days.

"They can't take your birthday away."

I like this saying because it sums things up perfectly: they can take (or force you out of) your job, they can try to take away your dignity, they can take your money, but they can't take your birthday away.

The Moose is a perfect place to contemplate such matters as, obviously, the working class in the U.S. has been completely decimated by the last eight years of American "adventurism" in global and economic policies. The unions, once ever-powerful in this country, are having a hard time. Welders, plumbers, electricians, steel workers, etc., are having just as hard of a time, if not a harder one, than an unemployed pseudo-lawyer recently retired from sub-Saharan Africa.

"What's your story?" the bartender, Denny, asked me that night.

I glanced at Chas.

We have been trying to construct "my story" as I am still hesitant to tell people what happened.

Not because it is that awful--hell, everyone is having a hard time--but because I am still not quite sure what happened myself. How things went from good, to sort-of-OK, to sheer hell in the matter of three months. I have not gotten my own head wrapped around that story so I am reluctant to tell anyone else about it.

Especially a bartender whose teenage son was killed in a freak fight last summer and whose beloved wife died a few months before and who has been laid off for the past year and is making no money bartending at the Moose.

I stammered: "Well, you see...I have, um, well I have just come from Africa..."

Denny looked at me and reported the obvious: "Well, that's interesting...cause you ain't black."

"No, no...that's not what I meant. I am white," I stuttered.

I looked over at Chas to see that he was doing everything in his power to keep from laughing out loud.

I continued.

"So I was in Africa for fifteen months working for a certain government as a legal advisor and then things didn't work out and so now I am here at the Moose and that's about it..." I said, feeling like a complete asswipe.

"It's OK," Denny said, "you seem real enough to me...even if you are from Africa and white..."

Granted, this might be construed as racist but Denny is not racist. He was just stating the obvious.

"How am I doing?" I asked Chas.

"You're fine. You choke when you have to get into details because you don't know details but you're fine, Baby," he assured.

Yesterday, before I left for Florida, a journalist from the New York Times called me.

He reports on peacekeeping and military operations and wanted to write about Uganda and the Congo.

I used to do that in my former life. Hell, I even wrote a book about it.

He said he finally had gotten the clearance to work on piece on Uganda and he wanted me to narrate it and take him through it.

"Patti, next week we can start, good?" was the message.

I told Chas and he took a deep breath before holding up his middle finger.

"Call him back and tell him the truth. You have nothing to be ashamed of...they do. But tell the truth," he advised.

So I did.

I called him back and left a message on his voicemail saying that I no longer worked in the position that I used to but that I was willing to be interviewed independently.

He called back immediately. We're talking Monday.

I sat on the couch and cried for about ten minutes. I felt like an asshole because, after losing or resigning from your job, that's pretty much the default mode most days.

"Done?" Chas asked.

Yes, I was, and mostly am, done.

"Good," he said, "Let's go to the Moose..."

I hesitated.

"I am, I was, I did, I didn't, I tried, I failed..." I said.

He dragged me out the door.

When I got to the Moose, the first beer was on Denny.

Chas held my hand under the bar and kept saying, "You're going to be fine. I am going to make sure of it. You are going to be a rock star one day. I love you. I love everything about you...even your erratic Italian temper...I love every bit of it..."

Wow. Long time since anyone said anything like that.

"So...what's your story, girl?" Denny asked again.

Chas said, "She doesn't have a story...she begins now. She can write the shit out of most people though. But her story starts here and now."

I don't know about that ultimately...but it is OK for right now.

"Beer and bratwurst OK?" Denny asked.

More than OK.