Originally Posted by
Dennis Lehane - Gone, Baby, Gone
I stared across the pool table at Bubba as some heathen chose a Smiths song on the jukebox. I hate the Smiths. I’d rather be tied to a chair and forced to listen to a medley of Suzanne Vega and Natalie Merchant songs while performance artists hammered nails through their genitalia in front of me than listen to thirty seconds of Morrissey and the Smiths whine their art-school angst about how they are human and need to be loved. Maybe I’m a cynic, but if you want to be loved, stop whining about it and you just might get laid, which could be a promising first step.
Bubba turned his head back toward the bar and shouted, “What pussy played this shit?”
“Bubba,” I said.
He held up a finger. “One sec.” He turned back toward the bar. “Who played this song. Huh?”
“Bubba,” the bartender said, “now calm down.”
“I just want to know who played this song.”
Gigi Varon, a thirty-year-old alkie who looked a shriveled forty-five, raised her meek hand from the corner of the bar. “I didn’t know, Mr. Rogowski. I’m sorry. I’ll pull the plug.”
“Oh, Gigi!” Bubba gave her a big wave. “Hi! No, never mind.”
“I will, really.”
“No, no, hon.” Bubba shook his head. “Paulie, give Gigi two drinks on me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rogowski.”
“No problem. Morrissey sucks, though, Gigi. Really. Ask Patrick. Ask anyone.”
“Yeah, Morrissey sucks,” one of the old guys said, and then several other patrons followed suit.
“I put the Amazing Royal Crowns in next,” Gigi said.
I’d turned Bubba on to the Amazing Royal Crowns a few months back, and now they were his favorite band.
Bubba spread his arms wide. “Paulie, make it three drinks.”
Re: the smiths
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