Got a Thirst in the Square? London crawling!

There is something dispiriting about finding yourself in a worn out waterfront dive, belly to the bar and looking at a dull, grimy dance pole occupying an empty stage at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, especially when the purpose of your visit is subterfuge. My only companions in this adventure are my neighbor, whose birthday it is, and the completely illustrated bartender who barely pauses from screaming obscenities into her cell phone to say hi and then turn her back to us. I am on a mission.
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Merchants Saloon is the kind of bar where I immediately hear my mother’s voice—she is telling me, after a sharp slap to the head, not to touch ANYTHING. She is right. I cannot help but wonder, taking my seat, how long the spirochaete bacterium causing syphilis can live on a wooden bar top. The décor is rendered in a style that evokes Jackson Pollack before he perfected his craft. Behind the bar is the game room which we can see but decline to visit. It features a pool table framed by bright blue murals of sea monsters (I’m guessing here) painted by a surprisingly competent hand taking orders from a deranged psyche. My interest rises with the realization that the bartender has delivered the final verbal blow to her caller and is now standing before us in a mood of forced conviviality that will become tears after the few drinks she is determined to have right now, with us. Belly up. Newcastles all around. The bad boy has beens of tennis, John McEnroe and Jimmy Conners, appear excited about something but we can’t hear them—whether the sound on the ancient color (color!) TV is down or out, who can say?
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Like most establishments in the historic Warehouse District of Jack London, this place originated in the 19th century. I wish I could tell you it retained its charm. There is a very large, floor-to-ceiling case of many compartments and hatches standing at the back of the bar, to the left, that may once have been what passed for a refrigerator at a time when horse-drawn lories delivered blocks of ice hauled by burly men wielding giant tongs. It seems to have no function now although my guess is that it is the only thing holding the place upright. My companion, however, is charming enough. I observe him through the bottom of my hoisted pint to assess whether he has any idea that my job at this very moment is to keep him away from home for two hours while our friends back at the Phoenix convert the roof to an illuminated wonderland befitting a surprise birthday party. He appears to be clueless. Perhaps I have a knack for this kind of work.
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Our bar tender is a lovely young woman of about 25. Though I have no children of my own, it breaks my mother’s heart to see a person so early in life turn all her aggression into self-mutilating tattoos and piercings. The cherry red hair can be remedied whenever she is ready to let go of what eats her but the metal studs that adorn her face will be troublesome. Alas, this thought only proves that I am too old for the establishment as a dozen young men, wearing ripped clothes and similarly tatted up from head to toe, arrive to brighten her mood and dating prospects—call me old fashioned. Hey! That’s a good idea. Let’s have one. My neighbor agrees. The child whose job it is to serve us asks where that beer is from, a rictus of confusion further ruining her face. Her fellows rack up the pool table and put on some music. It works. We are driven out the door in a drumbeat.
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Our next stop is Heinold’s in the square, a place the New York Times has ranked as “one of the top ten bars in the world,” although I believe they may have been unduly influenced by having also just arrived from Merchants. But it is cozy in here—the wee smallest bar on earth. The floor at Heinold’s pitches forward so precipitously that it is possible to fall flat on the floor simply stepping in ere an amber drop ever moistens one’s lips. Luckily, I know this from previous visits but my neighbor, Matt, flails wildly to stay vertical, inadvertently grabbing a small dog off the lap of a bottle blonde who looks as though she may be a holdover from opening day in 1883. Though the dog appears relieved to be rescued at last, Matt gently returns it. I determine to stick to bottled beer as my safest bet. Matt, emboldened by a near miss, asks the bar tender to draw a pint which he does and then spills a good inch or so setting it on the bar that droops in synch with the floor. Slow learners annoy me. We make our way to the very back—three steps from where we stood at the bar because this one-room ale house is the size of a frontier log cabin. I am sure of this because it IS a log cabin preserved from the days when a young sailor named Jack London frequented the joint to bend elbows and trade stories with sailors from all the seven seas.
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Heinold’s proves that the trash you see blowing all around on windy days is, in fact, going somewhere. The interior is absolutely encrusted with all manner of thing. Oakland’s is the fifth largest port in North America and Jack London Square sits at the heart of it so it is not surprising to see all the Navy and Coast Guard caps pinned to the ceiling, nor the thousands of business cards that have accreted to the walls and every other available surface. More interesting, however, are the framed photographs of thoroughbreds whose last race has long been run, the menu offering chili con carne for 45 cents, the crank-driven peep show, and a picture of the President of the United States—Dwight D. Eisenhower. There are various marine paraphernalia, including life preservers and lanterns. No wonder the bar can hold only 15 people—most choose to sit outside and watch the ships slide up and down the estuary separating Oakland from Alameda.
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Matt and I have never spent any time together alone and this was a concern starting out but beer has our tongues unlocked and we find each other enjoyable for our like minded curmudgeonry about most things political or economical. We run through a few beers solving the Gulf oil spill—drop Sarah Palin’s pie hole over it and slap her ass, the quick intake of breath should have that thing sucked up in a minute. But, speaking of time, it is ticking and I have a job to do. As the late afternoon sun fades, the bar tender, in his white shirt, bow tie, and long, black apron, comes out from behind his station to light the gas lamps that provide the limited indoor illumination. I do a quick mental calculation of how fast fire would consume the business cards, hats, and oxygen in this Petit Trianon and suggest we move on. It is time for me to deliver my pay load to the party and we head up 2nd Street in a cheery mood of unstable footing. Thus, we detour into the International House of Beer—or something like that, I can’t recall; an occupational hazard of this type of reconnaissance and espionage work—it’s on 3rd across from the Buttercup, of all the limited possibilities for innocence in Oakland.
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IHOB is the Disney version of Merchants—heavy on the tattoos, a lot of raven black hair and dress, a décor intended to convey contempt for hip, urban cocktail lounges, but limited piercings and a welcome cleanliness that is positively inviting after where we’ve been for the last hour and a half. Best of all, the beer selection is the widest imaginable. Flights of six stopped at six in a symmetry I do not understand, so I ask for the house favorite—a gambit that always yields spectacular results at any of Oakland’s many medical marijuana dispensaries. Here, however, my request is greeted with a labored sigh suggesting limited patience with rubes. I am told the menu changes daily and asked what flavors and brew styles I enjoy. I end up with two flagons of beer sporting 10% alcohol content—just what the doctor ordered. We are now having the time of our lives and have our arms thrown around anyone willing to suffer the indignity. Gee, this place is swell.
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The customer base is decidedly biker mixed with Cal students slumming in JLS and seasoned with a soupcon of Goth to make a bouillabaisse worthy of Marseilles; that other great port on a par with the splendid je ne sais quoi . . . I am trashed. The place is humming with the buzz of happy voices, laughter and the aroma of piping hot Oakland soul food right out of the smoker. The food is delivered by a young, drop dead gorgeous woman with an Afro that will single headedly return that icon of the 60s to the preeminence it deserves. She is filling orders non-stop (there is no resto in the IHOB, but it is next door to Vegan Soul Food of Oakland; a place with BBQ sauce so good it could be poured over a jigsaw puzzle and you would eat it up and scream for more.) This poor woman, the only server working the bar, is literally running a marathon between IHOB and Vegan Soul. I am about to phone in an abuse complaint when the fierce pitch of my ringtone shatters the air over my head and it falls down on me sharply. It is home base calling for me to reel my sucker in—they are ready to yell “surprise!” So I must yank my happy clam self and the innocent bystander who is my charge from our newly adopted environment and drop us back into our native habitat. I don’t want to go, my new career has just started to take off.