by Dell Franklin Bob ‘Two-Beer’ Bullnair refuses to listen to reason, especially if he’s into his third beer. Two-Beer works exclusively for Rafe Monk. He is around my height, six feet, but at least 200 beans of non-defined farm-boy strength that is the awe of fellow fishermen, for Two-Beer will outwork, outlift and outlast anybody […]
by Dell Franklin I was tending bar at Happy Jack’s in Morro Bay, a notorious fisherman’s dive habituated by a foul, abusive crowd of ex-cons, cranksters, drug-whores, hard-core alkies, and their coteries. I’d been there six years, fighting off the harpies and mayhem, when my hoop pal, Charlie Richardson, who was part owner of a […]
Editor’s note: This episode of Dell Franklin’s “Night life in Happy Jack’s” is the first chapter of a book he’s written, titled “Bartender.” by Dell Franklin Sunday evening in Happy Jack’s Saloon in Morro Bay and they’ve been at it all day in the murky crumbling grotto, sharks and barracuda and minnows swarming in the […]
by Dell Franklin Jessi, my fellow bartender, pulls me aside on a busy Friday night around 10, the band on a break. She points at the two men sitting on my end of the bar, up front. “Dell,” she says, stressing, “those guys gimme the creeps. They scare me.” For a woman as blustery, foul-mouthed […]
by Dell Franklin For Donny Moore, In Memorium. He was a friend, an institution in Morro Bay, who got killed in an auto wreck. Homer Carp, a tugboat captain who holds the Morro Bay record for drunk-in-public convictions at 29, ignores my greeting as I slip behind the bar and begin my shift. The happy hour […]
by Dell Franklin 1995 Tanya and Trudie lurk just outside the back door of cavernous, grotto-like Happy Jack’s, leveling me with malevolent eyes and at the same time trying to get Hubie’s attention along the bar. I have eighty-sixed these two permanently on my shifts for mooching. Like so many of our customers, they reside […]
by Dell Franklin Monday evening happy hour in notorious Happy Jack’s in Morro Bay and the usual crew along the bar—detached from the poolroom regulars and those scattered up front—and the topic of discussion is “El Niño,” the storm that pounded the area with a touch of disaster a few years back. “No use stickin’ […]
