April in Manhatten. 2009. After many hours of shopping and wandering with my friend, we found ourselves in that between time. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner, but we were both starving. Stopping in a store filled with soap scrubs and scents, we asked the girl who dried our hands, where we might get something to eat. It was spring, we wanted to eat outside. She directed us to leave the store, turn left at the corner, go down the small street and there would be a restaurant right there. We did as she had directed. The street was narrow, the sun was at a steep angle, so all was in shade. We walked past a cement wall with peeling pain. A neon sign glowed in a window set high in the wall. “This cannot be it,” I said. We reached the place where the street ended at a T. The door to the establishment, painted green, stood open and a shaft of sunlight found its way to the stoop. It illuminated the Guinness sign there. I sighed. This was not at all what we had had in mind, but at the moment, a Guinness sounded great, so we went in. The floor was wooden, the ceiling high, the tables to the left were covered in cheery red and white checked cloths and families were enjoying themselves, adults and small children, all on a Thursday afternoon between time. We found places at the end of the bar and ordered two Guinness and a menu. Two older men sat to the left of my friend. They were scribbling on paper napkins, drinking martinis. They had bad combovers and ruddy cheeks. They introduced themselves, said they were in the advertising business. Throwbacks to another era where a three-martini lunch was the norm in the age of the Madison Avenue ad men. But they were a long way from Madison Avenue. Our waiter delivered perfectly poured Guinness, which, during the course of the long afternoon, he never let run below the halfway point before refilling them...at no extra charge we found out later. A young man sat eating alone to my right. I asked him what was good on the menu and he replied everything, but the burger was his favorite. Two burgers, coming right up. Beef for me, vegan for my friend. When he left, an older gentleman took his place. At this point we were about three Guinness to the wind (hard to tell as our glasses were never empty) and feeling extreme love for everything in sight. The bartender, mildly flirtatious, became our best friend. The gentleman to my right told me that he was a wandering Irish poet and bard, despite his lack of accent. He found out we were from Baltimore, and proceeded to recite the first two stanzas from Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven.” The waitress rolled her eyes as she passed. He was well known at this bar. He then took a harmonica out of his pocket and proceeded to play a haunting Irish tune as the crowd in the bar thinned out and grew quiet. When he was done, there was polite applause, he kissed me on the hand, and exited by the side door. Our burgers had arrived and were delicious, accompanied by crispy fries and a surprisingly fresh salad of mixed baby greens. The Guinness continued to flow, the ad men eventually left. Three other men came in, each separately, stood at the end of the bar, downed a beer (one each) silently in three or four glups, then left. Our bill arrived and I held my breath anticipating the usual New York prices. $23 for everything. What WAS this place? As we stumbled out the door into the twilight, we turned to look back, for a name, for anything that could identify where we had been. The light was warm, the bartender was clearing our plates and wiping down the bar and I was already nostalgic for the place. There was no name, no street signs. We went to the next intersection and I fumbled out a scrap of paper to write down where we were. My friend and I imagined it was Brigadoon, a place that would appear only occasionally to the lucky few. Yes, we found it again. It was still enchanting, and the food was still good. But there were no ad men there, no irish poet. Maybe they disappeared that evening, were there for only that day, only for us. At least I like to think so.
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