Robert E. Brown. Pho Ha Mi Amor

I've become nearly obsessed with Pho and Vietnamese noodle houses. My favorite place, Pho Ha is now only 3 blocks from my new house and I have been eating there three to four times a week. I generally consider myself an adventurous eater, but I have narrowed down my order to what I consider the perfect meal. This has become a ceremonial endeavor for me and I find myself stealing away to be alone with my bowl more and more. It has become a form of culinary meditation that defines itself in the ritual of preparing, and consuming the perfect bowl of pho. Always the #45, with a side of raw steak. The 45 comes with the standard 24 hour simmered beef broth with it's floating onions, hints of cinnamon and of course the big ball of rice noodles. The great 45 then has tendon, brisket, flank and fatty flank added before serving. The bowl in near boiling when served and the meats begin rendering down and cooking as I begin to adorn my bowl with the proper accoutrements. The tendon is gelatinous and begins to melt and dissipate, thickening the broth, the fat from the fatty flank also continues to strengthen and add to the bowl all the way down to the last bite. When served, the bowl is presented with a plate of fresh basil, cilantro, lime and bean sprouts. I squeeze the lime and toss the peel into the bowl. I rip a few pieces of cilantro and basil into the bowl, then take a chop stick in each hand and mix the herbs into the noodles. This also helps break the jelly fish textured tendon into the broth. Then I do it again, then again until the plate is empty. Next I take a small dish and squeeze plume sauce into half the dish, chili sauce into the other half. With the sauce dish to my left, the bowl in the middle and the raw steak to the right, I pick up the chop sticks in one hand, the soup spoon in the other and begin. The steak will cook too fast if added too soon, and I perfer rare. I place a couple of pieces of steak on the side of the bowl and monitor it's progress toward perfect pink. A slurping mouth full of noodles, a spoon full of broth, then again and again. Occasionally savoring the thin slices of rare juicy steak, replacing the empty space with more raw meat. During the process, stopping occasionally to pluck out a piece of flank or brisket to dip into the sauce. Once I begin, I am completely emerged into my bowl. Oblivious to the clamoring loud surroundings of this culture tunnel cafeteria and the confused looks the Vietnamese families have on their faces as they watch me. I am completely in my head, slurping down everything until there is nothing left but a lime rind and some withered pieces of beef fat. When it's done, I start thinking about the next time I can make friends with my beloved #45.


My Company

Robert E. Brown. The 2 Street Chronicles

Breaking the Egg

Brutality is the father of all societies. It is our heritage. As a species it is a birthright that you can only try and hide from. Childhood naiveté can only be salvaged in pieces through denial. You do what you want. I'm keeping my head down.

The 2 street bar I worked at was literally at the end of the road. It was close to the docks, and there was a truck stop just down the block. The bar was populated with longshore men, steel workers, truckers and petty criminals from the neighborhood. I constantly had to throw out lot lizards (truck stop prostitutes) who would wander in from down the street. One night another notorious neighborhood crack whore/lot lizard came in. The bar was empty, it was raining and storming outside with lightning flashing and the shutters slamming back and forth. She was soaking wet, wearing a hoodie pulled over her head. I had thrown her out two weeks before for trying to turn tricks in the bar, but she pleaded for me to let her come in out of the rain. I was feeling soft and was a little hungry for company so I let her buy a mug of Budwieser with nickels and dimes and I sat on the beer cooler across from her. She didn't really say much for a while, sitting there soaked, her face covered in grime and the hood still pulled over her head. Finally she pulled down the hood. The long ratty dirty brown hair that adorned her head was missing. Now reduced to an eighth inch stubble.
"Does it look bad?" she asked. embarrassed.
"Uh, no, no you look nice." I said, lying.
"All the truckers think I look like a bull dyke. I can't get a date" she said with an air of frustration.
"No, no, it looks good." I said thinking the real issue was probably that she looked like she had rolled around in an ashtray and smelled like a dumpster.
"But uh, why did you do it?"
"well..." she said matter of factly. "a couple of weeks ago this guy beat me in the back of the head with a hammer. I never went back to the hospital to get the staples removed and the blood was dreading up my hair really bad. I couldn't take it anymore so I shaved it off."
Now as I was trying to process the words coming out of her mouth, she slowly turned her head to show me an amazing spider-web of scab and puss stretching out over her skull. It looked similar to an egg shell that had been smacked hard by a spoon.
"Oh." I said "I can see how that would be irritating."

Then she offered to suck my cock for a 40 of old E. My que to I throw her back out into the rain. I sat there alone in a building shaking from thunder and lightning.

My Company

Robert E. Brown. The 2 Street Chronicles

The Story of One Eye.
Part II. Bowling for Budwieser.

After hearing of the surreal incident that day, I obviously had to ask the second question.

QUESTION TWO: Who the fuck is One Eye?

Seems One Eye was the neighborhoods most notorious crack whore/lot lizard who worked the truck stop a mile down. She was called One Eye for an obvious reason. She only had one eye. In place of the second eye was a nice shiny glass one. Now my manager chuckled at the thought of this and had to tell me an accompanying story.

Before One Eye had been flagged from the bar, she was a regular. She knew better than to try and turn tricks there, but she would hang on the old rummies and get them to buy her drinks. Seems the bartender I had replaced was a sporting man and had devised a game, putting One Eye to work. When there were no saps willing to buy her a drink, the bartender would ring the old brass bell hanging over the bar. All the customers would crowd at the end of the bar to play. He had an old wooden box that he kept by the register containing twelve small paper cones. He would neatly arrange them into a triangle at the end of the bar. One eye would then pop out her glass eye and hand it to the first person who bought her a mug of beer.

Do you know what happened next?

You guessed it. He would bowl with her glass eye. (In truth, a glass eye is concave and oval, so I guess technically one should say they shuffle boarded with her glass eye.)

Then the next guy, then the next. Apparently it was a great racket, and a real crowd pleaser. He said her socket got so infected that she looked like she had a grapefruit coming out of her head. But for months she would dig and pry under the swollen skin to get at that free beer.

Oddly, the infection didn't put an end to the game. My predecessors bookie found where he worked and he went on the lamb. Lucky me. I got his shifts.



My Company

Robert E. Brown. The 2 Street Chronicles

The Story of One Eye.
Part I. Just hit her with the bat.

I was working at a gallery in philadelphia, barely eking by. In passing I told the gallery director that I was thinking about going back into bartending to supplement my income. Just so happened, her son was the new manager at a bar and needed help. This is a true story.

About two weeks after I was hired, I came into the bar to start my shift. As I was counting the drawer the manager came over to me with instructions. "Some shit went down today. If One Eye comes in tonight, DO NOT APPROACH HER. Just hit her with the bat." he said.

Obviously I had some questions.

QUESTION ONE: What happened today? Or maybe, why should I hit this woman with the bat?

One Eye had been flagged from the bar for rushing drinks several months earlier. (Rushing drinks is when a rummy grabs your cocktail and tries to slam down as much as possible before you know what's going on.)

The day bartender told One Eye that she wasn't allowed in and she grabbed the nearest rocks glass and bounced it off his head. The manager laughed as he told the story, "So Mike calls me and he says, Uh, my head is pouring blood and she's ran into the kitchen. She's wrapped herself around the drainage pipe under the sink and I can't get her out. What should I do?"

The manager said he instructed him to pry her out with the broom stick. Which I guess he did. Albeit with one hand, since he needed the other to apply pressure to the gapping wound on his head.

Apparently the manager was a little shocked that she had returned. When she was flagged the first time, she had jumped over the bar and began smashing all the bottles of liquor against the wall. The manager and another bartender had wrestled her to the ground, drug her to the door, each holding an arm and a leg, and heave hoed her out the door into the side of a UPS truck.

Either way, I was new, untested, and the other bartender had four stitches from his run in. It was better if I didn't take any chances. He said "Just hit her with the bat."

My Company