A florescent sign past the nondescript doors proclaims the joint as the Boo-Hoo Sniffle. Not a bad name. Right on South Street between a bakery and one of those family-run tanning salon/movie rental/beauty parlor all-in-one deals. Never would have spotted it. A small sign next to its bright counterpart claims the barman is willing to help you bring in your baggage upon request, but it’s just a little inside joke. These tragedy bars can have a little sense of humor too, you know.
Small round tables are placed around the entire club with nothing on their surface but square boxes of tissues. The bar was set deep in the corner for when it was needed. The room is dark and the drinks are cheap; it’s hospitality at its best. Who knows how people find this place, whether it’s the cold that brings them in or some urge to see what’s inside, but the people manage to come. Most never leave, converted regulars. Some storm out, if the place isn’t their cup of tea. If anyone here knows anything in this place, it’s that you can’t please everyone.
The house band starts at around ten to warm up the crowd. The best course of action is to get a drink before they start; before the bar gets swamped. You got time. A bent man in his mid-70’s wheels his oxygen tank behind him on his way to the keyboard, stopping once during the ten pace excursion to take a quick drag of the sweet stuff. The rest of the band slowly gets into position: a bassist missing his left hand and a guitarist missing all but his thumb, a guitar pick attached to his lonely digit. The keyboardist starts the song, “Total Eclipse of The Heart,” and as he plays the two singers, a surprisingly average looking man and a woman with a face wrinkled beyond her age, as yellow as the tips of her fingers, glide across the stage toward each other. While the woman begins with her deep, mildly out of key rasp, the man holds his own special microphone up to his throat. A mixture of derelict crooning out from between her stained teeth and robotic voice box from a hole in his neck fills the room in a jarring duet:
“Turn around, every now and then I get a –”
“LITTLE BIT TIRED OF LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF MY TEARS”
It’s enough to get people into that unsettled place; not too controversial or showy of course, no pyrotechnics or guys pissing on the stage, but it does the job. It’s gets people to shell out more money for drinks, anyway. The robotic voice rings around the room as his counterpart lets out a long hacking cough in the background. One minute in, the keyboardist stops playing with his left hand in order to put the oxygen mask on his face again. During the chorus, the guitarist’s pick falls off. A song goes into the next, and the unsettling feeling sinks in when the robot voice affirms:
“DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT. ME.”
Third song goes on, but it doesn’t really matter by now. No one’s listening, their interest is quickly waning. They finish, the crowd claps idly and the voice over the loud speaker presents the main act.
An improv group slowly, unenthusiastically makes their way onto the stage. They’re no longer struggling actors, but failed ones; their stance always gives them away.
They ask the audience for requests. This is what they’ve all been waiting for.
“Rape!” A girl yells from the front row.
“The death of a friend!” A young man shouts from the far end of the room.
“Your wife leaving you after 14 fucking years!” From an old man at the bar.
And so the scene is set. The failed actress in a short skirt and tank top struggles against her attacker under the bright stage lights.
“No!” yells the actress (too plain looking to get a big break). “No, no, don’t!” The girl in the front row is misting up already, and reaching for the box of tissues on the table.
“Shut up, you fucking whore!” shouts her attacker (who lacks the skills to escape local theatre). He pushes her down onto the floor of the stage, pulling the panties off of her struggling legs. The small pair of black shorts under her skirt, now evident under the lights, is really just good planning on her part. Anticipation of a commonly acted out scene, it’s very professional of her. She screams as she is “penetrated.”
A girl starts weeping in the corner, nudging the tears into the corner of her folded tissue. The girl in the front row is no longer looking, but presses her eyes into her hands, offering her racking sobs to supplement the voices on stage. A young man, looking right out of college, sits at the bar bawling like a baby as he looks on, a shudder in his back every time she says “Stop! Please stop!” She cries and screams and yells on the floor so they can weep and blubber for her and them and everything. Everyone gets what they want.
They end the scene, and get off the floor. Giving some space for idle claps, they start the next scene. The next actor (who went bald too early for Hollywood) cries as he smears ketchup down the inside of his arms with the tip of a butter knife. You could easily see some humor in cutting with a butter knife, but the illusion works well enough.
Scene after scene passes: a man being left by his wife, a woman throwing up because she can never be pretty enough, and so it goes. It’s interesting to see the different ways people let their tear ducts loose; whether they scrunch their features in a rough, salty grimace just to let a couple drops out, or when their face gets long, their tears adding extra stretch, their mouth in a silent “o,” lips like a gasping fish. There are ones that can pull off the motionless silent actress cry, staring straight ahead, their only sign of sadness in their eyes; they’re rare, but they exist.
The sounds are interesting too: an assortment of terrible noises, even better than the faces. You rarely find someone that just lets loose, wails to their hearts content. No, like it’s ripped out. Some go with the slow, stuttering “ah...ah...ah” with no particular rhythm, their stomachs splitting a little bit more with every vocal flare-up. Lips stretched thin from side to side, drool dripping in thin lines down to their resting chin. Mouths pouty, faces constipated. Teeth set, ready to let out a long “eeeeeeh” when the silence is just too much. The gasp-hiccups, the whimpers, the sniffles, the authentic boo-hoos, there’s so much variety with every bit tragedy of they push out of their guts.
For the sake of dignity, the bar leaves the lights off when they announce last call, waiting until everyone files out to turn them back on. The women go to the bathroom to reapply their veneer, the men sit at the bar to compose themselves for a minute or two, talking in short spurts about work the next day, the shitty weather in the past week, the price of gas.
Then they go home.
They get a good night’s sleep, chest lifted, shut lids soothing sore eyes. Gut emptied of what formerly felt like lead. Maybe thinking about going next week because they don’t feel comfortable crying on the subway, or during lunch, or when driving their car. Not socially acceptable. Maybe they just like a fucked up night. But they’ll come back next Thursday and the house band will play, the actors will play their roles, and the audience will sleep like children, no restraint, everything out.
