The Writer

Most people who stopped in at Smoky Joe’s Place took one look at the soft, shapeless sport coat, the salt‑and‑pepper beard, and decided the man in the corner seat was a professor.

Regulars called him The Writer.

Hank, who was actually the Joe of Joe’s Place since he bought it from the original Joe right after Korea, knew him as Gary but rarely called him that. To him, at first, he was Blackberry Brandy—tall glass over ice with a splash of soda—and only when he raised one finger. Mostly, he was simply The Man with the Notebook.

All were right.

Then, slowly, people began calling Joe’s Place “Writers.” It happened after Hank started framing stories by The Writer, matting them in rich mahogany and hanging them on the walls. He’d clipped them from newspapers and magazines, saved dog‑eared copies, tracked down back issues whenever he could. The stories became wall décor, conversation pieces, and something more.

Hank doubted The Writer even noticed.

The Writer was usually writing, making notes, or thinking about writing. Sometimes classroom material from the creative writing course he taught at the JC. Hank noticed new faces coming in, too—the ones who called the place Writers.

What the hell. They spent money. Money meant better brandy, better frames, and a more refined crowd. The only fights now were verbal, over Shaw versus James Jones, maybe Mailer.

Others came too: painters, musicians, sculptors with clay still on their shirts. Some left behind paintings, sheet music, sketches. The most colorful pieces found their way onto the walls.

F***’n museum, Hank thought, cheerfully pouring and ringing them up.

Not bad for an old waterfront dive by the tracks. The place still carried the smell of diesel and salt, gulls crying outside when the wind shifted. Freight trains rolled past with a low, steady rumble that made the bottles tremble on the shelves. Now it had class.

Besides, Hank liked him. He read the stories, hunted down the magazines, even spotted himself in a few. Eventually they talked beyond bar talk—about writing, a craft Hank knew something about, from a lifetime in libraries and over thumb‑stained paperbacks traded shipboard in the South China Sea.

The Writer listened. He appreciated what Hank knew about Joe’s Place and the train yards, the drinkers, gulls, and tugboats. Mostly about Joe’s Place, and the Joe who wasn’t there.

And Hank, who poured the brandy. Over ice.