"Hey, Paddy!" bellowed the pot-bellied bartender in the Santa hat, to the mid-50s gentleman who walked into MNM's, as if Norm had just walked into Cheers.
"Hi Jimmy," replied the tall, slender man, as he passed through the crowd of 20-somethings at the tables, taking his regular stool at the bar, just as Jimmy was setting down a pint of Guinness and two shots of Jameson. "How'd you know?" joked Pat, or as his friends called him, "Paddy", as he looked down at his "usual."
Just as they were about to share a toast, a handsome millennial leaned on the bar and yelled to Jimmy, "hey, can I get four Moscow Mules when you get a chance?"
"Let the adults finish their business, laddie" Jimmy play-scolded him, "and then I'll get you your trendy drinks."
Jimmy and Pat turned toward the picture of the handsome grey-haired man that hung above the old copper cash register, raised their shot glasses, and said simultaneously, "to Murph!" before throwing back the smooth Irish whiskey.
"Really warms the cockles on this cold December night," said Pat, as he chased the shot with the creamy stout.
"You know if Murph was still alive," said Jimmy, as once again Pat tipped his glass in respect toward the picture behind the bar, "he'd never let you get away with saying 'cockles' without some smart-ass come-back." The two men laughed in agreement, even though Pat's eyes still showed a hint of the pain of loss.
Michael Nathaniel Murphy, the longtime owner of MNM's, passed away over the summer after succumbing to liver cancer.
Murph had scraped together every penny he had and bought the traditional Irish pub, in the Woodlawn Heights section of the Bronx, when he got out of the service in the mid-80s. James O'Connor, an old Army buddy, was employee #1 and has been a mainstay behind the bar for the past 30-something years, through good times and bad.
In his hay-day, Murph would be at the upright piano in the corner, belting out Irish drinking songs and telling jokes in between. His spirit embodied the establishment, and the bar became popular not just with the neighborhood regulars, but as a destination for upscale Manhattanites as well.
In 2001 though, the placed nearly closed. Murph got married in February of that year, to his high-school girlfriend Rebecca. In June, she caught him cheating. With another man. Or more aptly, an 18-year old busboy, and she immediately divorced him. Later that year came the World Trade Center attacks, and Manhattan yuppies stopped traveling to the north Bronx.
As business declined, Murph slipped into a bit of a depression. The bar lost most of the religious neighborhood crowd when he came out as gay. He started drinking more and singing less, and his sarcastic wit developed an angry, razor sharp edge to it, where the few remaining customers were more offended than entertained by his comments.
Jimmy always had his suspicions about Murph's sexuality, but being a "live and let live" kind of guy, he stuck by his lifelong friend and was the only reason the bar made it through that tumultuous year. He got Murph into a 12-step program and took care of running the place until Murph was back on his feet.
The local "scandal" was short-lived, and the popularity of the bar started to recover. By 2005 the place was crowded again, and the business was back in the black. Jimmy, a married father of six, noticed the gradual change in the clientele, but he had no problem with it, as long as nobody hit on him. It's not like MNMs became a "gay bar" per se, but on any given night, there would be as many same-sex couples as not.
That's also the year that Patrick Fitzgerald moved into apartment 212 above the bar, after his divorce from his wife Kelly after 23 years of marriage. The first 18 were okay, but after the kids moved out, it became increasingly more evident how he and his wife had grown apart. Their sex life had gone from occasional to sporadic, to non-existent, and the last couple of years, he had basically lost all interest in her, and in sex.
Sure the commute was a bit of a schlep, but the tiny North Bronx apartment was about all he could afford after the divorce, and it was closer to Westchester, where his kids now lived. "Besides," he said to the realtor while signing the lease, "what could be better than living above an Irish pub!"
Pat did not expect to be a late-40s divorcee at this stage of his life, but he was totally unhappy in his marriage and was really looking forward to a change. That first night he walked into MNMs, he had no idea how big of a change his life was about to take.
After unpacking his stuff, and setting up the small efficiency, Pat decided to go downstairs for dinner and a pint, or two. He had eaten lunch at MNM's when he first looked at the apartment, and there was something about the place that just felt like home to him. It was late on a Sunday night, and he was hoping the kitchen was still open.
"Guinness, right?" Jimmy said to Pat as he sat down at the only open stool at the end of the bar.
"That's pretty amazing," Pat said to the man sitting next to him, amazed that the bartender would remember his preference from two weeks ago.
"Yeah, Jimmy's all of that and a bag of chips," said the man, as he turned toward Pat to introduce himself, "I'm Murph, and this is my place."
"I'm Pat, just moved in upstairs," he replied, and the two men shook hands.
As their hands touched, and eyes met, Pat felt and energy pass through his body that he had never felt before. He found himself looking into Murph's green eyes, and an unfamiliar warmth came over him. Sure, with his thick brown hair and chiseled chin, Murph was undoubtedly a handsome man, but another man had never caused this reaction in Pat, and he had spent several months at sea in a nuclear sub during his stint in the Navy.
"Welcome to the neighborhood, Paddy," offered Murph, as the two men continued the handshake, longer than normally comfortable.
"Haven't been called Paddy since my Navy days," replied the 40-year old ginger, retrieving his hand from the slightly older man's grasp, as he tried to internally compose himself.
"Lucky guess," said Murph, as he looked up at his orange hair with the grey flecks around the temples, "pegged you as Irish from the minute you walked in."
"Patrick Fitzgerald, doesn't get more Irish than that," replied Pat, as Murph nearly spit out his coffee.
"Oh, you poor kid," said Murph, still chuckling while pulling himself together.
"I don't get what's so funny?" asked Pat, feeling like he should be pissed off, but finding Murph's laugh infectious.
