Sonny and Sally story
© By Jack Bogut
527 Kingsberry Circle
Pittsburgh, PA
All rights reserved
Sonny and Sally (Sally stands for
Salvatore) were sitting in a bar on Southside about one o’clock in the morning
finishing the last of a long procession of “Depth-charges.” This is a drink
where you carefully drop a shot glass full of whiskey into a foamy schooner of
beer and try to drink both without tipping over the shot glass in the bottom.
When that happens, you have to
chug-a-lug the rest. The consequences can be both entertaining and
unattractive. This is an athletic, almost Olympic style of drinking, that
sometimes involves jumping, sprinting, vaulting and frequently—hurling. More
than two “Depth Charges” can also make one extremely wise and able to offer
unsolicited advice to complete strangers, sometimes at the advisor’s peril,
also entertaining.
When somebody offered to buy another
round, Sonny put the palm of his left hand over the top of his glass, inadvertently
glanced at his watch and turned to Sally,
“Oh, man. Look at the time. I’m in deep
stuff again.”
“Whadda ya mean — you’re in deep stuff?” Sally asked, raising his
eyebrows.
“Look at your watch. It’s the middle
of the night. Again,” Sonny said, and then asked Shorty, the bartender to get a
phone book and look up the number for the Coroner.
“Whadda ya need that number for?”
“I’m gonna tell him to stop by my
house and pick up the body.”
“Pick up the body? Whadda ya talking
about? Who’s body?”
“Mine. My old lady said if I ever
drank up my paycheck and came home in the middle of the night again, she was
gonna kill me.”
Sally looked over the top of his
glasses and shook his head.
“I can’t believe you. Why do like I
do? Wait until you know she’s asleep and just sneak in?”
“I tried that approach a few times
and it doesn’t work. I creep home at ten miles an hour, park half a block from
the house. I don’t even slam the door when I get out of the car, I just lean on
it until the dome-light goes out. Then I prop myself against a fender, take my
shoes off. I'm in stocking feet on the sidewalk - that's quiet! I even put
graphite in the lock once a week so my key doesn’t make any noise.
It takes me a full minute to ease
the front door shut. I tip-toe up the stairs with my feet on the outer edges of
the treads ‘cause they squeak in the middle. I undress in the hall and hang my
clothes over the banister and stand with my ear against the door to listen for
her to snore. It takes me forever to ease the bedroom door open. Then I try to
sneak between the sheets like a snake and she whips the light on and we’re
fightin’ and that’s when she told me...”
“Well, there’s your trouble.” Sally
said, pushing himself back from the bar and turning to face Sonny. “When I go
home, I roar up the street and turn the corner on two wheels to make the tires
squeal. Then I slam on the brakes and screech to a stop in front of the house.
I clomp up the wooden steps and fumble around the lock. I slam the front door, run
up the steps two at a time, walk into the bedroom, drop my laundry in a pile
around my feet, throw the covers back and say:
‘Roll over Lamb-Pot. Lover boy is
home!’ And she’s asleep every time!”