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The Hollow Leg Saloon
by
Harry Buschman
From the Westlake Village Collection.
"Wounded Knee" and "Medicine Hat" are wonderful names, constant reminders to
the people living there that they can be proud. And why not! They live in a
place where something important once happened, important enough to name a town
after. "East New York", and New South Wales are good examples of places with no
character, and for that matter, so is Westlake Village. They are bastard
names, given to bastard towns with no father or mother .... named for something
they are not.
In spite of our questionable parentage we are proudly approaching our 200th
anniversary, a short span of time if you're Greek, but not if you're American;
Americans begin talking about the good old days before they get out of grade
school.
The Westlake Village "Guardian," often referred to as "the paper of the
people," is again in the vanguard of the celebration. The slogan always makes me
shudder .... I've told Lucas Crosby again and again it sounds like something
hung on a nail in the outhouse.
Westlake Village has little to be proud of on its birthday in any case. There
is no lake to be west of unless you count the seepage basin; a malodorous mud
hole that backs up to the railroad on the south side of town. In the past,
when this was natural country, heavy rains and spring melts found their way to
this basin with no trouble, wild geese and ducks made it their home. Not any
more. Civilization has built walls and roads, parking lots and supermarkets to
frustrate the natural drainage, and so water does the only thing it can -- it
finds its way into people's basements. This past spring it flooded the high
school basement computer room. Everyone wanted to know, "Who was responsible?"
"Who can we sue?" Just as the people who buy houses next to an airport demand
that the planes be rerouted. The basin is dry most of the time, but once after a
sudden summer storm, Tony Cannon, fresh from a fight with his wife, drove his
De Soto into it.
For better or worse we are faced with being 200 years old and something must
be done about it. The "Guardian" has volunteered to locate the oldest building
in the village and nail a plaque on it.
Just after the Civil War Cyrus Shucks bought this land from the surviving
family of a pioneering Dutchman and built a farm. He grew potatoes on it and
called it "Toad Hollow." It made sense .... it's a name every bit as meaningful
as
Medicine Hat. If you fly over Westlake Village in a small plane, you will
notice that there is a ring of what looks like low hills surrounding it. A more
careful study of the terrain, however, reveals the truth. Westlake Village is
not surrounded by low hills, it has sunken below the level of the surrounding
countryside as though something important had been pulled out from under it.
The result made the earth friable and rich with moisture, just right for
potatoes, and toads as well.
The house and farm of Cyrus Shucks would qualify for the oldest buildings in
Westlake Village -- if they were still here. They were standing when I moved
here but they were leveled in less than twenty minutes by a front end loader to
make way for the ocean of parking surrounding the Mall. Our visible ties with
the past were quickly bull-dozed away and as a result few residents are aware
there was a time when this place had a history.
Lucas was convinced that the "Guardian" on Westlake Avenue would now qualify
as the oldest building in town .... I wasn't so sure.
"Whadd'ya mean y'not sure," he bristled. "You gotta be the most dubious
person in the world, take my word for it." He put down his dead cigar on which
he'd
been chewing for the better part of an hour, stood up and pointed to the old
iron rings screwed into the wall over Stacey's desk.
"Looka that! .... that's where they tied their horses. This place used to be
a stable."
"Look, Lucas, just because it smells like one doesn't mean it was a stable.
When I first moved here this was a machine shop .... you can't tell the age of
a building by rings screwed in the wall."
He relit the cigar and shook his head. Stacey and I were enveloped in caustic
smoke .... "Well then, wise ass, the ball's in your court. You go find the
oldest building in town!"
As an underpaid news hound for the Westlake Village Guardian, it has fallen
upon my aged shoulders to defend the integrity of the fourth estate. To do this
I often venture down strange and twisted pathways. One of them led me to
Timothy Clancy, the proprietor of the "Hollow Leg Saloon." I thought I'd begin
there -- it's a good place to fortify yourself before you begin anything. Tim's
grandfather bought a small piece of property from Cyrus Shucks on Toad Road in
the middle of Toad Hollow. He built a two story inn and tavern for the
exclusive use of farmers and laborers who worked in the potato fields. It stood
alone
like a lighthouse in the desert, and beckoned thirsty farm hands to come and
have an ale or two when day was done. Tim told me many times that I was having
a beer in the oldest building in town.
Tim pointed proudly to the polished bar of mahogany that had been built by a
coffin manufacturer in Brooklyn. It was fully forty feet long, long enough to
accommodate every thirsty potato worker on Cyrus Shucks farm shoulder to
shoulder. Inside, a stair along one wall led to six rooms above the saloon for
overnighters. This part of the country has never been particularly puritanical,
so
what went on in those rooms upstairs and in the bar below should not be a
surprise. Back then Toad Hollow was about as remote from civilization as you
could get -- a dirt road running through a field of potatoes. After hoeing
potatoes all day, a man develops a thirst for the good things in life.
As the years passed the Hollow Leg Saloon was flanked by dozens of similar
wood frame structures built cheek to cheek and it no longer stood alone on
Toad Road in the middle of nowhere. It lost its identity and was left with
nothing but a front and a back. As city people put down tentative roots out here
in
potato country, the old saloon found itself wedged between a Chinese laundry
and an Italian bakery. Four of the six interior rooms above were therefore
windowless and unventilated -- unfit for human habitation, however temporary. A
generation later Tim's father closed the ceiling opening but never bothered to
remove the stairs. Instead he put wooden window boxes containing artificial
dahlias on the first five steps.
My relentless efforts combing through our archaic building department and the
County Historical Society's records confirmed the fact that the Hollow Leg
Saloon was indeed, just as Tim had said, the oldest building in town. Not a
building really .... just a front wall and a back wall. Lucas was crushed when I
told him about it.
"I don't believe it .... there's gotta be some mistake," he turned to Stacey
.... "get me the building department!"
"What's the number?" Stacey asked from behind her bubble gum.
I told Stacey to forget it and then twisted the knife in Lucas' wounded
pride, "Furthermore, Lucas, this ancient eyesore you call the home of the
Guardian
was built in 1938."
"But the rings," he protested. Then he fished in his ash tray for another
dead cigar. "How we gonna nail a plaque on the Hollow Leg Saloon?"
"We better figure a way Lucas. If we don't, sure as hell Tim will want to
know why not."
"Y'still ain't gimme the number, Mr. Crosby."
The anniversary committee shared Lucas' uncertainty about the fitness of the
old Hollow Leg Saloon for such an award. They would have preferred a
preselected antebellum mansion on Lincoln Boulevard. They envisioned the Town
Supervisor with the high school band behind him and an honor guard of elderly
American
Legionnaires on the flank -- it would have made a memorable photograph --
front page -- above the fold. The occupants would be white and well-to-do. They
would have two children and a well behaved dog. The lawn would be carefully
manicured for the occasion and the evergreens immaculately clipped. They would
do
everything they could, (including arson) to keep the Hollow Leg Saloon from
being the oldest building in town.
Charlie Gristly was the committee chairman. On a hot, sultry afternoon in
August, his burly frame appeared in the open door of the "Guardian". He sidled
up
to Stacey like a super tanker on two flat feet.
"Which one is Buschman?" he asked.
Unimpressed, Stacey tilted her bouffant in my direction, "The old guy in the
baseball cap."
The upshot was that the committee had thought better about putting a torch to
the saloon and instead established a fund to buy the old place from Tim
Clancy. In turn, it would be sold for a song to the Italian bakery next door and
by
anniversary day it would disappear entirely and they would be rolling pizza
dough in the Hollow Leg Saloon.
"In short, there will be no acknowledgment whatsoever that there was ever a
saloon in Toad Hollow. Within a month there will not be one in Westlake Village
either." Gristly had an annoying habit of talking as though he were at a
press conference. "The committee, in plenary session," he continued, "Has
unanimously voted to erect a free standing memorial at the bus station at the
Mall. It
will be dedicated to the memory of Cyrus Shucks. The Mall has promised to
provide and maintain the memorial as well."
"Well, hey now that's great," Lucas piped up cheerfully, realizing he was off
the hook.
"Now all you gotta do is get Tim Clancy to go along with you." I remarked, I
wasn't so sure he would, he was one of these Irishmen who take offense without
visible cause .... turn tight-lipped and white around the eyebrows. Before
you know it he's got the shillelagh out.
Gristly explained that Clancy didn't have a chance. He was behind three
payments on his property taxes and had four citations from the Board of Health
for
the condition of his dirt basement where all the beer pumping equipment had
been installed and where much of his whiskey and bourbon were stored. He didn't
have a ladies room, nor did he have an access ramp for the handicapped, even
though he was at street level. It was either sell the place or have it pulled
out from under him.
"So it would behoove us," Gristly went on, "to concentrate our efforts on
publicity for the dedication of the Cyrus Shucks memorial. We should all be
grateful to our friends at the Mall for contributing more than their share to
our
200th anniversary." While Gristly was addressing these remarks to me, he was
smiling benignly at both Stacey and Lucas. He seemed to be incapable of talking
without an audience.
"Sheesh, what a windbag," Stacey muttered under her breath as Gristly closed
the door behind him.
A contented smile flooded Lucas's face .... no plaque to buy and a flowery
"thank you" article in the "Guardian" to congratulate his many advertisers at
the Mall. "Well, all's well that ends well .... mebbe you can write something
nice to put in the paper .... "
I couldn't help but interrupt. "Before you say anything Lucas, answer me
this. How's this town gonna get along without a saloon?"
"We don't need a saloon, maybe you do, but Westlake Village is a sober town
-- a God fearing town -- always has been. We can do without the drunks that
stagger in and outta Clancy's place."
I took a deep breath. "Let me tell you about this saloon -- you don't know
much about the Hollow Leg, do you, Lucas? How about you, Stacey, you ever drop
into the Hollow Leg for a quick one?"
I looked at the fat cat smile on the pinched face of Lucas Crosby and decided
to tell him the story of The Hollow Leg Saloon. Free standing memorial to the
Cyrus Shucks farm! Courtesy of the rental agents of the Mall. The very same
gangsters that tore it down to make room for their parking lot! The hell with
them!! Poor Tim Clancy, the third generation bartender not only wasn't getting
his plaque for the oldest building in town, they were running him out of
town! I launched into the longest speech of my career!
"Listen to me, Lucas -- It's not that we won't get by without a saloon, but
this particular saloon is the storehouse of our town's history. It's been in
the same place for 129 years. Tim's grandfather built it just after the Civil
War. Tim's father took over and saw it through two World Wars. Even prohibition
couldn't shut it down. The Clancy's were honest enough to call it a "Saloon".
None of this "Bar and Grill" or "Lounge" chi-chi pretense you see at the Mall.
This is the Hollow Leg Saloon and damn proud of it.
"Your blue-nose prudes in Westlake Village refuse to nail a plaque above the
bar honoring it as the oldest building in town? Why I can remember seeing the
Rocky Marciano/Jersey Joe Walcott fight there. God knows it's got to be fifty
years ago. Tim had the only TV in town then. The beer flowed free and the
smoke was so thick you could hardly see the screen. Once in a while a fight
would
break out at the bar. A careless word, someone belittled someone's opinion or
a candidate for town clerk would try to make a speech. Before you knew it the
sleeves were up and Tim would be in the middle of it with his grandfather's
shillelagh.
"Then there was the night Willie died. Right there in the Hollow Leg saloon.
He spent a good part of his life on the third stool from the front door and I
can't think of a place more fitting to leave from than that particular stool.
Just far enough back from the door so you didn't catch the draft when it
opened. It was a Sunday night and the Steelers were playing the Giants. With
Pittsburgh ahead by 14 points midway through the third period, Willie, with a
bourbon in his hand suddenly slid backwards off his stool. He didn't fall, he
righted himself, placed his left hand over his heart and threw his head back. It
seemed to the rest of us that he was going to make a speech or sing for us as he
had so often before. Then he skipped sideways to his right, passing his bar
mates one by one until he came abreast of Lotte. She had dropped in for a snort
-- her back was bothering her. Well, Lotte had her black handled cane ready,
like she always did. She swung at him with it and Willie went down.
"It was pretty close to the end of the third period before Tim dialed 911.
They don't respond lickety-split in Westlake Village under the best of
conditions, and by the time they arrived that Sunday night Willie had stiffened
up a
bit. He had a death grip on his bourbon glass and rather than pry it loose we
let him take it with him to emergency. When O'Dell claimed the body next day, he
found the bourbon glass in his property bag. Later O'Dell told me that he put
it between Willie's feet at the bottom of the coffin. There's a gentleman for
you, Willy would have approved. All is not lost, so long as a man can take
his glass with him.
"The Hollow Leg Saloon is one of the few drinking establishments in the world
that doesn't have a mirror behind the bar. Tim respects the feelings of
professional drunks. As a third generation bartender he knows more about them
than
anyone I know. He will hitch up his apron a bit, look you dead in the eye and
say, "A saloon is not a bar, this is the last stop. The guys that come in here
-- they don't wanna look at themselves in no mirror." The more you think
about it, the more you have to agree. What could be sadder than to see your face
surrounded by the bottles on display and the wasted faces of your friends
beside you.
"The last stop," he says, "Next step down is sittin' on the sidewalk with
your back to the wall and a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag in your hand. I
don't make no pink ladies, no brandy alexanders -- they're for people who wanna
be seen drinkin' --the Hollow Leg's for the men who can't help drinkin'"
"It's Tim's conviction that a man must keep his pride as a member of the
human family. A man with weaknesses - granted; one with unkept promises to
himself
and his loved ones - acknowledged; yet one who can still sit on a stool like
a man and find his way home when he's told he's had enough. Tim will do that
.... "Go home Leonard," he'll say, "you've had enough!" You won't get that
consideration in a cocktail lounge -- they'll let you drink until your money's
gone and you've got no idea where the hell you are. Drunk as you may be they'll
let you drive off alone in your car. Tim doesn't have a parking lot .... you
walk in and you walk out or else you don't come in at all.
"Tim allows no young unaccompanied ladies in the Hollow Leg. Even young
couples are persuaded to "drink up" and leave as quickly as possible. Like
Angelo's
barber shop, this is a saloon for elderly drinkers who wait in vain for the
"Iceman" to come. From time to time you may find an elderly lady at the far end
of the bar, away from the windows. Lotte, for instance, with a chronic back
problem can find a little peace in a glass of gin there in the late afternoon.
Alice Sims in her flowered hat drops in three or four times a day. On her way
to the laundromat or the convenience store she will duck in for a snort of
country bourbon. Mama "Flo" will come in using the pretext of "having to use the
facilities." She will then belt down a scotch or two before the john has
stopped flushing. Tim really doesn't have a "Men's" or a "Ladies", he has a
"Toilet", and he keeps a key to it tied to a giant Budweiser beer coaster on the
door. Ladies are not harassed in the Hollow Leg. Tim would not permit it, and
his
customers are dedicated drinkers, not Don Juans.
"No man is a willing teetotaler. He will drink deeply until something
stronger than his habit comes along to stop him. A iron willed spouse, a threat
of
excommunication from the church, or a final warning from his physician might
slow him down. But if he's a dedicated drinker nothing will stop him, short of
whatever it was that stopped Willie Monahan. Men have been drinking at the
Hollow Leg Saloon for 129 years. Their presence can be felt and if you stop in
the
street outside and listen carefully their voices can still be heard inside.
Every morning, (except Sunday) Tim props open the door with a brick and turns on
a giant floor fan that stands at the rear of the bar. Fragrance and history
are blown out in the street. Pigeons fly up in panic and early morning walkers
cross to the other side.
"It is a sanctuary, Lucas But even more than that -- it's a living sanctuary.
Where will we go to pray, Lucas?" Stacey's eyes were moist with tears but
Lucas looked at me blankly.
I took a deep breath. I had been talking for God knows how long. It was a
subject I guess I feel very strongly about. I looked up at the clock and saw it
was nearly five. Stacey was drying her eyes, her nose was running and she blew it vigorously, but never once did she stop chewing.
She shrugged herself into her coat and made her way to the door saying,
"Jeeze, ain't that the pits! Jeeze, that's awful! You're a creep Mr. Lucas!"
©Harry Buschman 1997
(3430)
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