Now in my line of work you meet some pretty rough customers and you usually do it in places that you wouldn’t want to bring your kids, your wife, or your mother even on a Sunday, but the Aces’ is in a category all its own. The place is really called the Ace of Clubs’ Club but they call it the Aces’ because you can’t expect people to take a place called the Ace of Clubs’ Club seriously unless you can shorten it up and make it sound less like a joke name and more like happening joint. The thing that makes the Aces’ (and that’s what I’ll call it because if I have to type Ace of Clubs’ Club every time I talk about this place I’ll put a bullet in the head of the guy who thought the name up and that won’t be good for my reputation, my resume, or my credit rating) an especially unpleasant joint in a town full of them isn’t just their beer selection – it’s that management tries really, really hard to make the place seem a heck of a lot nicer than it’ll ever be, and that I just can’t tolerate.
Continue reading ‘The Rain-Slicked Road to Everywhere: Scene Two’
