Monday, April 12, 2021

Bob the Viking

 Sully's brings all kinds out to his bar, and "Bob the Viking" is one of the characters that can be found there on a regular basis. Truth be told, none of are sure if "Bob" is his real name or not. Bob is a bit of a mystery, and seems to like it that way. He's a mountain of a man, well above 6 feet, and at least three bills. Pale blue eyes that give nothing of what he is thinking, if he is thinking anything, away, and blond hair that a super model would be proud of. When asked he says he is from "up north" which for him is quite the speech, and that would be the extent of our knowledge as to Bob's ancestry. Sully has said that Bob told him his 'real' name once, but that it contained a lot of vowels and a lot of syllables and so he just called him "Bob." Bob didn't seem to mind, and didn't bother trying to correct Sully naming of him as Bob the Viking. He answers to Bob, and so it is as Bob that he enters our tale.

Bob always sits on the same stool (which must be reinforced to hold his big ass up), it seems that Sully's is close to having assigned seats. If some newcomer sits in Bob's seat by mistake, and refuses Sully's request to move, then Bob shows up, looms over said newcomer, and suddenly his seat is free. You only have to mistakenly sit in Bob's seat once to get the message. Bob doesn't talk much, or generally at all. Relying on grunts, and facial expressions to get his meaning across. Trust me, when Bob looks at you at certain way, you suddenly remember all sorts of other places you need to be. Your mother's house, a dentist appointment, a facial, a spa day, anywhere but in his way. Not that Bob is a violent fellow, he just sits at the bar, and quietly drinks his pints, content to be let alone, and not to meddle in the affairs of others. Which considering how many "affairs" are conducted at Sully's is no mean achievement. Bob is a walking example of the strong, silent type. Fair play to him, we have too many talkers at Sully's anyway (see David the Liar).  

Once, many years ago, a few of us old heads did see Bob lose his temper, it was not a pretty sight. Sully is not a small man, and since it is his bar, he was the first to try to get Bob to settle down. He woke up a day and a half later very confused, and with his jaw wired shut for six weeks. It took about six of us to "settle" Bob down, that is after he cold cocked Sully. Bob has a slight scar on his left eye from (what I like to think) was a mean right hook of mine, but truth be told he walked right through my punch like it was a mosquito bite. We never figured out what sent Bob into a beserker rage that his Viking ancestors would have been proud of, we were just glad that he wasn't wielding a battle axe at the time. He was at the point of telling me "to make peace with my gods" when the bar stool crashed over the back of his skull, and knocked him out, was swung by a particularly brave bar maid of Sully's. She knocked him out, and said "that's it, I have enough of this shithole. I quit!" She then walked over to the till, and took her wages out of it, and left. Sully was unconscious at the time, and was in no condition to argue with her even if he had wanted to. Bob seemed to have a bit of grudging respect for me after that, I am not sure if it was because the punch hurt him (I doubt that), or that he appreciated the fact that I was stupid/brave enough to throw it at him.  After Bob's "spell" it took several hours for the "survivors" to clean the place up enough to make it worth drinking in again. That is if Sully's has ever been worth drinking in to begin with. It didn't matter that the sole proprietor was carried to his bed to recover, the bar must stay open! 

After that, Bob was as quiet as a church mouse. He just sat on his stool, and drank pint after pint of some foul, bitter beer that the rest of us refused to touch. Unsuspecting first timers would sometimes order it to their cost. It became know as a Bob Special. And the only thing special about it was it was a miracle it didn't kill you at the first sip. Sully told me one day that Bob told him where to get the stuff, and would sometimes go and pick up Sully's order of it, just to make sure that Sully didn't run out of it at an awkward time. I don't think Bob would take to kindly to Sully running out of his favorite libation. One shudders to think of that scenario. Bob even brought his own mug to Sully, and told him to use it, and it only. We all figure it is probably lined with lead to keep the swill from melting it. Sully has never showed us it up close. It holds more than your average pint, but Sully is not inclined to charge Bob more for it.  A broken jaw is a great motivator to keep the peace it seems. In spite of the broken jaw, Bob was the type of customer that Sully enjoyed the most, the paying kind. 

We don't know where Bob got the money to pay for the massive amounts of pints he consumed, and few of us cared to ask. Sully's is a good place to practice the idea of "don't ask, don't tell." Even that bastard Felix was perplexed. Everyone who is a regular at Sully's gets on Felix's radar at some point, and the mysterious Bob was no exception. One day when he was feeling expansive, Felix told me that he had his best men tail Bob when he left the bar. And that Bob always lost them in less than 3 blocks. You'd think something that big would be easy to follow, but Bob seemed to be a master at losing people following him. Felix said that Bob would never take the same route two days in a row, so that Felix's goons didn't even have an idea in which part of the city Bob lived. "He could live 4 blocks from here or 4 miles from here" was Felix's sad statement. He went on to say "he could be a longshoreman, or a ballet dancer for all we know." Though the idea of Bob dancing ballet was akin to thinking about an elephant playing tennis, but Bob wasn't ungraceful in his movements, so I guess anything is possible. 

I even made some gentle inquires myself (being the curious type that I am). I was rewarded with one of the longest conversations I ever had with Bob. One day he motioned me over to the stool beside him, and being as I was in no position to refuse such a request, I plopped down next to him, and gave him a questioning look. Not many people got this close to Bob without a reason, and I had a good idea what my reason was. Bob grunted at me as a way of greeting, and I arched an eyebrow. "I don't speak enough "grunt" to get your point Bob, you're going to have to use your words for a change of pace." He turned those very pale blue eyes on me, and said "I know you've asked that pretty, little blond girl that works for Felix to find out what they know about me, and since she's a little sweet on you (only the gods know why) she tried to find what you were looking for." I nodded, and kept my smart mouth shut for once. I had no desire to go on the Sully liquid diet. He continued "ask your boy Felix what she found, oh and get a less pretty spy next time, the pretty ones stand out too much" and then he waved me off to go upon my merry way.

As mentioned, Bob didn't talk much, seems his philosophy is that if you don't express an opinion, no one can argue with you about your opinion. Probably a sound philosophy in today's troubled times. We are pretty sure that Bob worships the old gods, but ask him about religion, and he would grunt. Ask him about women, and he would grunt "women are trouble." Ask him about the football and he would grunt. Bob did a lot of grunting, and you learned to interpret them. Discussions of politics would garner you another, more dismissive, grunt. Maybe Bob had to talk all day at his job, and by the time he got to Sully's he was just out of words to say. There is a saying that tells us that "we all need something to live for" and maybe that is true for us all. I am not the man to ask that particular question, and certainly neither is Bob. After "knowing" Bob for a considerable amount of time, the conclusion I have reached is that Bob might just live for his pints. Sometimes life is just that simple. We haven't heard the last of Bob the Viking.

 


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