THE FIREFLY

It was the summer of 1980 in Hollywood and I was the new kid in town. I had found my apartment but I had yet to find my bar. To a serious drinker this was no superficial search. The mix of clientele, ambience and bartender needed to be just right.

It was then I found The Firefly, or just The Fly to the regulars. It was three doors down from the iconic intersection of Hollywood and Vine. With no pretensions of being anything other than a dive bar, (a shot and a beer, a buck and a quarter),  it suited me admirably, as the clientele consisted of a mix of losers, colorful characters, such as myself and sex workers. They didn’t call themselves that then. They were either hookers from the Walk of Shame or the strippers who were working at the burlesque house three blocks down. The girls would come over during their breaks in the show, sometimes only wearing a raincoat, over a g-string and a boa, constrictor or feather. The hookers and strippers added a great deal to the overall ambiance but none of them could stay long as they were the only ones with a regular job.

Despite the best efforts of the cleaning lady, who came in once a decade, the place reeked of stale beer, cigarette smoke and vomit. No one, of course, noticed  because the patrons themselves were responsible for the smell.

The long bar ran down the right hand side of the dark narrow room, jute box tucked into the far left corner and three tables jammed in to the far left wall. There were rumors of restrooms back in the far left corner, but the regulars only used the alley for obvious reasons.

Deano, the bartender, fresh off a three-year stint for involuntary manslaughter in Pennsylvania, was poetry in motion, whether pouring drinks, making change, or leaping over the bar with a Louisville slugger in hand to adjudicate philosophical arguments amongst patrons. Ever the showman, he could run a 3 foot line of coke down the bar or a 15 foot line of lighter fluid which he would light when things got a little slow.

My summer at the Fly lasted for four years. But I eventually had to get a job and it was as if a summer romance had ended. But, oh, what a glorious romance!