Cindy

Cindy

The first time I met Cindy was the night before I went to Tampa, Florida.

I'm not sure why Barry had invited me over but I was curious about his living circumstances and the wife I had come to know through conversations at the Submarine Galley, a bar as comfortable as my own living room, and where Barry worked as the head bartender. True Barry would get more intoxicated than you'd expect for a bartender, once disappearing for over an hour while alcoholics reached over the bar and poured their own drinks, only to be found in the basement, where he had gone to change the Miller Genuine Draft beer tap, passed out in a chair. Though I had never met her, I came to know Cindy through my conversations with Barry and the down on their luck misfits who Barry took in. Besides Barry, I learned the most about Cindy from Jeremy who Barry eventually forced to move out, sacrificing his weekly salary to get him a two week's stay in an over the Rhine motel. The good news was he was free from Jeremy. I liked Jeremy and felt protective towards him like a big brother. Jeremy was far bigger than me in size but Jeremy was like a big kid who had absolutely nothing yet was still able to enjoy the finer things in life. He liked sushi and although we had never had it together, when I was feeling generous, instead of buying him a one dollar draft MGD at the Submarine Galley, we would walk down to Good Fellas where I'd let him have half of a burger I hadn't eaten and a couple Kettle one Martinis. Cindy, like all of us, couldn't understand Jeremy's inability to work and would drill Jeremy about it. Jeremy's response, "You don't know what it's like to not be able to feel your legs" I'm not sure why Jeremy's legs would go numb, but he always had an excuse. Jeremy was good to Cindy though. Cindy was a pain in the ass too, calling Barry at the bar while he was working countless times a day claiming to be too hot or cold, or wanting something to eat. Jeremy upon Barry's request would go to the Hollister House on East McMillan bringing Cindy carry out Chinese or going in just to open windows or adjust the thermostat. Each time however, Cindy would have to here Jeremy's diatribe "But you don't know what it's like to wake up in the morning and not be able to feel your legs". The night I met Cindy, she became real to me. She was no longer the woman I heard about from the drunken bartender or the drug addicted visitor whose legs would go numb. I was shocked by the normalcy of Cindy. The apartment at the Hollister house was small, especially considering Cindy and Barry had two dogs. Cindy was engaging, sarcastic, and full of life considering the one o'clock a.m hour. She said I reminded her of Spencer from King of Queens which made Barry and her laugh. I watched "King of Queens" countless times after that to see the extent of the insult being hurled at me, but it was much later that I finally saw Spencer on "king of Queens". In the dark that night, where Cindy lay under the sheets as she talked to Barry and I, I realized what Barry saw in Cindy and realized why all the down on their luck people who Cindy and Barry would take in, would talk so fondly of her. I realized why Cindy was special, what would make Barry marry her, and why alcoholic people would leave a bar so comfortable to deliver carry out Chinese and adjust thermostats. But that night there would be no one bringing Mu Shu Pork, only Barry and I about to head out for a night of drinking across the river in Covington. Before Barry and I left Cindy in the dark bedroom, we had to take Teddy for a walk. One year later I would find out that instead of Teddy peacefully passing away in a veterinarian's office after deciding he was in too much pain to continue, that he was smothered in a pillow case. But that night there were no pillow cases, but only Cindy's sarcastic wit, Teddy's tricks including pressing the elevator buttons and pressing the automatic door opening sensor at the Hollister House, and Barry and I heading across the river to Covington to drink some beer with Submarine Galley friends.

After my Florida trip, Barry asked where I had been since he forgot that I told him I was mixing business with pleasure in Florida. Cindy was concerned that she had offended me with the "King of Queens" Spencer comparison and thought that's why Barry had not heard from me.

Within a few months, Cindy was placed at Drake hospital and Barry and I fell out after he refused to serve me a Diet Pepsi to sober me up after a night of heavy drinking and heavy tipping.

When my new flavor of the month friend Dennis told me that Cindy had died, I was shocked. I called Barry in the early morning hours as I walked from Dennis's third floor apartment, past the Fire station on short vine in route to my car. When I arrived at the funeral home for Cindy's visitation, Barry was excited to see me and I recognized a few people from the Submarine Galley. It is funny how a funeral can change people. One of the people who eulogized Cindy and played Amazing Grace on Trumpet, I knew from the Sub marine Galley. He lived at the Hollister House along with Cindy and Barry and considered Cindy a sister. I thought to myself what a poignant eulogy and rendition of Amazing Grace particularly considering that just two weeks prior, Andrew had come into the Submarine Galley and threatened to shoot everybody in the bar. But today was about Cindy. From the Power Point Video slide show featuring her and her Sisters at a Kiss concert a few years before to the moving Eulogy's given by her family. One sister in particular moved me the most. She talked about thirty years prior when she sat on the back steps of her porch at their house in St. Bernard. She sat on the steps looking down onto the pool patio where paramedics furiously tried to revive her teenage sister after rescuing her after a dive gone wrong. She spoke of how she prayed as the paramedics worked and begged God to spare Cindy's life. Her prayers were answered that day and although on this day, she felt enormous grief for the loss of Cindy, she was grateful that God had given her thirty more years with the sister she loved.