The Grasshopper - Day 9

Buy me a Grasshopper Good Buddy?

I’m certain that within these high school and college years the best Mugger stories could be told, but the truth is we didn’t see each other much. Once the Lawrence Ankle-Biting Caravan moved south to Richmond it was only the occasional holiday that I saw my cousins. When I went to college, it wasn’t even that.

Looking at this picture to the right, I’m guessing by Mugger’s Theo Huxtable sweater and my combination of Hugo Boss sport coat and thrift shop t-shirt, it may have been early to mid-nineties. (93 or 94 maybe.) I don’t remember the reason for the gathering or the picture being taken, but apparently it was a rare enough occasion that someone though of snapping a photograph.

(On an unrelated fashion note, I still have that sport coat, much to my wife’s chagrin, …and Mugger has since donated all his Huxtable sweaters to his Father, who enjoys them thoroughly to this day.)

Like I said, I have little to no stories of Mugger’s High School exploits, but I’m sure AJ and the Midlothian crowd could fill in some gaps whilst we’re in Estes Park next week.

One story Mugger and I often tell is our first drink out together after he turned 21. I’ve only ever told this story aloud and it relies heavily on the pitch and vocal punch line, but we’ll see how it translates to the written word…

There were a number of places in South Wilkes-Barre I could have taken Mugger for a couple drinks to celebrate his 21^st birthday, but one of the more unique places was a little joint that our grandfather used to hang out at….it was called Boris’ Café. The kind of place where they changed the drapes from red to white in the spring and the old fellas tending bar wore tuxedo shirts and bow ties. It had its regular clientele and the median age was about 65-75 years old.

There was no place like it. It was South Wilkes-Barre meets Goodfellas and you could get a draft beer for 25 cents. 35 for the good stuff. I knew Mugger would get a kick out this place and since they knew our family, we were unlikely to be killed. We took a seat at the bar and settled in and ordered a couple drafts. We made our way to the drink-menu on the bar, which didn’t exceed a buck and a half for the most exotic mixed drinks.

And here is where we made our wrong turn. Both of us being still pretty young and mostly college beer drinkers at that time, we didn’t know our mixed drinks. We looked through the extended menu and for some uneducated reason settled on ordering two Grasshoppers. We had never heard of this drink. The bartender was a man that looked like he retired 25 years earlier. His name was Fast Eddie. This is not an embellishment, that was his name and he couldn’t hear worth a crap. That or he just couldn’t believe what these two young men were ordering before him. He took our order and quickly returned with two of the most girly green frosty drinks that could have been available on that bar top menu we studied so thoroughly.

We tasted our minty green crème de menthe cocktails as the embarrassment started to settle in. They were both cold and refreshing, but we just wanted them to disappear just the same.

It was about this time that a punchy tough looking dude stumbled into the bar. He was a local boxer from the area named Billy Murratto and went by the ring name Lightning Billy Murratto (this name is an embellishment by the way). This dude looked like he was hit in the face with a Toyota. He was looking for funding and some sponsorship for his next fight at the Scranton CYC and he was bending everyone’s ear at the bar. We didn’t understand a word the pug was saying and that was half the entertainment, as he sounded like a combination of Leon Spinks meets Lou Ferrigno, but he was fascinating and that’s when we took our eyes off of the prize. Instead of concentrating on making our Grasshoppers go away, we watched and listened to Lightning Murratto make his way down the bar. Some folks were giving him a couple bucks for his under-card bout just to move him along. As he got to us he was still slurring some gibberish about needing some extra cash to train etc, but it was all so hard to decipher….and then Lightning looked down at the bar-top inquisitively, eyebrow raised and in a voice that was as crystal clear and baritone as a Radio DJ, he pointed at our Grasshoppers and said, “What the F#@K is that?”

Whatever money we saved on our budget mixed drinks we ultimately gave away to Lightning Billy just to make him leave us alone, but the humiliating knockout punch was already delivered. We chugged the rest of our grasshoppers, nibbled on our fresh mint sprig garnish and moved on to the next whiskey bar. Our Grandfather Trevor would not have been proud of us that evening at Boris’ Café. We have never had another Grasshopper drink since that night.