Melody Lanes
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Transcript of Melody Lanes
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OVERFLOW
FREE
ISSUE 8 :: WINTER 2011
gowanus . red hook . carroll gardenscobble hill . boerum hill . park slope
prospect heights . windsor terrace
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by Colin Weatherby. photos by Sarah Wilmer
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Iwas pretty excited when OVERFLOWaskedme to write about Melody Lanes. After all,
the place has been open since 1958 and is a
Brooklyn landmark. More importantly, Ive beenpretty depressed lately and thought this would be
a good tonic. Ok, depressed isnt the right wordfor it and melancholy just
sounds lame. Maybe morose?
Long story short, I just gotback to Brooklyn after a year
of adventure and shit has been
pretty dismal. Im broke. I cantseem to nd a real job. I live ina windowless cofn. I spent my
last hundred bucks on novelty
bicycle tires and a yuppieMoleskine notebook for this
article. I have also lost my gamewith these slick city women. Life
basically sucks.
I gured a couple miserable
turds at the bowling alley wouldset me right. My problems
would all snap into perspective.
I dont know what to do withmy life? Big deal. Old Man
Sweatpants at the alley bar withthe colostomy bag and the VFW
jacket would surely spin some
fantastical pickled yarn abouthis days as a screenwriter that
would make my life look likea magic carpet ride through a
candy store. I ried through
the closet and found my bestsports coat. If nothing else, I
was to determined to at leastbe looking sharper than my
miserable subjects.
Thursday afternoon is usually a
good time to scrape the bottomof the barrel, so I wandered
over to the lanes and bought a
drink. Melody has a great bar, bythe way. The decor is fantastic:
minimal lighting, plenty of TVsto watch the horse races, and
the gentle din of crashing pinsto soothe you into your next drink. Better yet,
the bartender is trapped behind a horseshoe with
seating on three sides, captive in his tiny cockpit afew feet away. This bar is designed for the painfully
impatient drunk. More importantly, booze-slingerPeter Napolitano puts on a pretty good show. He
seems like classic Brooklyn crazy with his tuxedo,
metaphysical philosophies, and awkward humor,but hes actually kind of endearing. Imagine David
Lynch meets the Rat Pack and you have Peter.Hes so good that even the New York Timesdid a
prole on him last year. Unable to think of a better
icebreaker, I asked Peter what he thinks of MelodyLanes.
Look: this isnt about me or this place, he said as
he attened out a bar napkin and drew a triangle.
You are A, I am B, and C is the effect. The
interview is you and the interpretation is reality!He relled the peanuts and walked away. His
gibberish didnt make a lick of sense to me, but it
kinda resonated with my apathy and he seemed tobe having a good time. The mood soured when I
realized that I was starting to envy the intellectual
acrobatics of a man working at a bowling alley and
some jerk at the Times that scooped me on thisnuttiness. Peters pithy ramblings slowly faded into
the background and my attention returned to thebottom of my glass.
Budweiser on draft is $2.50 and the fancy stuff(Bluepoint) is only $3.00. You can literally sit in
this bar all day without leaving if you were so
inclined. There are $4.00 hamburgers, $2.00 curlyfries, and $1.50 popcorn at the equally impressive
snack bar. All of those prices are the Brooklynequivalent of free, if you didnt know that already.
Needless to say, the combination of cheap booze
and bottomless self-loathing was making methirsty. With a more-than-slight buzz, I pulled out
my Moleskine ($14.50) and got to work looking formisery. Over on the east end of the alley I saw
about twenty- ve Caribbean dudes going kraand decided they looked like pretty good target
Surely they were blowing off steam from a lon
day at some dead-end shitstorm. I was kindhoping theyd be too busy and suspicious to de
with me, as their shouting and high-ving was oof control. I dont remember ev
seeing one of them sit down f
more than about three minuteEven weirder was the fact th
they were all pretty dece
bowlers. Gutter balls were simpout of the question. They evkept it cool with the drinking un
the balls were bagged and th
party migrated out to the sidewawhere beers and rum were passe
around.
They called themselves
Surrey Sports Club and they wedamned serious. So much for m
workaday burnouts. We used play cricket in Flatlands, but th
children arent interested, sa
club president Eric Padmore a friendly patois. He laughed an
continued, Were too old for thstuff now, anyways. I was caref
to notice that these guys we
mostly in peak physical conditiocompared to the average abb
Brooklynite. Apparently crickis more brutal than it looks. I ju
searched the game on Wikipediand I cant imagine a kid
Brooklyn ever wearing those sil
uniforms. It turns out that onof the kids in their club is
incredibly gifted sixteen-year-obowler named Gary Pacheco. He
as big as a linebacker and throw
a 289 like its easy. He won thBrooklyn & Queens Juniors Tit
when he was a freshman. To toit all off, his entire family w
wearing matching orange p
shirts and pleated khakis becauits better for team unity and
makes us feel good, said GarHe has several prospects for a bowling scholarsh
to college. A bowling scholarship, for Christs sak
I went back to the bar, completely crushed by a
the positivity. I had another couple Buds whilewaited for the other lanes to ll up and drowne
my sorrows. I switched to whisky (5 bucks!) antried to clear my head. Gary Pacheco was no
bowling with his equally talented older broth
Gabrielle. Their mom, Ingrid, was watching frothe sidelines and giving them pointers. I felt like
was going to be sick.
While I was away, a couple Latin fellas showed u
at the bar and started playing dominoes. One othem looked like a giant bulldog and was wearin
a sweaty Jack Daniels t-shirt. He kept slammindown the tiles and shouting at the old guy in th
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fedora across the table. I inched closer and turned
my ear. Unfortunately, Jack Daniels Tee was a jovialcherub. His Dominican Spanish just soundedangry. In fact, while I watched the game, his wife
came in with their baby. He jumped up, ordered
her a drink, and cleared a seat. She smiled at him,totally calm and accommodating to his insane
antics. The baby slept through the entire thing.The dude even nished his beer, left a generous
tip, and the whole family was out by 9:00 pm. I
looked away in disgust only to catch a guy at thebar watching 60 Minutes and eating a Greek salad.
As it approached 10:00pm, the alley began to ll
up. I looked around and wandered between the
lanes: fresh-faced Asian couple, endearing younglesbian tribe, church group, and a gang of frat
boys. I counted eight sports-related pieces ofclothing on the frat boys and assumed they might
give me some local color. Maybe theyd call me
faggot and throw a beer in my face. But onceagain, I was disappointed. These dweebs were
raising money for charitable donations! I think oneactually called me sir. Their league name was the
most insulting part: Recession Special. At least
ve of them were gainfully employed.
I couldnt take it anymore. I was easily the worstperson in this place. Goddamn Melody Lanes is
like a bowling alley from my nightmares. Instead
of stale cigarettes, the place smelled like popcornand Lysol. The bathrooms are cleaner than myapartment, and the carpet is gum-free. You can
get socks in the vending machines for $10. I even
bought some of the aforementioned popcornfrom the friendly girl at the snack bar, and it was
fresh as hell.
I put on my coat and bee-lined toward the door.
I pulled up short as the lady behind the countercaught my eye. She was about 60 with a thick
Brooklyn accent. She had that tough-as-nails lookon her face that white people only get when theyre
Polish or born in New York before the Lindsay
administration. She was curt with me when I camein a few hours earlier, so I threw a Hail Mary, a
last ditch effort. I started to fantasize about hergiving a paranoid, xenophobic rant. Maybe she had
a couple painful day jobs and was taking care of
her invalid granddaughter on the side. I planned tobait a conversation about immigrants and the old
days just to test the waters.
Sadly, Carol was another friendly bust. She agreed
that Melody Lanes is just freakishly wholesome.Shes worked with Eli Beshara (the owner, whom
she loves) for several years and thinks the area isreally on the up and up. She looked me in the eye
and said, I tell ya, if I am here, things are good.
this area was the same as it used to be, I wouldvleft a long time ago. Carol thinks bowling is greand having a nice resurgence after bottoming o
pretty bad a few years back. At $7.25 per gameand heavily discounted for early/late specials anleague playits the cheapest fun around, unle
you enjoy long walks. She even corrected mterminology. Nobody calls them alleys anymor
They are bowling centers.
Alley just sounds dirty, she explained with a gri
I left thinking that I was an even bigger piece oshit than I realized. I stumbled down Fifth Av
towards the F train and shed some day-olout of the Terrace Bagel garbage. I munch
contemplatively on a stale sesame and took
moment in Prospect Park. Maybe its time I starteto reconsider my life decisions. Its not too late f
grad school; I think I have a couple years befothat becomes embarrassing. I probably have abo
ve years before I go completely bald, plenty time to get situated. I quietly climbed the stairs an
cracked the ice tray. One more whisky before be
I opped into my makeshift milk-crate desk anstared at my monitor. Maybe Ill start reevaluatin
next week. Google says there are three mobowling alleys in Brooklyn.
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