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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