for the love of the (under)dog

Recently at home, enfolded lovingly in the arms of friends and family, haunting familiar streets, watering holes and establishments of bread-breaking filled with the faces of my past I fell in love. My love has always been there, waiting quietly, in an unassuming way for that comfortable familiarity to blossom, into the warming glow of love. My love is a simple sort: nothing flashy or fancy, no pretense there. My love is Gilley's, and I never knew I loved it until it was there- as it has always been. Well, it hasn't exactly always been there, Gilley's is a refurbished train car diner car of a sort and has the dubious honor of having amassed the most parking tickets in the history of Portsmouth NH before planting itself firmly in its home between the parking garage and The Coat of Arms booze dispensary, no doubt much to the chagrin of the local Historic Committee Nazi dictators who are wildly gentrifying everything in sight to create a Disney style port town for overfed citydwellers to spend their dollars in on "quaint" weekend visits. Massholes go home.

Gilley's has, however, always been there for me. Regardless of which of the fabulously gourmet high- end downtown bistros the evening began with, whatever bar (in Portsmouth there is one about every 1/2 block) facilitated overindulgence in both Irish whiskey and secondhand smoke all roads lead to Gilley's. As a bartender in that town it was often my job to scoot out the back door while patrons were being pushed out the front in an, often futile, effort to procure kraut dogs and double cheeseburgers before the last call masses descend in hungry hordes and I was never too far above elbowing past an unsteady patron I had rendered tentative on his feet to spend the cash I had charmed him to part with on the chili fries he had his heart set on. Yeah, I'm cruel like that and we all know the milk of human kindness dries up long before bar time and nothing replenishes the soul like one of those tiny school cafeteria cartons of Hood's chocolate variety.

Gilley's is a welcome bit of grit and actual local color, a metaphoric pair of ratty old kicks hanging inexplicably from a telephone wire, it refuses to be spruced up or easily removed. This is the parking lot where drunken fistacuffs will ensue over pursuit of the hand of some local lovely, where many a lastcall hookup will be confirmed with a mustard kiss and digit bearing paper napkin, this is where you find the friends you lost along the way, never met up with in the first place or where you find the friends you should have been friends with all along. My old roommate even unwittingly carried a dead body from this asphalt slab into the square, thinking his cargo so heavy by virtue of too many cheese fries- he was cute so he didn't really need to be smart and he had nothing to do with actually making the body dead in the first place. Inside Gilley's is no less dangerous but it is more of the slow death transfat sort of gentle homicide, committed by the delightfully sarcastic grill gods and you welcome that sort of death as a side dish for your bad decisions like the hug of a split bun. in Gilley's you know what you want or you step to the back of the line and if that isn't a metaphor for life you deserve to be passed over until it is.

So thank you Gilley's for the comfortable padding you have given to my bottom, for the shelter from the cold of an overly groomed downtown and a belly warm from processed meat and melted cheese. Thank you for being the last stop at the end of a night I wasn't quite ready to see draw to a close and for fortifying me body and soul for the journey home to bed, my own or, in my heyday, some other. I love you Gilley's, because you are rough edges and bad decisions and for gleefully doing best for me what is probably notsogood for me. I love you for waiting patiently, stalwartly and confident that I would someday realize how much you mean to me. Thank you.
http://www.gilleyspmlunch.com/