Freddy's
485 Dean St. (6th Ave.), Brooklyn
718-622-7035
Fourteen years ago, I was a sweaty-palmed sixth-grader competing for Northmoor Elementary's spelling- bee crown. Brett, John and I were locked in verbal battle. Convalesce. Elucidate. Supine. Spellings came quick and correct. We demolished the list I'd spent countless afternoons memorizing with my mom.
"We're going to our back-up," said the silver-haired announcer. "Josh, please spell 'bicentennial.'"
The year was 1990. America's 200th anniversary hoopla had long faded. I coughed, then began: B-I-C-E-N-T-E-N-NI paused. E or I? I or E? E, I, E, I, oh no. I scratched my bowl-cut head and selected the vowel that, to this day, haunts me.
E.
Who knew a bell's ding could cut so deep.
Now, several haircuts and a dictionary's worth of words later, verbal revenge was on deck in a Brooklyn corner bar. A spelling bee. One buck to enter. Winner takes all. I arrived at Freddy's 30 minutes before the 8 p.m. start.
Like most pre-Bloomberg dives, Freddy's smoke stench is impervious to all cleansing products, save for a nuclear weapon. Or a bulldozer. Freddy's is a focal point of Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn Nets plan. If the developer had his druthers, the bar would be asphalt, stomping ground for Brooklynites who believe the borough was castrated when the Dodgers went Left Coast.
During its stay of execution, the old Daily News haunt teems with low-key locals. Young barflies, they sip three-buck Bud drafts and Guinness, poured slow and thick. The tin-ceiling bar is rife with pack-rat ephemera: a shark, voodoo-like dolls and pics of men and women's middle fingers, proudly extended.
Tonight, there is no angeronly channeling Webster. Hopefully. By 8:16, the contest has yet to begin. In fact, men with short hair and large drum sets are bumbling into the bar. A bee with a house band? Rock out.
Or not.
A flurry of phone calls and conversations follow: bee mastermind Josh Reynolds, bartender, band. Head-nods and handshakes signify an accord. I sidle to Reynolds' table to score the scoop.
"We're double-booked tonight," Reynolds says, holding his palms ceilingward. "We're going to reschedule for August."
"You know this thwarts my vengeance, right?" I say, recounting my elementary folly.
"If it helps, I'm dressed like I'm in elementary school," says a young woman. She stands, displaying her green-striped shirt and flood pants.
"Seventh grade did me in," says a woman with blond, wavy hair.
"I lost in the fourth grade," Reynolds says. "On 'climb.' I spelled it with an 'e.'"
I let Reynolds chew his misplaced consonants and return to the bar. The bartender's ear is open for commiseration. I tell him of childhood disaster, of dashed retribution.
"I kind of wanted a spelling bee in here tonight. That band just played here on Friday night." The Yo La Tengo-shirted 'tender leans close. "It was a slow Friday night, if you know what I mean."
So what does one do when a spelling bee is double-booked? Order another Bud and wait for distraction. Sweaty glass in hand, Brooke answers the call.
Brooke is the type of college friend that, post-graduation, ran wild in my phone book. However, a handful of years removed from school, our alma mater matters for shit. We see each other infrequently. When we do, our lives hardly intersect. Instead, we talk smack about those sharing our past.
"Have you seen Ryan lately?" Brooke asks.
I have.
"Is he getting weirder?"
He is.
"I last saw him two years ago. We were in a bar, and his breath was so unbelievably bad. The bar was loud, and I had trouble hearing him, but every time I leaned close I almost gagged on his breath. I held him away with my arm."
We both laugh, but she leaves before ordering the beer that, for a brief moment, would have made us friends again.
I return to Bud. The band tunes up in the back room, spitting jangly notes toward the pint-sipping crowd.
"That should be proper spelling," I tell the bartender.
"Should be," he says, turning up the CD player and drowning out the band with a sound barely sweeter than disappointment. o