Jr. and Son

JR. AND SON

575 METROPOLITAN AVE. (LORIMER ST.), WILLIAMSBURG

FOR FOUR YEARS I've been afraid. Very afraid. My fear sits in Williamsburg on the corner of Lorimer and Metropolitan, a Chad Pennington lob from my B48 bus stop. What do I dread as I wait for tardy public transport? The patrons of dive bar Jr. and Son.

On the exterior, Jr. and Son exudes Williamsburg's pervasive Eastern Bloc pallor. Drab brown brick. Terminally gated windows. And, outside the door, shifty-eyed men with fleshy stomachs sucking on cigarettes.

This setting piqued my combination of curiosity and ill-advised decision-making (a pot deal in Washington Square Park—why not?). Yet Jr. and Son's always-sealed door and dim lights made me feel like, if I entered, I'd end up with my mug on a milk carton.

But on a recent Wednesday night, I was emboldened by my Thanksgiving stint drinking in Ohio's bowling alleys: If I guzzled aside Tasmanian Devil lovers and Ford Escort drivers, surely I could enter Jr. and Son. So I corralled my cowlick, stepped beneath the martini-glass-adorned awning and crossed the threshold.

Upon entering, there are no icy stares, no jukebox screeching to a stop. I grab a seat and shield my eyes. The bar's mirror is a garish display of all things wrong with December: dual faux Christmas trees, enough light strings to hang a man and—the kicker—man-sized plastic Budweiser bottles capped with Santa hats reading ANTHONY and JUNIOR. Ah, bliss.

Now, this idea of bliss is idiosyncratic. If it consists, per se, of gluing oneself to a stool and eavesdropping on broken men jawing in Brooklynese about gambling while staring at black-and-white photos of Frank Sinatra, dead boxers and a man with a four-fifths-unbuttoned shirt fondling an ivory bust's breasts, well, welcome to Jr. and Son.

"What can I do for you?" asks a jeans-sweatshirt-and-gold-necklace man later identified as Junior.

To my right, several gambleholics—arguing about lotto numbers—are sipping whiskey and seven-ounce Budweisers. Bud and Michelob Light are on tap.

"Mich Light," I say. "Tap."

I put a tenner on the bar. Junior pours an eight-ounce beer goblet. He takes my 10, replaces it with nine, then knuckle-taps the bar. Not bad.

Better yet, as the evening progresses, Junior mutely fills my goblet when it reaches suds. He drags away a dollar each time, but every third Mich is accompanied by a knuckle-tap and "on me." Not bad indeed.

So what is bad? Well, dear reader, bars like Jr. and Son are best savored in moderation. What is initially thrilling, even charming, soon devolves into depression. For this is not a festive drinker's bar. It's an escape from women, jobs and the rigors of proper nutrition.

"I'm going to eat some mac 'n' cheese tonight. With white bread," says a man with an earthworm-thick moustache.

"Oh, what kind?" Junior asks.

"The curly kind."

"I only eat the curly kind."   

Suffice it to say, your dream woman is not likely here drinking dollar-beer.

I, in fact, supply the sole feminine wiles. My friend Cecily and my girlfriend, Adrianne, wander in to break me from old-man posturing. We plug Al Green and Elvis into the mish-mash jukebox (J. Lo, Mob Hits and Joe Pesci?) and encounter a problem.

"Uhh, the women's bathroom is locked," Cecily says. I'm hardly surprised. The toilet-less men's room is a closet where you let rip into an ice-filled urinal.

"That's because you have tattoos," Junior says. He's poker-faced long enough for Cecily to ponder her fully inked arms. "Just kidding."

He opens the cash register and removes a key. He hands it to her, warning, "Make sure you shut the light. Electric!"

Con Edison would be the undoing of our evening. Around 9:30, Junior says, "It's after 9 p.m.; no more Christmas tree." He dims the bar to bare minimum. "Electricity," he says.

Isn't it a bit early, I wonder aloud.

"Nah, this place is dead during the week," he says, gesturing to a bar empty save for a man with the gravelly voice of a terminal smoker. "AFLAC!" he shouts alongside the insurance duck, sounding like a gargling swamp creature.

Junior explains that the bar hops on weekends when he fires up karaoke.

"We stay open 24 hours," he says.

Whether that's a good thing or not is entirely up for discussion. o