TRICKY DICK'S COFFEE HOUSE: 13) TIM HARDIN GETS 86'D

A Throwback Thursday Serial Memoir About Living in London in the 1970s

After Christmas (‘76) I lost Bruce S as chef de cuisine.  He had been dependable, rock solid, and was my best friend.  But he called to say he wouldn't be working for the next six weeks. 

"My old man got me a seasonal job at the office,” he told me. “It's office work, photocopying, filing, but it pays good and my father needs me."

"Can't you work a week more, give me time to find someone else?"

"Nope," said Bruce.  He wasn't one to mince words.  "They want me to start tomorrow."

I ended up in the kitchen frying burgers, baking pizza, and a host of other duties I preferred to delegate. 

On Friday and Saturday nights we were filling up, and by this time we could seat 80 customers.  Past midnight there'd be a line to get in, and we would be the hottest seat in north London for two hours.

Roger Okin, the blower of the invisible trumpet, was a regular player, though jam sessions were never structured.  Everything improvised.  Come as you are.  Or as you want to be.

Tim Hardin arrived one night, arrogant and demanding, with an entourage.  We fed his party gratis and danced around them in awe.  Someone whispered that the little black guy with him was Rebop from Traffic.

Tim took to the stage and started to sing. 

Diners kept talking, despite requests for them to keep it down. 

A musician playing a gig in a restaurant has to earn silence, not demand it.  Whatever happens happens.  And ever since my dad had thrown a drumstick at a noisy table, seriously pissing me off, I’d been sensitive to this principle.

Tim managed to quiet the place down with his full-bodied vocals, from the gut, but a few diners still chatted, and this wasn't good enough for Rebop, wired to the gills on cocaine cut with sulphate speed. 

Rebop stood up and begged Tim to stop performing because the customers were not worthy of him.

"You're Jesus, man!" screamed Rebop.  "Don't play for these loudmouths, these heathens!  They don't deserve God!" 

Tim stopped strumming his guitar and put it down, slowly, deliberately, to ponder Rebop's counsel. 

With Tim's full attention, Rebob burst into tears and threw a tantrum. "Stop, Tim!  you stop this instant!  These scumbags don't deserve you!"

I watched with amusement on the basis that it was better entertainment than music.  And after a few minutes' stalemate, Tim's entourage relocated from the stage to my makeshift office upstairs.

As they loudly argued it through, my bile began to rise.  

Just who the hell did Tim Hardin think he was?  His gang was causing a scene in my restaurant, insulting my customers. And though at first entertaining, now it was offensive.

A power force began to swell in me.  By brother Michael was present, also amused, non-committal.  And Clive too. 

It was a bad scene, Clive concurred with me, and needed to be concluded, and when I offered to conclude it conclusively, Clive saw the vodka in my eyes and said, "Let me go up, try to resolve it diplomatically.  If they can't get it together, I'll ask them to leave."

Clive went up and made his pitch, and I heard Tim get loud and indignant with him; Rebop launched a new tantrum. They refused to budge.

I leapt upstairs like a panther and burst through the door with such force that Rebop, leaning against it, got thrown clear across the office. 

Silence. 

I looked around at the shocked assemblage and hollered, "I want all of you out of my fucking restaurant.  NOW!!!"

Rebop got up, crying hysterically, howling, "I buy this restaurant from you!  I buy it from you!" and he thrust a thick wad of twenty pound notes into my palm.

I looked down at the big bills in my hand and threw them to the floor. "Pick up your goddam money and get the fuck out of here!" 

One of the women in the entourage got down on her knees to scoop up banknotes and I grabbed little Rebob by the shoulders and heaved him out the office door.  He squealed like a hog all the way down the stairs, and Tim Hardin and his entourage followed behind, grumbling and grousing, and Tim swearing he'd never be back, and me saying, Good, we don't have time for conceited shits in Tricky Dick's. 

I followed them down the stairs and slammed the door after them. 

When I turned around, my customers applauded.

Later, one of Hardin's group, a punk-rocker named Gideon, wandered back in, apologized, and played one of the sweetest sets we'd ever heard.

Inspired by the events of that evening, I conceived a comedy night and placed a small classified ad in The Ham & High, Hampstead’s local weekly, to see what talent might turn up.  

Enter a funny little guy named Norman who thought he was Woody Allen.  He wore a  monk's fringe around a mostly bald pate on which protruded what looked to be a large tumor. When he opened his mouth, a combination East End cockney and Brooklyn accent erupted. 

Norman performed once a week, attracting multiple hecklers, and hung out schmoozing the rest of the week over endless cups of coffee trying to be funny.  But after a while he became a nuisance and we'd head for the pubs whenever we saw him coming.

In early spring (‘77) I had a computer game installed.  Back then these things were unsophisticated, a notch above TV ping-pong.  Our game pinned one player against another (this was before machines themselves became formidable opponents).  

Each player ran a fighter plane down a runway, took off, and took shots at the other.  It was always in use, and I was amazed by how much money it took.

I installed a second game, and it also became a cash cow. 

Noting that our basement was as large as our ground floor, I  brainstormed a plan to fill it with pinball machines and pool tables.  So we spruced up the basement and installed two American-size pool tables, three pinball machines and two TV games. 

The beauty of the deal was its simplicity. It cost nothing.  A company called NPB supplied the gear and we split the takings 50-50.

Overnight, we were deluged with new business.  The pool hall overflowed into the restaurant; people waiting their turn to play, hungry and thirsty.  The whole place shook with activity. 

But there was a downside. 

The pool hall attracted a crowd we hadn't seen before:  The mean-spirited thug. 

At first there were only a few of them.  But they soon proliferated, and the positive vibes turned negative.  

Thugs began to intimidate our regular eccentrics who wanted to shoot pool; the bullies wanted the pool hall to themselves and didn't want anyone disturbing their play.  And when they came upstairs for a bite, they'd snarl about having to stand and wait. 

Things got ugly.  There were fights.  One guy got two front teeth knocked out.  I had to call the police a few times to eject several thugs, and the same thugs would return the next night, unrepentant, resentful and mean.

When I arrived after the pubs closed I'd be pumped up with vodka, ready to take on whatever trouble awaited me, even dishwashing, if necessary. 

I returned one night to find my staff in an uproar.  One of the thugs had turned the pool hall jukebox to full volume and it was blaring up to the restaurant, annoying our resident lunatics and interfering with live music, while the thug threatened to clobber anyone who attempted to turn it lower.

I stormed downstairs, marched over to the jukebox and gave it a kick so hard it stopped dead. 

Silence. 

I faced the thugs and hollered, "This fucking jukebox is closed!  If anyone touches it, I'm closing them too!"  

Not a one protested.

My brother Mike, watching nearby, bracing himself, said it was the most courageous thing he'd ever seen.  And also one of the dumbest. 

But that's how I felt.  Sure, Tricky Dick's wasn’t much more than an anarchist's picnic.  But it was my picnic, and bullies were not invited.  

Destiny, meanwhile, was calling again; plus, I'd managed to save some money from our new gaming enterprise (a lethal combination). 

I wanted to return to Washington, D.C., party with Leonard Hall's "Fighting Fifth," learn something new from Professor Quigley.  It had been almost a year since I was Stateside and I needed a fix.

The night before my trip was one of the nuttiest nights I ever experienced at Tricky Dick's.  A jazz trio played a dynamite set, the lights were low, the restaurant bustled, and I soaked it all in along with Jack Daniel's bourbon. 

At one point, the band put on animal masks, the singer was a rat, the atmosphere fully charged, and I just stood back and went, "Whoa...!" 

it was so utterly, totally awesome.  I made a mental note to get the band's phone number.  They were playing on trial and I wanted them back.  But the night went crazy, mental notes got deleted, and I never saw the band again.  

Next morning, I awoke with a pounding head, a fuzzy mouth and a groggy brain, but I made it to Heathrow Airport airport and boarded my flight to Washington.

As the plane taxied into position, I suddenly felt panicked.  

Why was I taking a trip at this crucial juncture?  

I felt the engines roar and the plane thrust forward and, as the mighty jumbo left the ground, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.