Subject: Pump Room story
Ho-kay, Bart; take a break from politics for a minute so's I can regale
you with my escapade at the fabulous Pump Room at the incomparable Ambassador
East Hotel in Chicago not long after you had your "no jacket required"
episode there after the Robert Plant show:
It was, like, late November/early December of '85 - a young Joe Piscopo
was making our country laugh again, the Barez were steamrollering their
way toward the Superbowl, and the whole city was in a tizzy over the anitcs
of Coach Dikka, The Fridge and the Punky QB. My uncle Pat, who was
living out in Batavia on the Fox River, about 50 miles west, had gotten
remarried, and he and his wife were in town for the weekend and staying
in a big-ass suite at the incomparable Ambassador East on the Gold Coast.
I was a 30-year old ForEx (I know yer IQ is 67, so I'll just let you know
that ForEx is short for Foreign Exchange) futures vs. options arbitrageur
for a long-forgotten investment bank, working the Swiss Franc and Deutschmark
pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Pat, who likes a drink every
now and then, invited me to drop on in at the hotel for a couple after
I got off work and before he and Caroline went to the Blackstone Theater
to see Shear Madness, some play that ran here for years and years.
Working the ForEx quadrant meant that I was done with the trading day
before 1:30, and I stuck around the Merc Club, the exclusive trader's hangout
(for seatholders and their guests only, mind you) for a while for some
reason before cabbing over to the Ambassador East at about 2:30 or so.
We hung out in Pat's room for a while, then he and I headed down to take
in the fabulous Pump Room, rumored for generations to be the most fabulous
saloon in Chicago. There was nobody else there, so I was able to
wander about and fully absorb such things as the Parisian Whorehouse-style
wallpaper, the weird Old Masters-esque paintings on the wall, the hideous
blood-red carpeting and the mysteries of Booth One, where all of the bigwigs
who stayed at the incomparable Ambassador held court and sway while they
were in attendance of the fabulous Pump Room - Booth One was so fucking
sophisticated that it even had a phone in it; imagine that! After
being completely underwhelmed by the sights, I returned to the bar and
ordered a - I dunno; I ordered something. Then I ordered another
- and another. At about 4:00 the fantastic Happy Hour Buffet table
was wheeled in, and we were invited to partake in such exotic delicacies
as deep-fried chicken wing "drummets" (I think that's what they call them
- y'know, the chicken wing without the actual wing part), deep-fried Chun
King-esque eggrolls, and numerous other deep-fried delights - very chic
and de rigeur for the Midwest of the Regan era. After fortifying
myself amply with such exotic sustinance I ordered another drink and ...
probably another; things started to get kinda hazy at that point.
Five o'clock rolls around, and the fabulous Pump Room has filled up
a little bit, and, although the bar area was hardly full by any stretch
of the imgination, this didn't stop the maitre'd'ess from coming up to
us and saying something like, "Gentlemen who wish to remain in the (fabulous)
Pump Room after 5 are required to wear a jacket." Now, I'd been at
work all day and, as I worked for a (long-forgotten) investment bank at
the Merc, I did have on a white shirt and (probably) some sort of Zegna
tie, dark dress pants and dress shoes, but, as I was required to wear a
trading jacket while on the floor, I didn't take any kind of Gentleman's
Jacket to work; I only had my leather bomber jacket with me, and I was
informed with severe prejudice by the maitre'd'ess that THIS WOULD NOT
DO in the jacket department as far as the fabulous Pump Room was concerned.
Pat, being a worldly kind of guy who was already wearing a jacket, pointed
out to the maitre'd'ess that places as fabulous as the fabulous Pump Room
usually had jackets available for those who were remiss in the Complete
Gentlemanliness department; this was confirmed by our Guardian of Etiquette,
so she sent a busboy to bring me The Jacket.
You gotta understand that I'm 6'4" tall, and back then, before the
ravages of time took their toll on my body, I was very thin and gangly
- so gangly that I needed shirts with a 15-1/2" neck and 37" sleeves (a/k/a
an "extra-extra tall" model). So Julio returned with The Jacket -
it looked and felt like it was made out of the kind of fabric that the
interiors of Winnebago RV's were made of in the '70's; kind of a burnt-orange
and yellow swirly pattern, psychedelic in a sort-of conformist, Brady Bunch
sort of way and so truly and definitively hideous that I got queasy just
looking at it. Against my better judgment, but in an honest attempt
to meet the fabulous Pump Room's fashion protocol, I put on The Jacket
and reached for my drink. As I did, the sleeves rode up almost to
my elbows. I felt confined, restricted and claustrophobic, but in
the interest of maintaining my rapidly-diminishing social graces, I kept
The goddamn Jacket on. After another drink, I decided I couldn't
deal with it anymore, so I did a Sonny Crockett and rolled, more like pushed,
the offending sleeves up past my elbows.
This outraged the maitre'd'ess to such an extent that she came over
and stated as coldly as was humanly possible,
"Sir, if you cannot wear The Jacket properly,
I am going to have to ASK YOU TO LEAVE THE
(fabulous) PUMP ROOM."
Pat, who was more than a little into his cups by this point (and, being
a classy guy), turned to the Guardian and, looking down his nose with a
withering sneer, said "Lady, if you'da given my nephew a proper jacket
to wear, I'm certain that he'da been more than happy to wear it properly."
This brought a chorus of cheers, jeers, and derisive comments directed
the maitre'd'ess's way from others at the bar, and the maitre'd'ess, having
been duly chastized and completely embarrassed in front of a group of total
strangers by this unexpected reaction (hey, we're a couple'a personable
guys; we're makin' friends here; we're all havin' a really good time),
decided that she had no other choice than to bounce our slug asses from
the fabulous Pump Room.
We weren't about to be escorted out of the fabulous Pump Room uncerimoniously
by some tuxedoed goon, so we made arrangements to leave quietly - but,
as we'd just had our drinks refreshed and they cost, like, five bucks a
pop, we sure as hell weren't going to leave them at the bar. Fredo
the goon blocked our egress from the dump, and the maitre'd'ess came over
to tell us that we could not leave the fabulous Pump Room with our drinks
in hand. So Pat said, "Fuck this - have our drinks sent up
to my suite - it's (he pulled out his key) - Suite 14(something)."
The maitre'd'ess gets a look on her face like, ooooops; realizing that
she has just offended a guest who is staying in some room that costs, like,
$500 a night, she began to stutter, "Well, maybe we can work something
out - I mean, rules are rules, but...there are exceptions..." Pat
wouldn't let her finish: "Yeah; rules are rules, we understand that
and we'll follow your rules. But since you had to go out of your
way to embarrass my nephew in front of all of these nice people by making
him wear That goddamn Jacket, I feel that we have no choice but to leave.
We're playing it your way, whaddayou complaining about? Send up the
fucking drinks." Being a classy guy, Pat put his drink down, went
over and showed the bartender his appreciation for his fine service by
tipping him a good chunk of change, then we left, never to return again
to the fabulous Pump Room.
The rest of that night was marginally interesting as well; after Pat
and Caroline started to get ready to go to the theater I went to Rush Street
for the one and only time in my life and met the woman I almost married
at the Lodge, sort of a goofy rustic frat-boy hangout on Division Street.
I was so hammered that I was dancing with her to Frank Sinatra on the juke;
then, at about 2 in the morning I had to take the CTA train waaaay up to
Howard Street at the northern fringe of the city, where I was living at
the time. Some rasta sat down next to me and fired up a big honkin'
spliff during the ride.
I wouldn't trade big-city life for anything.