kiss kitty

Bored bartender plays Kiss Kitty
Ed Martley

Rapid City Journal
May 19, 2006

The pay at my newspaper job was typically abysmal, so I was forced to find part-time work. The only thing open was as a bartender at the toughest saloon in that small Wyoming town. You know, where the bartender keeps a baseball bat under the bar and has orders to use it. (Had I even touched that bat, someone would have crammed it down my throat.)

There were so many fights that bar management feared the place would get an even worse reputation, as if that were possible. The drinking part of the bar was small, but its adjoining room was a dance hall. So after Buck reduced Big Chester to rubble for the favors of Fat Sally, no more fights were allowed in the bar section. Take 'em in the dance hall and close the door. We'll check for bodies at closing time.

Kiss Kitty

There were, of course, some memorable characters who would show up at the saloon, among them a beautiful 22-year-old named Kitty. When Kitty brushed her rich dark hair and wore her yellow dress, it was hard to breathe when you looked at her. My roommate, Roy, also worked part-time at the saloon, and we became friends with Kitty
Kitty loathed truck drivers, probably because of some incident in her past. Therefore, she dated all the truck drivers she could in hopes of doing something awful to them.

I guess that's why the 'Kiss Kitty' game got started. When Roy and I were behind the bar, Kitty would bring in a truck driver, sit at a table in the middle of the room and order up some beers. After a while, there would be a 'power failure' that plunged the basement bar into darkness, and either Roy or I would sneak over and kiss Kitty. While one of us was doing the kissing, the other controlled the light switch and would flick it on after a few seconds.

It wasn't long before the truck driver began to smell a rat, but since it was dark when we were poaching on 'his girl,' he couldn't figure it out. Until the light went on too quickly. I forget who was kissing Kitty at the time, but her escort flew into a rage.

He hadn't noticed that at the adjoining table were the five members of the Case Club (a hefty group who gathered every Saturday afternoon so each of them could drink a case of beer). The club members arose as one, dragged the truck driver into the dance hall and administered a friendly drubbing. Then, they threw him out in the street. We had some great laughs, especially Kitty.

Lovers

One day, Joe showed up at the saloon with a nickel in his pocket and a guitar on his back, wondering if we needed a singer. Sure, management said, if he was willing to work for tips. We built a tiny plywood platform on the bar, just big enough for Joe to teeter on a rickety chair.

It turned out that Joe was a darn good entertainer, able to pick and sing both old and new stuff. 'Auctioneer' by Leroy Van Dyke was popular at the time, and Joe sang it well. The song's rapid-fire auction patter was easy for him.

He was a happy-go-lucky guy, and it appeared he had only one problem - his girlfriend, Kim. Kim was a bad influence on Joe. When she was in town, the pair would sit in a dark corner of the saloon, sinking into their cups and arguing horribly. Then, they would go home.

One night, Joe came into work glum and kind of funny-looking. We couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong until someone asked him to sing 'Auctioneer.' Then it struck us: Joe did not have any teeth. You can't imagine how his lips flapped and sprayed when he launched into the patter. It was wonderful, although you had to stand well back.

Joe would never tell what happened to the teeth.

Conscientious bartender

One Saturday afternoon, not another soul in the place, I was polishing glasses when a well-dressed couple in their 40s came in. I had never seen a well-dressed person in the saloon, so I was very impressed. They were nice people, too, and chatted with me for a while before asking where the slot machines were; they wanted to burn a few nickels. I showed them where we kept the slots hidden, and they started pulling handles.

I returned to the bar, but as the couple were my only customers, and I wanted to treat them right because they were well-dressed, I would pop back frequently to see if they needed anything, or just to exchange pleasantries. They stayed about 20 minutes.

The next Monday when I was making my regular reporter rounds, I stopped in at the sheriff?'s office.
'Lord, yes,' says Oscar the undersheriff. 'There was a couple got caught drilling slot machines. The guy told me they had cleaned out every one in town, except at the saloon. He said, 'That dumb kid behind the bar was such a pest we didn't have time to drill the machines.'

Contact Ed at emartley@aol.com.

Reprinted from the Rapid City Journal with Ed Martley's written permission.