I spent so much time in Arlington in the early 90s that I decided to move to Arlington and return to school at UT Arlington. The genesis of my adult life was formed in the back corner table at J.R. Bentley’s pub on Friday nights. Some weeks we were down a man and some weeks we were a full complement with all of our semi-regulars and guests joining us for the fun, but almost every week was our regular crew. And what a squad we were.
Sometimes in the moment you realize you are playing out a part somewhere between The Sad Café and St. Elmo’s Fire. You know that it won’t last, but you hope it never ends. In that sense you are the same as those who came before you and no different than those who followed after. But you don’t truly understand that until you’ve made the turn and are on life’s back 9. Then you begin to reconcile your uniqueness in the fabric of a traditional rite of young adults.
Bentley’s was opened in 1979 at its original location on South Cooper just off the southern edge of campus. It was across the street from Mama’s Pizza and a Taco Bell with a reverse drive-thru so you either had to lean across the car or bring a friend along. There was a Little Caesar’s next door and across the side street there was a large floodlit parking lot of an old shopping center that was always filled with various college bookstores, coffee shops, and odds and sods stores of perpetually changing names.
In the mid-90s, Bentley’s would move due to an expansion of South Cooper taking away its front parking lot to its final location on Abram closer to downtown. There it would remain until its closure in 2023, its long run interrupted for three years by a fire and restoration in the teens. I had not been to Bentley’s in this century. It relocated in the middle of my tenure at UTA, and though the jukebox, menu, and many of the people were the same, the atmosphere was not.
The original location was a small single room with a corner bar by the door that made an angle and could maybe sit a dozen people. The bar seemed to turn and fade into the back wall. I’m sure it had an end, but I can’t recall it. The tiny kitchen radiated heat from the right and as you stepped beyond the narrow entryway, the jukebox was to the left by a coat rack. The front of the bar angled towards the front door like a ship’s prow and Brad was always at the helm on Friday nights.
It needed a steady hand. Bentley’s had a reputation for conversation–very loud conversation. Among the loud, we could be the loudest exchanging laughs over movie quotes and stories. Each of us was already an accomplished raconteur, even back then, and every Friday was a round robin of making an entertaining story out of our experiences from the past week. When we would get out of hand, Brad’s raised voice took on a nasal twang that cut through the noise, the music from the jukebox, and I swear even the cigarette smoke. “Pipe down, you booger-eatin’ morons!” he would holler in a serious, but fatherly tone. He always had a twinkle in his eye and the corner of a wry grin to one side of his mouth.
Brad was always ready with a quip or the perfectly toned insult to keep you in check. I once asked Brad if he thought I could tend bar. “Nope,” he said. I asked him why. He said bluntly looking over his glasses, “Bish, there are too many conversations that go on around a bar that you couldn’t stay out of.” Of course he was right. The bartender is always right. To his credit, he gave us a lot of free rein as we held court in the back corner.
Our regular group included Arlingtonites Doc and the Captain joined by three of us from Garland, Wolf, Slade, and yours truly. Those of us from Garland would often make the trek separately owing to our work schedules. After three solid hours of noise, we would close the pub at 2 and “retire” to the shopping center parking lot where we would throw a football around for an hour under the floodlights. Police would often stop and throw a few with us. They were checking in on us and knew that we were drying out a bit before getting behind the wheel. All of that was true, but we never wanted to let the conversation of the evening end.
Evenings end just as eras end. Brad died on New Years Even of 1995 due to injuries suffered in a car wreck the prior week on Christmas Eve. We visited him in ICU and he was broken but unbowed and insisting on getting back on his feet and soon. But there was a blood clot complication and Brad didn’t survive. It could never be the same without him. What helped me grieve was the move to the new location just prior to his death. I don’t like ghosts and not having to go back to a haunting at old place in the wake of his absence was comforting.
The group had begun to move on then. The Navy came calling for three of us. Doc became Fleet Marine Force Hospital Corpsman, retiring to return to UTA for a Nursing degree and career as a nursing supervisor. Wolf became a member of VA-165, the Boomers as an electronics tech and left the Navy to take on a career in IT. The Captain finished his physics degree and joined the Navy going from OCS to nuke school to sailing around the world multiple times with several commands. He will soon retire with more than 20 years of naval service. Slade has been the parts manager for major North Texas car dealerships for years. For me it was information security and the dad life.
Those were such good times. Remember our times together and who we were then. See how the stones we carried then were laid in the path to where we are now. Sometimes I dream that I am back in that place. The pub is empty and one by one the rest of the crew enters. Soon the crowd appears and the noise level rises with the fast building smoke. Glasses and bottles clink and Brad appears behind the bar and just for the moment of a daydream.
Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears. . .Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidencesLong ago, it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you
Simon & Garfunkel–“Old Friends + Bookends Theme”
