Carl from the Wreck Room is either feeling the holiday cheer or that last shot of Ice 101.
Cowtown Christmas traditions come in many shapes and flavors. Some are packages wrapped in red and gold -- the time we spend in the company of our friends and loved ones. Others have the odor of obligation -- face it, your office gift exchange. Some wear a 10-gallon hat and spurs, like the big tree in front of the Exchange Building in the Stockyards.
And some are decorated with tattoos and multiple body piercings. Bartenders bearing gifts.
In the Wreck Room, that rough-and-tumble rock 'n' roll dive on West 7th Street, the only concession to Christmas cheer last week was the inflatable Santa Claus swaying precariously above the marquee. Nonetheless, a few of the staff and regulars were talking about their plans for Christmas day.
"You should come with us, man, and do the Fred's thing," said J.C. the Painter, taking a puff on a cigar and sipping his first Sol of the day.
Panama, the Wreck's wiry little happy-hour bartender, spoke up: "It's like the Pony Express."
"Fred's" is the café on Currie Street that looks like some bizarre countercultural Last Picture Show throwback, but serves more gourmet food per square foot of floor space than anywhere else in town. "Fred's thing" involves working on Christmas morning. And not pouring drinks, although this crew is not above hoisting an early-morning brew or six, or a shot of the JŠgermeister that's like their club handshake.
"I've been doing this for eight, nine, 10 years," Carl, the towering bartender, said, in between rinsing beer glasses. "After awhile, they all run together. We were all Fredheads before there even was a Wreck Room." Carl was a shit-hot high school basketballer before cancer took his right leg. After that, he fronted a punk band before coming to work at the Wreck. When the bar is slammed, he'll sometimes put down his crutches and move faster than any one-legged man should be able to, all the while yelling obscenities and wearing a t-shirt bearing the legend "My pussy hurts." On him, it works.
It's been a tradition at Fred's for a quarter-century now. J.D., the café owner, and his wife Gerri labor long into the night on Christmas Eve in their catering kitchen, cooking dozens of turkey dinners with all the trimmings.
"J.D.'s son Terry missed doing it one year," said Panama. "We were all cussing him, wondering where in the hell he was." He paused to take a shot Carl had just poured him, raising his glass to those present, then tapping it on the bar "for absent friends" before draining it in one gulp. "Of course," he added, "that was the year Terry's daughter was born on Christmas day."
At 6 a.m. on Christmas morning, the Wreck Room boys and a handful of other folks from the neighborhood start filtering into Fred's. While most of the city is still asleep, visions of Visa bills dancing in our heads, they set up a serving line that'll run all morning, usually five or six hours, until Fred's flying squad of volunteers has delivered the last meal. Every bit of the repast is fresh and lovingly prepared, in contrast with the life-sustaining but nonetheless institutional offerings at the shelters.
A quick planning session is held to determine who's riding with whom, and how many meals each car will hold. Then the volunteers are off to visit some of the city's rougher districts, taking the meals packed in Styrofoam containers to addresses they get from relief agencies or just distributing them to random people they see on the street.
Some of the crew dress up in Santa or elf regalia -- quite an effect, combined with the tattoos, multiple body piercings, and other alt-fashion statements. A few deck their cars in bows and buds of mistletoe.
"It's not just a food giveaway, either," said Brian, who tends bar at the Torch, next door to the Wreck, and holds the dubious distinction of having cleared his own bar in a fit of drunken bellicosity on his birthday, just after the staff of Fort Worth Weekly voted him bartender of the year. "We'll take out bikes and toys, clothes, blankets, skates, sweaters, tennis shoes. Sometimes you'll see a car loaded up with c.d. players, headsets -- stuff that somebody got for a present and didn't want. Batteries. On Christmas everybody wants batteries."
Panama said the crew generally covers the area between I-35 and Arlington, avoiding the highways.
Once, he said, "We were rolling down East Rosedale when we ran into a group of, uh, young ladies" out plying their trade in the cold of Christmas morning. "As soon as they saw the car, they started primping and getting ready to give us their pitch. Before they could say anything, I rolled down the window and asked 'em, 'You had anything to eat today?' They looked surprised, then one of 'em said, 'Well, my kid hasn't had anything.' So we hooked 'em all up with food and stuff. Then their pimp comes running out and wants to know, 'What about the rest of my crew? I need 13 more of these!' As we were driving away, I heard one of the women yelling 'I need a belt.' I couldn't figure out whether she meant clothing or a drink."
No good deed goes unpunished, of course. Especially on Christmas, when homeless folks are more likely than perhaps any other day of the year to have found good grub.
"I've given guys meals and then watched them pitch the food in the dumpster -- except for the plastic utensils and napkins," Brian said. "Those are harder to come by, I guess. Another time, we handed out a bunch of meals and came back to find the guys we'd given them to trying to sell them for a dollar apiece."
J.C. the Painter flicked a cigar ash and picked up the story. He's a self-taught artist, a dapper man who dresses in classic style and usually sports a trademark fedora. If you've hung around West 7th Street at all, you've seen his work.
"I remember one year I was riding with Carl, and everything that could go wrong, did," he said. "We had directions, but we got them all fucked up. We were lost, just driving through the projects. The roads were terrible; there were all these potholes. We came to a stop sign at the bottom of a hill and Carl didn't want to stop because he was afraid his car would stall. So after looking, he rolled right through it without stopping. Wham! The car bottomed out on the road. I told Carl, 'What about the food in the trunk?' We stopped and looked -- there was gravy all over everything. Just as we were getting everything cleaned up, a cop pulls up and gives Carl a ticket for running the stop sign.
"We saw a guy standing on a street corner, so we stopped and offered him a meal. He got all pissed off. He said, 'Fuck you and your free food.' Carl was starting to get pissed off, too. He said, "Fuck these people. Let 'em get their own food.'
"We finally found the address we were looking for. It was an apartment building where a bunch of older people lived. I went upstairs and started knocking on doors. The people wouldn't let me in. They said, 'Nobody here knows you. Go away.' Finally, one lady came out and explained that her neighbors were afraid of strangers. I wound up leaving all the meals with her. She said she'd distribute 'em.
"When I came back downstairs, Carl was standing by the car, with a funny look on his face. I asked him what happened. He told me he saw this little kid, maybe six years old, hanging out in the parking lot. Carl asked him, 'How's your Christmas going so far?' The kid said, 'Not so good. I woke up this morning and nothing happened. Santa Claus didn't bring me anything.'
"Carl had some presents in the trunk that he'd bought for a friend's kid, some Play-doh and stuff. We were going over there after we were done doing the Fred's thing. So he goes in the trunk and gets 'em out, and gives 'em to the kid. He knew our friend's kid was going to be well taken care of. 'Here, kid,' he says. 'Merry Christmas.'"
Talk to these guys a while and you realize that the folks who are talking about empowerment zones and "creating an urban village" on West 7th have got it at least partly wrong. There's already an urban village in place -- a community of people living through good times and bad, taking care of business, looking out for each other.
"It makes all of us who've fucked around and played all year feel good," said Brian. "It's nice to do something for somebody else once a year among friends, with people you love."
"But wait," said Carl, emptying the painter's ashtray and wiping the bar with a rag. "Don't you want to hear the end of J.C.'s story?"
Sure.
"The kid's father came outside," said Carl, "and started giving me hell for giving presents to his kid. Haw Haw Haw."
