Somewhere out there, a guy is walking around with a tattoo of a penguin on his left foot.
To be specific, it’s not just a penguin, it’s The Penguin. The one from the drive-in. The one from the spinning sign at the corner of Commonwealth and Thomas. The Bird. Actually, “Da Bird.” It’s written right there, in ink, right next to the toes.
I find the foot and the guy it belongs to on Facebook. His name is Lee Causey, and he looks scruffy. “You got a tattoo of The Penguin?” I say in a message. “I’m fascinated by this.”
Within a half hour Lee writes back, saying yes, that‘s his foot and he loves the tattoo, and the guys from The Penguin saved his life when he had nowhere else to go, and that they might not know it and hey, wait, let me type up the whole story and send it to you right now.
He does. Immediately. He fires off two pages of sadness and angst and depression as if he’d been waiting for years for someone to come along and ask him to write about this logo that takes up the entirety of his left foot.
Lee went to the Penguin with his dad when he was a kid (“when it was a real shithole”) and went on a first date there when he got out of the Air Force. Then his life turned into a blur of break-ups and broken hearts and evictions by roommates and drinking and more drinking and thoughts of suicide and staring at pistols and the whole time, he hung out at The Penguin, hovering over tallboys of Bud and telling his story. And people listened. And Lee kept going back.
And one night, Lee was at The Penguin and got too drunk and said he shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel but he didn’t give a fuck anymore anyway, and a cop pulled him over on The Plaza because his tags were expired. He blew a .09 into the breathalyzer, just barely over the legal limit, but the cop said he’d let him go if he got a ride. He called his parents first. He called The Penguin second.
After that, Lee sat back and thought about all of it and realized that the only people who were there for him when he was having such a shitty time were the people who had been listening to him at the Penguin. So he walked into Ace one night in January 2010 and got the tattoo.
Lee went to the Penguin with his dad when he was a kid (“when it was a real shithole”) and went on a first date there when he got out of the Air Force. Then his life turned into a blur of break-ups and broken hearts and evictions by roommates and drinking and more drinking and thoughts of suicide and staring at pistols and the whole time, he hung out at The Penguin, hovering over tallboys of Bud and telling his story. And people listened. And Lee kept going back.
And one night, Lee was at The Penguin and got too drunk and said he shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel but he didn’t give a fuck anymore anyway, and a cop pulled him over on The Plaza because his tags were expired. He blew a .09 into the breathalyzer, just barely over the legal limit, but the cop said he’d let him go if he got a ride. He called his parents first. He called The Penguin second.
After that, Lee sat back and thought about all of it and realized that the only people who were there for him when he was having such a shitty time were the people who had been listening to him at the Penguin. So he walked into Ace one night in January 2010 and got the tattoo.
Lee left for grad school in Indiana last August, just before the story of The Penguin erupted. The news stung. The people there were more than just servers and bartenders. They were his friends.
He's still going through some shit. He just lost his woman. For good this time, he thinks. So what now? When things get rough, what do you cling to? What makes you feel better? Who do you want to talk to?
Lee doesn't need to answer all that. Just look at his foot.
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You can read more about The Penguin in this month's Charlotte Magazine.
1 comment:
What a great story! This story lets me know there is at least one other native Charlottean around here besides me. Haven't been back to the Penguin since it "changed." But one thing I do miss since it changed is the $5 Yuengling pitchers. Now they charge what everybody else charges for drinks. And that's SAD. Poor Lee can't get drunk on the cheap any more. Me neither!
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