Saturday, March 30, 2013

Farewell to the Black Lion


The Black Lion pub in Meguro has been my "local", my favorite urban refuge from madness in madness, for most of the time since it opened in 1996.  It closed its doors for the last time a week ago, and I'm going to miss it, a lot.

I heard the bad news too late to attend the official  farewell party on the 16th, but I went instead to the last evening, the night of the 23rd, starting outside with canned beer brought by the early arrivals at 16:30, then moving inside at 17:30 when they opened the doors, finally staggering off into the morning sunlight at 06:30 or so.

The place filled up as the sky darkened; as many of the old and new regulars as could make it packed the place, and made a brave effort to drink up whatever stock was left. All of the draft beer was gone before midnight, most of the bottled beer disappeared soon after, and those of us who could not--or would not--rush for the last train and instead elected to stay until the bitter end...well, we managed to do away with most of the spirits. After the last of the scotch and Irish (and JD, too) was gone, as it became fully light outside, I finished up with several pints of "Parachutes", tequila and grapefruit juice, which had been the signature drink of D.B. Cooper's, an Aoyama tequila bar, another much-mourned now-defunct hangout from the late '90s. It seemed fitting, somehow. Besides, there wasn't much else left to drink.

I drank the last one standing at the end of the back bar, where I used to park the bike, among the sawhorses and lumber, back when the Black Lion was still under construction. At the time, since they didn't have their liquor license yet (or a bar or tables, for that matter), we pulled beers from a cooler and left money in a bucket labeled "construction fund donations". Having the last drink where I'd had the first provided a nice symmetry, it seemed to me.

It also seemed fitting, in a call-back to days of yore, that I had to go directly from there to go teach a class (I drank lots of coffee on the two-hour train ride). I was pleased to see that I can still manage that with acceptable aplomb and decorum. I don't think that I could still do it several times a week as used to be the case, back in The Bubble Days and their aftermath, back when the Black Lion was brand-new, back when I was somewhat younger, and only a little more  foolish. Well, I still could, I guess, but not as well or easily, and not always with appropriate decorum. Nor with impunity. It's my birthday today, and not my twentieth nor even my twenty-fifth nor fortieth, more's the pity. But the Black Lion, even after a great run, didn't make it to eighteen.

So what was the last night at the Black Lion like?

The evening was a kind of microcosmic recapitulation of the entire history of the bar, a fast-forward déjà vu multi-memory-mimicking  montage compressed into a little more than a dozen hours: long-suffering stalwart barman Scott presiding over a steadily rising tide of revelry and weirdness...lots of booze flowing...the usual scattering of hopeful predators and more-or-less coy prey, doing the hunter/hunted dance with varying degrees of discretion and of success and some on-the-fly role reversal...lots of laughter...lots of crying...lots of booze flowing...lots of "have you met my best friend in the whole world?"...an utterly senseless fight or two to break up...lots of music including a couple of apparently impromptu live singer/guitarist performances...lots of booze flowing...tales retold of escapades and adventures reflected in the bar mirrors and fueled by the bar stock...hugs and backslaps and handshakes and bites...shouts and whispers...lots of booze flowing...lots of declarations of undying friendship/respect/love...lots of booze flowing...and failed plumbing, mercifully near the end of the evening...er...morning.

And the hard bright low-angle unforgiving dawnlight at the end.

An appropriately epic final farewell friendly frenzy. I'm glad I didn't miss it.

But I'll miss the Black Lion.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was my local 2002-2005. I was in tokyo 12 years now living in san diego. Back in tokyo for a sjort spell. Wanted to hit The Lion for a brew but saw your post. Too bad. I k ow i wrote this 3 yrs,ago but thx for the memories. Ken H

Chris said...

Balefire, Did you ever find a replacement for the black lion. Do you know if the owner opened a new bar? I have great memories of the place and never found something that matched it.

Balefire said...

Chris, not yet, no. I occasionally visit What The Dickens in Ebisu, and it's a great place with very friendly staff, but it's a different sort of place than the Black Lion was.

To the best of my knowledge, the owner hasn't opened a new bar, and I haven't been able to visit with everyone's favorite barman, Scott, for quite a while. I should make one of my very rare forays onto Facebook and see if I can find out what he's up to.