There were usually three or four ex-actors and actresses in the bar, maybe a dozen other seniors in golfing duds, a cop or two, and a few lawyers, since it wasn't far from the Palm Springs courthouse. The drinks were man-sized and not expensive.
Lawyer and cop jokes were preferred by the ex-actors in The Furnace Room.
Question: "If you were a chef at a banquet for Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, and any lawyer of your choice, and you only had two cyanide capsules, who would you poison first and second?"
Expected answer to both questions: "The lawyer."
Furnace Room answer: "Nobody. I'd slip the poison in the lawyer's pocket, tell the Arabs it was meant for them, and watch while they boiled him in oil and cut off his freaking head."
There was lots of hate in The Furnace Room.
Question: "How many cops does it take to push a handcuffed prisoner down a flight of stairs?"
Answer: "None. The asshole tripped and fell"
And so forth.
To further amuse the old actors at the expense of cops like Lynn Cutter, the proprietor, a seventy-six-year-old ex-character actor named Wilfred Plimsoll-who claimed he'd doubled for Ronald Reagan in Hellcats of the Navy-posted macabre quips on the bar mirror. His latest referred to a newspaper story out of Los Angeles, revealing that in three recent police shootings, cops had claimed that suspects pulled "a shiny object from a pocket," causing the cop to react with deadly force, later to discover that the "shiny object" was only a plastic comb.
One bar sign said: "Use a comb, go to heaven."
Another said: "Combs: O. Cops: 3."
Lynn Cutter didn't so much as glance at bar signs or other customers when he entered. He headed straight for Wilfred Plimsoll and said, "Scotch. Double."
The former actor usually wore a silk ascot and an Out-of-Africa shirt even on sweltering desert days. He poured the booze and watched the cop toss it down, then poured a second, saying, "Better? Need another?"
"Like a goat needs a sidesaddle," Lynn Cutter answered, but drank it anyway.
When Wilfred Plimsoll started to put the bottle away, Lynn said, "One more. Make it Chivas this time. Your well drinks taste like stuff they rub horses with."
Wilfred didn't mind the bitching about his goods or service. He was not a thin-skinned man, not after knocking around movie studios for thirty-nine years.
"Bad night, Lynn?" he asked, speaking toward the clock high on the wall. Wilfred Plimsoll always spoke to the wall clock, which displayed bar time, ten minutes fast. He did it to show off his right profile, which photographed best.
Moreover, he always aimed his cigarette holder-held fast in clenched dentures-at that wall clock. This, after he was told at an audition that he, Wilfred Plimsoll, resembled Franklin Delano Roosevelt more than Ralph Bellamy had in Sunrise at Campobello. And despite the fact that Wilfred wore a black Burt Reynolds toupee, and had done so long before Burt bought his first rug. Without it he looked more like Benjamin Franklin than Franklin Roosevelt; he was, in fact, a soulmate to the randy inventor in that no woman younger than electricity was safe from his advances. That explained why the more coquettish babes from the Senior Center had their afternoon cocktails at The Furnace Room.
"Yeah, a bad night," Lynn finally responded. "It's amazing what I'll do to take a chance with AIDS. Did I leave here with somebody last night?"
"You're having more blackouts than London in the Blitz," Wilfred said to the wall clock. "Don't you remember?"
"Somebody with tits?"
"Tits? Yeah, I think she had tits."
"Thank God," Lynn said. "I have this vague image in my mind of a blonde mustache."
"She had a mustache too," Wilfred said. "Do they serve testosterone takeout at the health stores these days? She was uglier than all three witches in Macbeth. I'd rather have red ants in my truss. Hope you wore protection."
"Oh, sure," Lynn lied, unable to remember a single thing after the cognac ran out. "I wear camouflaged stitch-on condoms. Don't know they're there and can't take em off. I got more protection than Pinkerton's."
"It's a real mistake, to unmuzzle your snake," Wilfred advised, poetically.
"Yeah yeah, gotta shroud my monkey," Lynn agreed. God, his head hurt!
"She had nice hair though," Wilfred Plimsoll said to the clock. "Like Rita Hayworth in Gilda. Did I ever tell you I almost got a speaking role in Gilda?"
"Yes," Lynn Cutter said to his booze. "You been telling that one since a peanut grower was president."
"Ah, Rita!" Wilfred Plimsoll mused, and it was too late now. He was losing himself in that golden gossamer mist peculiar to actors, especially failed actors. "Rita was some dish. I heard she could suck-start a leaf blower and the Mexican that ran it!"