Herman's Head
Herman's Place
2 S. New York Ave. (Atlantic Ave.)
Atlantic City, NJ, 609-344-1800
Last year, according to the Press of Atlantic City, an AC bar called Herman's Place was visited by the police 575 times. There were 47 drug arrests, and one gun arrest. Junkies and crack addicts frequented, whitewashing the weeks with weak draft beer. My eyebrows arched their approval.
I was headed to AC for a bachelor's blowout. As the resident bar columnist, I was tasked to find a joint where Kevlar jackets and stomach-corroding drinks went hand in hand. Our bachelor deserved a squalid bar, even at the risk of losing his hemoglobin.
Herman's Place was the target of a recent police sting dubbed "Operation New York, New York." It resulted in 15 drug arrests and four alcohol violations. The city's Alcohol and Beverage Control Board ordered the bar shut for 45 days, starting May 1. We were to hit AC April 30, hours before Herman's clock ran out.
Around 7:30 p.m., our Iraqi oil?depleting white stretch SUV pulls up. Thirteen young men greet the night air. We are immediately warned:
"Oh, you don't want to go in there; it's not your kind of bar," says a man standing beside Herman's, eyes careening around like pool balls on the break.
Pooh-poohing his proclamation, we enter; if anyone still spun records, a needle would've skipped. About 15 regulars-none of whom, may I add, are young, pasty or so obviously suburban-bred-stop drinking. We don't belong, that much is evident. Less apparent is how quickly, like besotted chameleons, we assimilate.
"I need to see your IDs, babies," says a bartender wearing a leopard-print top. She points to the sign warning, in red, "No ID-No Entry." This is Herman's passive-aggressive effort to curtail junkies and underage drinkers. The logic: entry is not worth waiting at the DMV or buying a fake.
"Are you babies students?" Ms. Leopard asks, scrutinizing our post-Nixon birthdates.
No, we explain, we're here for a bachelor's party.
"Well, welcome to Herman's Place-while it's still here."
We order drinks. Just one tap (Coors Light) simplifies the marketplace: eight-dollar pitchers around. Jim Beam is $4.50. Out-of-NYC prices leave ample quarters for Galaga and the video bowling game. Several friends begin rolling virtual strikes while I wonder, Where's the stabbin'?
In my mind's eye, Herman's crawled with kitten-sized cockroaches, while needles crunched underfoot and the air conditioner spritzed diphtheria. The truth is gentler: the color tv is cataract fuzzy, the ceiling is stained smoke yellow and the brick is covered with a dark, unhygienic grime, yet Herman's feels more like an arthritic grandpa with a dirty secret than a den of sin. There's shabby character to burn, with patrons to match.
"Holy shit," says my friend Steve, who approximates an unkempt Jack Nicholson. He fortifies his Nicholson with equally insatiable appetites for liquor and sex, tied to a surly tongue. Yet now his cheeks are crimson.
His story: While waiting to pee, a woman with Little Orphan Annie hair the color of knockoff Chinatown gold walked toward him.
"Where you from," she asked, toying with 8K hair.
"Manhattan," Steve replied.
"I come from my mama's pussy!" she said, busting a gut.
Steve stammered that he, too, was from his mama's pussy.
"You mean she didn't have no C-section?"
Yeah, Steve admitted, he was a C-section baby. Miss 8K appraised him for a minute.
"I think you need to go back up in that pussy!" she said, stirring her pelvis as if she was mixing cake batter. "I'll be yo'r mama!"
I want to give Miss 8K's social graces a sloppy kiss. This is why we're drinking in AC's underbelly, an antidote to the "What do you do?" blather that is like social Novocain. With a spring in its step, the night moves forward. We drink in equal parts old soul music and Coors Light. Soon we are bowling with Big L, a bartender who rolls fewer strikes (three) than her number of children (seven). We enjoy ourselves immensely, yet like Herman's itself, our night is on a tight deadline. There is money to gamble, forearm-sized steak subs to eat and unmentionables that must never be spoken. We bid farewell to Miss Leopard.
"Baby, come back in a couple months, and the bar's going to be even better."
Somehow, and I mean this well, I doubt that's possible.