The Bartender in CLOCK STRIKES THREE, a John Bradford Branney Novel

Figure One - Lloyd, the creepy bartender from the movie The Shining.
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) confided in Lloyd. Big mistake.  

How many of you have ever befriended a bartender? Okay, how many of you have confided in a bartender, told them some of your more personal information? Have you asked your bartending "consigliere" their advice on important decisions in your life? Okay, hands up…let me do a  count….hold up your hands high if you have befriended a bartender and confided in them…

Yep, you over there! There's one. How about you? Did you befriend a bartender or are you scratching your nose? Yep, okay. You...and you in the front row and you in the back row, that’s right, you! Yep, there are quite a few people in the audience who have confided in a bartender. It may have something to do with the tongue-lubricating liquor served in these establishments.      



When it comes to discussing important issues in our lives, most of us would rather consult family, friends, or maybe a close coworker. However, as you can see from the show of hands, some people confide in their bartenders. These same people may not have friends or family to confide, or perhaps, they are too embarrassed to confide with friends or family, or perhaps, they have just become friends with the bartender. There is absolutely nothing wrong with bouncing ideas off your local bartender.     

During my own lifetime, I have frequented many bars and drank at the bar while watching a sports event or conversing with friends, but I have never befriended or confided in a bartender. I am a very private person, that might have something to do with it. My father was the exact opposite. He owned vending machines, such as pinball machines, bowling machines, candy machines and cigarette machines. He put many of them in bars and businesses around several towns. He would get to know the bartenders since in many cases they were his customers. There were a few of these bartenders I remember my father actually quoting and talking about. I am sure he reciprocated and spoke to them about what was going on in his life.   

Figure Two - Sam Malone from the TV comedy,
Cheers. Everyone trusted Sam.
 

In my most recent book entitled CLOCK STRIKES THREE, my main character, a young man named Joey Gellar, befriended a bartender, an ex-police detective named Hank. Joey had a pretty tough upbringing and so far, life had dished out some pretty rough times for Joey Gellar. In the passage below, taken from my book CLOCK STRIKES THREE, Joey just entered his friend’s bar and is instantly interrogated by Hank, the bartender and owner of the bar. Joey has to explain to his much older bartender friend why he was seeing a psychiatrist. I will catch you on the other side of the dialogue.

            “How are you, Joey?” Hank welcomed his friend and patron. “You are a little early to begin drinking today. Did your boss let you off early?”

“I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and decided not to go back to work,” Joey explained.

“Doctor’s appointment?” Hank queried. “Hope everything is all right, amigo.”

“Yeah, the judge ordered me to go to a doctor as part of my sentence.”

Hank looked confused. “The judge sent you to a doctor?” he asked. “Are you talking about the legal issue you had with those bikers?”

“Yep,” Joey declared and then added, “Double shot of Early Times.”

Hank turned around and retrieved the bottle of bourbon from the counter. He turned around with the bottle and fetched a fresh glass. “Rocks or neat?” he asked Joey.

“Neat.”

Hank poured and handed the glass to Joey. “The judge has you going to a doctor?” Hank repeated his question, his curiosity mounting.

“Yep.”      

“What is the doctor supposed to do?” Hank asked with tongue in cheek. “Remove your head from your ass?” 

“Ha, ha, Hank, aren’t you funny?”

“Seriously,” Hank said with a grin. “Why would the judge send you to a doctor? It makes no sense. Did you get a hernia lifting those Ferrari wheels?”

Embarrassed by the questioning, Joey downed the double shot of bourbon instead of answering. Hank stood behind the bar, his arms braced against the counter, waiting for Joey to reveal the mystery. “Those bikers hurt you or something?” he probed. 

 Finally, Joey felt enough pressure to get Hank off his back. “All right,” he mumbled, barely above a whisper. “The judge thought it would be a good idea if I went to a psychiatrist. Now, are you satisfied that I answered your question?”

“HA! HA! HA! HA!” Hank burst into laughter loud enough to raise the heads of the two drunks in the corner, temporarily, at least.  

“C’mon, Hank, quit laughing!” Joey implored. “It ain’t funny!”  

“HA! HA! HA! Bullshit, it ain’t funny!” Hank roared. Finally, Hank calmed down long enough to ask Joey for confirmation, “Let me get this straight, young one, the judge ordered psychiatric treatment for you? What does he think the bikers screwed your noggin up or something?”

The questioning embarrassed Joey. He wanted to scream. Joey did not need any more questions or critiques from the peanut gallery. He felt insecure enough without Hank’s help. Finally, Joey answered the question in a very measured tone of voice. “The judge thought my bad childhood messed me up or something like that,” Joey recalled. “He told me I was a magnet for bad people and trouble. He thought that a psychiatrist could help me deal with my bad childhood and help me figure out why I attract so much trouble.”

“I am sorry, kid,” Hank apologized, suddenly very solemn.

In CLOCK STRIKES THREE, the relationship between Joey and his psychiatrist is something that Joey and Bartender Hank have to revisit often. Hank always looks out for Joey and Hank does not like what is going on with the psychiatrist's treatment. Hank does not mince words when expressing his concerns to Joey. How does this triangular relationship between patient, doctor and bartender work out? You won't believe it if I told you. You are just going to have to read CLOCK STRIKES THREE to find out for yourself.

In the meantime, you can order CLOCK STRIKES THREE on the link below. Please enjoy. Above are some bartenders you just might remember.

CLICK for CloCK sTrikeS THree

  

The Novel CLOCK STRIKES THREE - Bunker, Crane, or Lecter?

Figure One. Armchair psychiatrist Archie Bunker. If you don't
know who Archie Bunker was, you are too young. ;).  

It is difficult for some of us to admit we need mental or physical help from a doctor,

any doctor, any reason, especially a psychiatrist. I know more than a

few people over the years who may have wanted to suggest to me that I needed some psychiatric help and they were probably right.   

In my recent book CLOCK STRIKES THREE, I wanted to show how difficult it is to breach the subject of getting help from a psychiatrist when the patient does not believe he or she needs help. In CLOCK STRIKES THREE, my main character is a young man named Joey Gellar. Joey is caught by the police committing a crime with some really bad dudes. We can argue all day long whether or not Joey was coerced by these bad dudes into participating in this crime caper or whether he went along using his own free will. You will have to read CLOCK STRIKES THREE to derive your own opinion on that. However, that does not matter since Joey's court-appointed attorney somehow convinced the court that Joey was basically a good egg, led down the crime trail by some bad eggs and he was caught, but it was not his fault, it was his upbringing that allowed him to be easily coerced and manipulated. That was not an easy sell for that attorney, but the judge bought it hook, line, and sinker.  

Figure Two. Frasier Winslow Crane, fictional character on the
American television sitcoms Cheers and Frasier.

  

Yes, it is true. Joey’s court-appointed attorney convinced a real ball breaker of a judge to find some compassion for this poor kid named Joey Gellar. Yes, I heard violin music playing in the background when I wrote that part of the book. The court-appointed attorney told the court about Joey's bad upbringing, how Joey grew up in a broken home, how his father had abandoned Joey and his siblings, and how Joey and his siblings were raised by a prostitute / drug addict mother. Do you feel the tears coming on?

The judge found mercy for Joey which sets this thrilling adventure off into overdrive. The judge sentences Joey to probation. The judge also makes Joey seek psychiatric counseling from a court appointed psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Holbrook Devon. Now, I am not going to tell you what Dr. Holbrook Devon is like. You are going to have to discover this on your own. His practice might resemble one of the three psychiatrists on this page or it might be a weighting of all three psychiatrists or it might be none of the above. You be the judge. 

Figure Three. Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a psychiatrist in a
series of suspense novels written by Thomas Harris. 

   

What the judge did for Joey was truly compassionate and fantastic. Joey really had a bad upbringing and he could really use some psychiatric help to deal with his life. However, was Dr. Holbrook Devon the right individual to help Joey? You will have to read CLOCK STRIKES THREE to see how that relationship works out.

Were Joey Gellar and Dr. Holbrook Devon a match made in heaven or were they a lighted match in a pool of gasoline? I can guarantee you that their relationship will surprise you in more ways than one. 

Guess which one of these three psychiatrists Dr. Holbrook Devon resembles the most. Then, read CLOCK STRIKES THREE to find out the answer.         

Figure Four. CLICK for CLOCK STRIKES THREE

Inspiration - CLOCK STRIKES THREE by John Bradford Branney

CLICK for ADVENTURE

I am unsure how it works for other authors, but all of my books were based on an event in my life that triggered a memory or seed of a thought. Ultimately, I take that memory and build a fictional story around it. My newest novel entitled CLOCK STRIKES THREE is another example of that.

CLOCK STRIKES THREE is about the twisted relationship between a psychiatrist and a patient, in this case, a young man leading a rudderless life. Most of us have grown up in an environment where our parents trust our doctors and they assume that these doctors have our best interest at heart. In ninety-nine point nine percent of the cases, this is probably true, but what happens with that one in a thousand exception? After all, doctors are only human. They suffer from the same physical and mental maladies the rest of us suffer from.

The seed for CLOCK STRIKES THREE originated in my brain from an incident that  happened to me in high school. My mother is part of the "greatest generation" that believes that everything doctors tell us is fact and true. She is from a time when people placed doctors on pedestals. She grew up in a time before modern medicine and treatments, when doctors were the be-all, cure-all for any sickness. She grew up in a time when diseases like cancer were death sentences and when diseases like polio struck the young without warning or prejudice.  

My mother believed the sun and moon rose and set with our hometown doctor. To my mother, our Dr. X was the closest thing to a miracle worker that the world had seen for around nineteen hundred and some years. My mother could never believe that our doctor had any frailties or weaknesses. The truth was that while Dr. X was a highly intelligent man, demons had taken up refuge in his soul.

I had a dangerously high fever in high school along with swollen throat and coughing. My mother tried the entire gamet of over-the-counter drugs available at the time, but nothing seemed to relieve my pain. I continued to get worse. It had become serious. Finally, my mother took me to the emergency room at the hospital where she knew the doctor was working that afternoon.

The doctor met us in the emergency room and examined me. He agreed that I was very ill and that we

needed to break the fever. My mother later admitted to me that the doctor was out of his usual sorts when he examined me. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I noticed nothing different about Dr. X, but then again, the fever had taken me to another planet. The doctor decided to give me an injection of something. I do not remember what he told us the medicine was, perhaps an antibiotic or something to break the fever and fight the virus. He left to go retrieve the medicine while my mother and I waited.  

I remember sitting there on the examining table, weaving back and forth, my equilibrium was off and the fever had me in its relentless grasp. I remember my mother asking me repeatedly, if I was all right. Of course, I was not all right! Her voice rang in my ears as if she were yelling into a water well. 

The doctor returned and gave me the injection. I specifically remember looking down and watching the medicine entering my arm.  The next thing I remember I was lying on the ice-cold floor of the emergency room. I had no idea where I was. The doctor was kneeling over me, pounding and pushing on my chest like a drum. He must have saw my eyes fluttering and stopped giving me CPR. I looked over at my mother. She was crying, a look of absolute horror on her face. Who died? I wondered. I tried to sit up, but the doctor held me down on the floor. I heard him tell my mother that he wanted to keep me in the hospital for observation.

Later that day, they released me to go home. I went home and eventually the fever broke and I recovered. Once, I was feeling better, I asked my mother what happened in the emergency room.

“The doctor killed you,” I remember her saying.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He gave you the wrong medication and stopped your heart,” she replied. Then, after a long pause, she added, “You were dead…I am never taking you to him, again.”

For a long time, I did not ask her what she meant by you were dead. Finally, she told me. The medication stopped my heart. The doctor had to do CPR to save me. She never took us to that doctor, again. Now, that was a good idea. She occasionally reminded me how Dr. X tried to kill me. If we needed a doctor after that incident, we drove fifty miles to the next town. My parents never sued Dr. X. The incident happened at a time that litigation and suing were the exception, not the rule.

A few months later, law enforcement arrested Dr. X for drug abuse and soon after, he lost his license to practice medicine. It appeared he was writing fake prescriptions and using the medication on himself. A small town scandal erupted. It became clear to me why he had made a mistake with my medication. By what my mother later told me, Dr. X was a full-fledged drug addict at the time of the incident. About a year later, Dr. X crashed his plane and died. Toxicology report was positive, of course. The small town scandal reached a crescendo.

Doctors are human. They have strengths and weaknesses, like all of us. My novel CLOCK STRIKES  THREE explores the relationship between a different Dr. X and a vulnerable and naïve patient.


Read CLOCK STRIKES THREE for the rest of my story.







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