Montreal business magnate recalls days as drunken brawler in one of West End's toughest bars

 Frank O'Dea is best known as the alcoholic panhandler who somehow became a business magnate as co-founder of the Second Cup cafe chain.
  O'Dea's biography When All You Have Is Hope recounts how he grew up in Montreal West and got a job at a dairy, likely Elmhurst/Parmalat and became a big fan of Peg's Bar, on St. James W., not far from what's now the Reno Depot.

• The Old St James Street West
• When the West End gang still ruled the West End

  His must-read description of that bar likely describes a period in the late-sixties. I stumbled across it while researching for my upcoming book, have a chuckle with the read below.

I managed to get a job driving a delivery truck for a large local dairy, which sounds like a safe occupation. And it was, as long as I was working. The problems began at the end of the day when many of the drivers gathered at Peg's, a nearby saloon as rough as any biker bar you're likely to step into.

Peg's was attached to a cheap motel, most of the rooms were occupied by hookers who spent their vertical hours in the bar, either taking it easy or looking for customers. Chico, Peg's bartender, tried to keep everybody in line by the strength of his presence- he looked like a grizzly with a migraine- and the weight of his nightstick a length of two-by-four that he swung like a Montreal Expos baseball player in the warm-up circle.

It was a dark, smoky, dangerous place and the danger appealed to my wild side. The floor was constantly wet with spilled beer, vomit, and occasionally blood, and the jukebox in the corner blasted country-and-western music about people being betrayed by their lover, having their pickup truck repossessed, and watching their dog die.

 What with the music, the alcohol, the hookers, and the excessive testosterone, fist fights broke out over a single ill-spoken phrase or even an innocent glance. Once the donnybrook started, chairs were smashed over heads and bottles were tossed at windows, until Chico and his nightstick restored order.

The bar was a place to lose my persistent loneliness. Naturally, I felt at home there.

 Many of the dairy drivers couldn't wait to reach Peg's after a day's work, which led to bitter competition among those of us who were serious drinkers and preferred to duck flying bottles than relax with our families at home. The sooner you finished your deliveries and returned to the office, the sooner you could start drinking at Peg's. Returning even five minutes ahead of the other guy could mean that you left the dairy as much as an hour earlier than him- giving you an extra hour of drinking. Everyone wanted to be the first to reach the office, cash in the day's receipts, unload the truck, return product to inventory, and complete all the other details that brought the workday to a close. This incentive to arrive ahead of other drivers led to outlandish behaviour.

One day while driving well over the speed limit, racing to be first back at the office, I spotted another dairy truck ahead of me. I pressed the accelerator to the floor and caught up with it but the other driver match my speed and soon we were two heavy trucks racing abreast on a busy four-lane highway, driving recklessly just to gain a few extra minutes in a bar. I ended the race by reaching behind my seat, grabbing a box of eggs, and tossing it at the the truck's windshield, where the eggs splattered into an opaque mess that effectively blinded the driver. He was forced to pull over to clean the glass while I sped off, laughing all the way.

 I thrived in the dingy bar atmosphere. I relished he darkness, content to spend my days consuming as much alcohol as possible among people with the same limited ambition. We weren't interested in throwing darts, watching sports events, or indulging in any other distraction from out intention of getting drunk in the company of others. 

 At Peg's there was always the chance, the likelihood even, of frayed tempers exploding into a drunken brawl. I remember little about the details, and anyway, there would be too many to recount. One element, however, was consistent among all the fights, and that was the fear that contorted the face of the first person to be struck  a solid blow or knocked to the floor. Bar fights are not like the scuffles depicted in movies and on TV. The real thing tends to be explosive, violent, and frightening. To be on the receiving end of a blow from a fist, a chair or a beer bottle is to immediately comprehend both your morality and your stupidity for engaging in the brawl.

No one who suffered one of these blows responded immediately with pain or anger. The first reaction was always abject fear, born of the realization that the next blow could kill them. The fear appeared on their faces  and was felt in their hearts. It was visceral and disturbing in a way that no false bravado or alcohol can conceal. I know, because sometimes it was me on Peg's floor, looking up at the twisted, angry face of the man who had just struck me, and dreading what was about to happen next.