S.G. Browne

At the corner of Hyde and O’Farrell in the Tenderloin district sits the Nite Cap—a no-frills dive bar with about a dozen bar stools, two TVs, a jukebox, a pool table, jello shots, and $5 for a PBR and a shot of whiskey.

On a typical weekday afternoon (yes, writers drink during the week in the afternoon—it’s one of the perks of being a writer) the Nite Cap is fairly quiet with several regulars sitting at the bar. Chances are when you arrive, you’ll be greeted with a “hello” and a smile from the bartender. It’s a friendly place with cheap drinks and good people. At least that’s been my impression the few times I’ve been there.

Admittedly, I’d never been to the Nite Cap until I wrote Lucky Bastard. The first time I went inside the bar was for research, as was the second time. The third time was to take the photos in this blog post. I hadn’t planned on the bar playing a role in my novel until it seemed like a good idea. And that happens in Chapter 33, when Nick Monday walks out the front door of 636 O’Farrell to find his cab gone:

I wait a few minutes for another cab, but the only ones that pass are taken, so I glance up O’Farrell and see the sign for the Nite Cap bar at the corner of Hyde. Not that I’m expecting to find a ride there, but the two pints of Guinness I had at O’Reilly’s and the mocha from Peet’s are kicking around in my bladder like a second-trimester fetus, so I head that direction to make use of the facilities before my good luck starts running down my leg.

When Nick sees the Nite Cap and decides to go there to use the facilities, that’s because when I have him leave 636 O’Farrell (which is a fictional address that just showed up in a previous scene like magic) I needed someplace for him to go next. So I did a Google map search of that block of O’Farrell Street and used a street view to find out what was nearby. It just so happened the Nite Cap was half a block away. So that’s where Nick decided he wanted to go and I followed along to document what transpired.

In real life, I don’t know if the crowd I imagined inside the bar in Lucky Bastard is anywhere close to reality, but then I write fiction so it’s my job to make things up. But every time I’ve gone into the Nite Cap I’ve encountered nothing but good conversation and friendly peeps. Like Courtney here, the bartender who’s been working at the Nite Cap for nearly a year and who was nice enough to pose with my monkey and give him something to drink. Me? I had a Guinness. Naturally.

By the way, you still have time to enter the Name My Monkey Contest on Facebook for a chance to win signed copies of all my books, plus other goodies. (Just click on the contest name for the link). So think up a good name and play before April 16. You might just win.

Most of the places we’ve visited on the Lucky Bastard San Francisco Blog Tour have been of the more obscure variety and not exactly places you’d find in your Frommer’s or Lonely Planet travel guide. So don’t get your hopes up that Nick Monday will take a ferry to Alcatraz or race across the Golden Gate Bridge or hang out at Pier 39.

However, the one iconic San Francisco landmark that does appear in Lucky Bastard is Lombard Street, otherwise known as The Crookedest Street in the World. (Though there is some debate that Snake Alley in Burlington, IA holds that distinction.)

But for the sake of argument, we’ll say Lombard Street has the title. The one-way section of brick-paved street in Russian Hill runs for one block from the Hyde Street cable car tracks down a steep grade through eight terraced switchbacks and residential homes, ending at Leavenworth. The famous street has appeared in numerous films, hosted an Easter Big Wheel race (which I attended), and been turned into a giant Candyland board to celebrate the board game’s 60th anniversary.

And occasionally, if you look closely, you can spot one of San Francisco’s famous Wild Monkeys of Russian Hill.

The scene in Lucky Bastard that takes place here occurs in Chapters 12 and 13, when Nick arrives at the top of the street after a failed luck poaching. He’s surrounded by tourists, looking for a mark— someone who exhibits behavior that indicates they were born with good luck—when a sixteen-year-old kid races down the twisting road, maneuvering between cars:

I watch the kid on the skateboard glide between fenders and curbs, past bumpers and hedges, oozing teenage bravado and confidence. Halfway down the hill, the kid gets clipped by a Volvo, rolls over the hood of the car, and lands in some bushes blooming with pink flowers. Then he pops up and gets back on his skateboard unscathed and continues down the street with a smile on his face and a triumphant middle finger raised in salute for the driver of the Volvo.

And behold, I think I’ve just found my mark.

He takes off after the kid, racing down the 250 steps, only to run into trouble when he makes it to the bottom. What kind of trouble? That would be a spoiler. But I will say that I reference Cory Haim and Cory Feldman and someone ends up with a bloody nose.

Nick Monday is a luck poacher. But once he’s poached luck from an unsuspecting mark, how does he get it out of his system so he can process it and sell it on the black market? Well, let’s just say that “he pissed it all away” isn’t just an expression.

Without going into detail (which you’ll just have to learn by reading Lucky Bastard), in order to avoid getting addicted to the luck they steal, poachers need to get it out of their system as soon as possible. Which means prepping with a mixture of sugar and diuretics. And for Nick Monday, his poison of choice is coffee and apple fritters:

The combination of sugar and caffeine helps with the processing of good luck into a marketable form. For others, sugar and alcohol does the trick. I don’t know why, since I never got better than a C in chemistry, but it’s what’s worked for generations. My great-grandma washed down rock candy with straight vodka, while Grandpa swore by powdered doughnuts and Budweiser. For me, it’s cappuccinos or mochas and apple fritters. Beer just makes me sleepy.

Because Nick’s got a thing for corporate-coffeehouse baristas (it’s complicated), he drinks cappuccinos from Starbucks and mochas from Peet’s. He also uses Starbucks to conduct some of his business, like he does in Chapter 7 at the Starbucks on Union and Laguna in Cow Hollow:

Starbucks is an ideal place for making drop-offs. It’s out in the open where no one expects it. No one’s looking around to see what anyone else is doing. People are too busy reading the paper or surfing the Internet or playing with their iPhones to care. Sometimes I think you could be masturbating while waiting in line and no one would notice.

When it comes to deep-fried pastry goodness, Nick gets his apple fritter fix from All Star Donuts on Chestnut Street in the Marina and from Bob’s Donuts on Polk Street in Russian Hill. Now I’ll be the first to admit that Bob’s has superior overall quality when it comes to donuts, but their apple fritters are a little too light for my taste. Apple fritters should be dense and artery clogging and make you feel like eating the whole thing was a really bad idea. So when it comes to apple fritters, All Star Donuts takes the prize.

While I’ve always been a fan of apple fritters, up until two years ago I’d never consumed a single coffee drink from either Starbucks or Peet’s. True fact. Although I would occasionally enjoy a cappuccino at a restaurant after a meal, unlike most writers I’ve never been hooked up to a caffeine IV drip, so I never did any writing in cafes.

But while I was writing Lucky Bastard, I decided I should probably drink a mocha and a cappuccino from both Starbucks and Peet’s for research, to get inside the head of Nick Monday. The next thing I know, I’m walking into Peet’s once or twice a week for a mocha to get a caffeine fix. Now I write at the Coffee Roastery on Chestnut Street two to three times a week while drinking a sixteen ounce mocha, no whipped cream.

This, of course, led to the inevitable mistake of drinking a mocha after 4:00pm and not being able to fall asleep until 2:00am. Which is what happened to me yesterday. And yes, that’s an apple fritter from All Star Donuts in the photo above on the right. If you’re wondering about the monkey, then you might want to check out the Name My Monkey Contest being hosted over on Facebook.

I’m excited to announce the official launch today of Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, my exclusive eBook short story collection that contains ten twisted tales of dark comedy, social satire, and the supernatural.

Back in the 1980s when I read Night Shift and Skeleton Crew by Stephen King, I imagined one day having my own collection of short stories published. When I penned my first short story in 1989, a rambling, forgettable Catcher in the Rye inspired tale titled “The Dog Died,”  I figured I was on my way. Now, more than twenty years later, that moment has finally arrived.

A few of the stories in Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel have appeared previously in other print anthologies. More than half of them are brand-new tales, while several are ancestors or descendants of novels I’ve written or have yet to write. And one story took third place in the Gross-Out Contest at the 2008 World Horror Convention.

But this is the first time these stories have gathered together in one place. Kind of like a family reunion, if the family included a serial killer, a zombie gigolo, extraterrestrial sex toys, a group of professional guinea pigs, and the Seven Deadly Sins.

And you thought your family had problems.

So I invite you to order up a copy of Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel for your Nook, Kindle, or iPad. Or, if you’re like me and don’t own an eReader, you can download FREE (that’s right, FREE) software from Barnes & Noble and Amazon for your PC or Mac.

And as always, thanks for reading!

*No monkeys were harmed in the writing of this collection.

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Unfortunately, I’ve been laid up with the flu since St. Patrick’s Day and haven’t had a chance to take my monkey out to play. Yes, I know how that sounds. Yes, I said it on purpose. You see now why I chose a monkey.

In any case, I’ve been trapped in my apartment for four days and haven’t been able to take my Monkey-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named around San Francisco with me to visit the places that appear in Lucky Bastard. Fortunately, I already took pictures of most of the locations sans monkey, which just means I’ll have to get a little creative.

For this installment of the Lucky Bastard San Francisco Blog Tour, we’re going to O’Reilly’s Irish Pub in North Beach, located right across from the Green Street Mortuary. Just in case you need one-stop shopping. O’Reilly’s is a great place to grab a pint or three of Guinness while grubbing on some fish ‘n chips or corned beef and cabbage.

The centerpiece of O’Reilly’s is a thirty- foot long mahogany bar with a fifteen- foot tall back bar decorated with pillars and antique Celtic stained glass panels. Opposite the bar, the walls and drinking nooks are plastered with old photos and framed pictures of Ireland and Irish celebrities, the shelves above filled with Irish memorabilia. And covering the corner walls at the back of the bar is a hand-painted mural of famous Irish writers, including W. B Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce (not shown).

The scene that occurs here in Lucky Bastard takes place in Chapter 29, when Nick Monday meets Tuesday Knight to discuss…well, I can’t tell you what they’re going to discuss because that would be a spoiler. But I can tell you that they sit in the back of the bar near the mural (by Oscar Wilde, actually). And when Nick orders his drinks, he stands at the bar in front of a small brass plate that reads: THIS SEAT IS RESERVED FOR CHOCOLATE DICK.

Apparently, a regular customer named Dick brings chocolate with him whenever he comes to the bar and shares the chocolate with the bartenders. So he has his own place reserved for him. No, I’m not making this up.

How Nick and Tuesday ended up at O’Reilly’s wasn’t planned out in advance. It’s just the way the story unfolded as I wrote it, where the characters told me they wanted to go, so there wasn’t any devised plan for them to meet there. But I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the research.

By the way, if you didn’t notice my monkey Photoshopped into the mural of famous Irish writers, then you weren’t paying attention.