Hank's Saloon

There's something comforting about bars on the margin. Like licentious Siberia, once nestled inside the 50th Street subway station. Mars Bar, 2nd Ave.'s blink-and-you-miss-it filth merchant. Or Williamsburg's now-deceased Kokie's, which sold sniffables behind thick curtains, not far from the waterfront.

These bars were born of neglect, in landscapes resembling 80s-era Beirut. With burnt-out tenement shells and rusty junkyards as neighbors, watering holes had space to fester, to develop hepatitis-ridden codes of wrong and, sometimes, right. But with speculators gobbling buildings and land like King Kong breaking a fast, the margins are being filled with condos and organic groceries.

Yet some bars still thrive on the outskirts, even if the outskirts now contain, say, an oversized drug store. Such is the story of Hank's Saloon, a refuge for the drunks that refuse to die because that means they have to stop drinking.

Hank's is located in a nebulous region of Brooklyn that's not quite Park Slope, not quite Cobble Hill and not quite anywhere. It's a one-story bar-upstairs, there's an apartment that hasn't seen a tenant since FDR-painted black and covered with flames. It's wedged into a corner of Atlantic Avenue, across from a Walgreens that broadcasts fluorescent lights onto Hank's like a sun turned supernova.

The bar first existed as a Prohibition speakeasy. In 1971, Dorothy and Ray Slattery opened the DoRay (get it?) Tavern, a "shot-and-beer joint" catering to longshoremen and ironworkers, according to a yellowing article taped up inside the bar. About five years ago, a man named Dave took over the DoRay, christening it "Hank's" after the legendary country singer.

Whenever I take a cab home from Manhattan, I pass Hank's, its flames both alluring and a warning, like the Amazon's fluorescent-hued poison frogs. Last week, I finally caved into curiosity.

Just like that, I walk inside and order a pint of Schaefer from a young man wearing a black knit cap. He fills the beer to the brim and says, "That'll be two dollars, please."

Sweet Jesus, thank you.

Hank's, from my perch on a seat beneath a sagging black ceiling, is succor for a sucky day. A video game beckons me to fill terrorists with digitized shotgun shells. The seats are fall-asleep comfy, tenderized by a generation of rumps. And the bartender plays a Guided By Voices mix on his iPod.

Not that indie is the house music. Most nights, Hank's pushes its pool table aside and ushers in country crooners and greased-up rockabilly rockers. They spit out free music to an up-close-and-personal mix of hipsters, b-boys and grizzled grandpas. Every Sunday evening, Sean Kershaw and the New Jack Ramblers deliver Brooklyn-ized country while, on the sidewalk, Hank's grills up gratis hot dogs and hamburgers.

Tonight, there's neither band nor sustenance-just columns of Utz chips behind the bar. It's a sparse crowd, mostly middle-aged men watching a tv special about Michael Jackson's uneasy kid-glove treatment. I get up to play pool.

I shoot a round by my lonesome, then a gentleman who introduces himself as Tommy slaps quarters on the table.

"Come here often?" I ask, by way of Schaefer-induced friendliness.

"Nah, I'm from Bensonhust. I come up here ev'ry Thursday for my DWI class," says Tommy, a man with thinning hair and a Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand.

"I've heard Bensonhurst is lovely."

"Lovely? Wanna see lovely, come to my DWI class," Tommy says, creeping close. "There's this Korean chick there-woo! But she don't speak English too good. I mean, she never learned to say 'no.'"

Tommy uncorks a grin, then continues, "That Korean chick, she's taken, though. Her slope-eyed boyfriend picks her up in some damn Jap car."

I nearly choke on my two-dollar beer.

"You okay?" Tommy asks.

Anywhere else, I would've tossed Tommy my own slant-eyed look, furrowed brow questioning his p.c. breech. But the act of passing through Hank's doors envelopes customers in a get-out-of-jail-free card. Here, drinkers can curse up a storm. Slip into a permissible whiskey belligerence. And speak their minds, even if minds are preoccupied by communist-era stereotypes. Hank's is a repository in a city losing its caustic cachet, a takes-all-kinds joint that'll serve a frosty beer and friendly "fuck you" as change.

Coughing subsiding, I clear my throat and size up the table. It's covered with all sorts of scattered balls, not unlike Tommy, whom I turn to and say, "I've never felt better."

46 3rd Ave. (Atlantic Ave.), Brooklyn, 718-625-8003.

-Joshua M. Bernstein