Only a few patrons have made it to karaoke at Roca Mar Bar & Grill as Shawn Worrell, left, tackles a Beatles tune.
It's Shawn Worrell's turn on the mike.
He takes a pull from his Marlboro, puts down his pool stick and knocks back a swig of Budweiser for courage.
He peels himself from his bar stool, and walks in his tight blue jeans to the spot underneath the disco ball where the troubles of hard labor fall away.
He used to work construction, but his bad back, bad knees and aversion to bad attitudes drove the 37-year-old to a new job. He installs machinery for the food industry now.
He doesn't look at the words rolling across the TV screen nearby. He knows them by heart, and he sings in his best attempt at a British accent:
When I get older, losing my hair,
many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine,
birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
The Beatles.
Not exactly standard fare for a hole-in-the-wall, blue-collar Nebraska Avenue bar, perched between a tire shop and a thrift store, across the street from the Oasis Motel (all rooms $25).
It's karaoke night inside the Roca Mar Bar & Grill, and tonight karaoke means a British invasion.
That's okay with Iban Rodriguez. He's 43, raised in Chicago by a Puerto Rican mother. He wears guayaberas, has a pencil-thin mustache and works as a private investigator. He says he plays drums in a Latin band.
But he likes Lennon and the boys, too. He grabs the mike and sings loudly, proudly:
Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better...
The dozen or so other people in the bar - a man in a suit and tie, a truck driver, a library worker, the bartender from Boston - hardly pay attention.
They glance up now and then as Iban Rodriguez sings. They scatter half-hearted applause when he finishes.
Just as quickly, they turn back to their own beers and their own thoughts.
