There is nothing quite like the cold taste of gun oil on a stainless steel barrel to bring your life into focus.
I was six years old the first time I honestly considered suicide, not as some cry for help, touchy huggy bullshit. No, for me death was a gift, an escape. Like those vests divers wear that fill with air from a CO2 cartridge and pull them to the surface. At night while the Monster roared through the thin walls of our bungalow, I would pull that thought up and let it comfort me like a warm blanket.
As an adult I have found that a barrel in your mouth forces you to pause, take a moment, ask that all important question. How did my life get this fucked? If I don’t need anyone, why am I so lonely? At least I like to think it was that deep, fact was I had a bone numbing hangover, a throbbing head and a fur covered tongue. The gun was on my dresser and if I had any aspirin they were all the way in the bathroom.
Thumbing back the hammer of my snub nose Smith amp; Wesson.38, it clicked into place. Three pounds of pressure on the trigger would drop the hammer onto the primer, igniting the 4.5 grains of smokeless gunpowder. The resulting explosion would drive 158 grains of lead at 1085 feet per second out of the barrel, plowing up through my pallet, through my brain and out the back of my skull. Sure, it seems like a lot of complex engineering just to end one life, but it was the simplest thing I could come up with at the time. Idiot. All I had to do was hang around long enough and people would line up to do the job for me.
Outside, the warm southern California sun was baking the sidewalk, kids laughed and shrieked as they ran through a sprinkler. Down the street a Mexican radio station was playing some brass-driven ranchero music. Happy, happy LA.
Running my tongue along the gun barrel I could feel the ridges of the front sight.
Was this the day I had the nerve to pull the trigger?
Blame it on the fifteen large I owed Vinnie Bag Of Doughnuts on a string of nags that came in third place.
How about that bloodless whore Jen. Blame her. I owed the heartless bitch five grand in back alimony. An old man in the joint once told me, “You meet a pretty girl, you just want to eat her up, you marry her and son you’ll wish you had.” To prove him right, Jen had to sic the D.A. on my deadbeat ass so what little green I made was attached. The cherry on top of this little shit cake is my dealer cut me off for passing a bad check for a jar of whites. Hell, what kind of dealer takes checks anyway?
Was it debt that had me sucking on my.38?
I doubt it. I was born broke and would go to my grave broke, only a moron would expect the years in between to be any different. Fact was, my life sucked the big salami. I was just bone tired of trying to pretend I cared what happened to me.
Gripping the trigger, I started to squeeze. Three pounds of pressure and adios mi vida loca…
At two plus pounds, the phone rang. Odds were it was just more bad news. But what the fuck, I could always kill myself later. Or have a beer, or go bowling or what ever it is people do when they are not killing themselves.
“Speak.” I said into the receiver.
“Mo?… Are you busy?” It was Kelly, the day waitress at Club Xtasy, a titty bar I bounce at whenever my cash runs low, which has been full time for the last two years. She was also maybe my only real friend.
“Not with anything that can’t wait.”
“You know you said if I needed help, well…”
“Baby doll, what’s up?”
“It’s complicated. You’re the only one in the whole wide world I trust, you know that, right, Mo?” Kelly was a sweet breath of fresh air in a world that stank of stale smoke and yesterday’s beer. She had the looks to be a stripper but not the strength of character, so they let her keep her clothes on and serve slop to the swine we call customers. Even over the phone I could see her winding her brown curly hair around her finger, it was a thing she did when she was searching for the right words. “They want… She um… My sister… well…I’m not who you think I am ok Mo…” Panic made her normal scatter of speech into a flow of meaningless noise.
“Who’s the ‘they’, Kell?”
“They, them — you know… It’s complicated. Don’t hate me Mo, please. It’s just… I… this… Things you know? Things go wrong and we can’t always fix it. But I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just she… “
“Slow the train down girl, you left me at the last station.”
“Ok, it’s, well they, people do things, stuff happens and then, you know, not what you plan but there it is and I need your help or it’s all…” her thoughts were a runaway truck, her brakes had failed and she was in free fall.
“Where are you Kell? Are you at home?” I asked.
“I’m at the club…Mo… It’s Monday… But they um…You can’t hide from them…Why bother right?”
“Pour yourself a drink, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” I hung up the phone. Sitting up too quickly, the room tilted and sent my stomach lurching. Gripping the watery remains of last night’s nightcap I gulped it down to quiet my nerves. Suicide would have to wait at least until Kelly could tell me what the hell was going on. Something about her brought out the big brother in me. Maybe it was her Indiana farm girl innocence, or what passed for innocence in my jaded world. This is something the straight world would never understand, we all live with our own set of scales. This girl Piper, she’s twenty-nine and that makes her old, past retirement in stripper years. And Kelly didn’t take off her top for bucks or give men hand jobs in the back room and that made her innocent. It’s all relative. She was the only girl in my life with whom I didn’t trade sex for favors. With the other girls it was always give and take. The lap dance for the ride home on my Norton. Convincing a boyfriend to move on for a hand job. Forty-three, rode hard and put up wet too many nights, my life had been many things but never easy and it showed. I had scars from my missing great toe, to the fifteen stitches in the back of my skull. The flesh real estate in between wasn’t much better. I knew the only way a pretty girl would want me was in trade. I didn’t mind. It was just the way it was. But Kelly was different. She never offered sex and if she had I wouldn’t have accepted. When I was with her I felt almost normal, like I had a shot at becoming a good man. A man has to have one pure relationship in his life, and for me she was it. So when she reached out to me, I really didn’t have any choice at all.
I set the shower to scald, hoping to burn the stink from my body and cobwebs from my brain. Who the fuck was I fooling, Moses the great white knight, savior of the naked working girls. I could barely keep my body vertical. I let the water run cold before I stepped out.
Searching the pile, I found a less than disgusting pair of jeans and tee-shirt. Laundry was one more thing on my to-do list, right after “find a reason to live” and “go grocery shopping.” Slipping the revolver into my coat pocket, I headed out the door.
It only took three stomps to get the Norton to kick over. It was a black ’76 Commando, from the gold lettering on the gas tank to the flawless chrome, it was the only thing I owned that wasn’t fucked up. The reason Jen hadn’t taken it in the divorce was I think she hoped I’d kill myself on it before the life insurance ran out. Pulling out onto Avenue 52, I turned at York by the panaderia, the sweet smell of new bread wafting over me, reminding me I hadn’t eaten a good meal in the last day and a half. One thing about riding a bike, you get to know a town by its smells. Highland Park was fresh bread, sizzling meat and chilies from the taco trucks, it smelled warm and hot and sweet all at the same time. It was one of those transitional areas in Los Angeles. Transitional, sales speak for we got gangs but they’re pussies. We got biker bars and artists’ lofts. It’s one recession away from the ghetto and one Starbucks away from good times. Eighty percent of the residents are dark skinned and most of the signs in the shop windows are in Spanish. Whichever enlightened citizens passed the proposition making English the official language of California forgot to tell Highland Park. Hell, bigots and political whores can pass any law they want. Down here we speak how we want, using the words we have to communicate what needs to be said, even the cops speak Spanish in East LA.
Club Xtasy was a smallish single-story, flat roofed building in the shadow of Interstate 5. It stood a block away from the cement banks of the LA River and next door to a chroming shop. Directly across the street was a ancient print shop full of giant machines that stamped out flyers for illegals to place on car windshields. This was the perfect titty-bar neighborhood, light industrial, old, run down but not a ghetto. On the border between Silver Lake and Atwater, which meant both communities could frequent it, but neither had to claim it. To class the joint up, Uncle Manny, the owner had the bright idea of putting plaster replicas of Greek sculptures along the top of the building, Venus de Milo and her scantily clad sisters, all missing limbs. Statues of damaged girls outside, advertising damaged girls inside. The less than classy huge pink plastic letters on the side of the building screamed out “GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS” and “LIVE NUDE”, which begs the question, who the hell would pay to see a dead nude? Then again this was LA, they’d probably line up around the block just so they could say they’d seen it. Two planters in front of the door held dying palm trees. Not that the guys who come down here ever noticed. The working stiffs thought it looked good and the cats from the nice side of town were too busy trying not to be seen sneaking from their Lexus’ into the club, to ever notice the facade.
Moving through the turnstile into the dark club I was washed in the thumping bass of Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet”, “…I’m sorry momma, I never meant to hurt you…” The blonde monster sang. I slipped off my shades, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim shadows, outside it was mid day, but once you passed through that thinning velvet curtain it was permanent midnight. A short bar ran along the wall next to the entrance, it had room for three bar stools and a waitress station. The back bar was limited, nothing fancy, it was mostly a beer and whiskey crowd. Martini rat-pack madness had skipped the strip scene. Our boys wanted to get drunk, see some tits and ass, pay a filly to grind on their lap and blur on home like it was all real.
“Where’s Kelly?” I asked Turaj. He was at his station behind the bar, in his collar-less black silk shirt and slicked back hair he looked every bit the Mack Daddy pimp he thought he was. His Uncle Manny owned the joint, but when Manny was AWOL, gardening or watching his grand kids, Turaj was the big swinging dick. He wasn’t a bad kid at heart, he was just one of those pricks who acted like he thought a tough boss should act. He was always a little squirrelly with me because unlike the girls, I knew I worked for Uncle Manny and no one else. He tried to yank my chain once and almost lost an arm in the process, since then he plays nice.
“Fucking cunt walked out in the middle of her shift,” he said in a voice that crossed boredom and disdain perfectly.
“What did you just say?” I tensed, ready to jump over the bar.
“Fucking cunt walked…”
“Look around here, don’t look at me asshole, look around here.” I swept the room with my hand. “You see any cunts in here?”
“Fuck you Moses, what the hell? You going all feminist on me?” He puffed up trying to hold my eyes, but couldn’t. “It’s just talk Moses, you know talk? Your girl, she bailed and left me without a waitress. It’s bad enough she doesn’t take her clothes off, but now she won’t even serve drinks? If we get a rush I’m screwed.”
I’m not sure what I expected, I told her fifteen minutes over an hour ago. I could go blasting out after her, chase her down and let her tell me all about her drama. Or I could have a cold one and try and slow the drum squad in my skull.
“Give me a draft,” I told Turaj, he seemed relieved to see I wasn’t going to give him any more stress. Taking a sweet deep swallow, I turned my back on him and scanned the room. On the center stage in the middle of the room China was wiggling her way out of a leather mini-skirt. She was a hard-bodied Asian girl with the best tits money could buy, not those gaudy old school balloons, her store-boughts were round and swooping like soft flesh ski slopes up to her perky nipples. The surgeon screwed up when he moved her nipples, so now she had no sensation, but damn they looked good. A ranked teen tennis pro at one time, her father put a racket in her hand as a child and pushed all the way. China hit the age of consent and decided to show her old man a thing or two. Eighteen months ago she had been a young woman on fire to prove something to the world. Her parents sealed her off like a room they would never enter again. Now she was just another girl working for tips, trying to get through with a minimum of pain. Stripped down to a G-string and prancing around the stage, you might even think she was enjoying herself if you didn’t make the mistake of looking too close. Odd thing about LA you can show guys a topless girl and sell him all the booze he can drink, but if that same girl slips off her G-string, you can’t sell booze. I guess there is some fear that if a drunk man sees naked poontang he will go wild and take out a city block trying to get at it.
China had her story, every other girl had one just as twisted. The deal was, if the customer bothered to ask, they were all college gals working their way to a degree in child development or nursing or some other non-threatening all-giving career. I knew this one Lithuanian broad, got a square to front her six grand for tuition. She split for Vegas the next day. Hey man, if you believed a single word spoken on this side of the curtain, you got what you deserved. We were in the business of selling fantasies, if booze and naked bodies blurred that simple truth, screw you. The world is made up of hookers, John’s, pimps and bouncers. You pick your role and play it best you can even if the deck is stacked against you.
Tits, yabows, massive ta-tas, the guns of Navarone, chee-chees, tetas, mountains, sweater meat, orbs, melons, boobs, knockers, mammary glands, fleshy fun bags, cleavage valley. Oh that I go through the valley of the tits I shall fear no evil for I’m a man. A couple pounds of flesh and men fall apart. Big ones little ones it don’t matter, tits, “size just doesn’t matter it’s all about the shape.” “More than a handful’s a waste”, hell I like two handfuls. Maybe we all want to get back to our mother, suckle at the breast of our childhood. If that bitch crawled out of the grave, came to me and opened her shirt, I’d close my eyes, turn and walk away. There never was any succor there, never was any peace at those tits. She taught me a valuable lesson when I was little. If things are bad now, they can always get worse. Things never change for the better. I hear some mommas say to their babies, “Don’t worry baby it’ll be alright”. That wasn’t mine. Momma you said, “If it’s going bad, it’s probably something you did. Something you did against God and Christ.” Religion was a hammer used to make me feel shitty. Tits? No tits in the bible, no sir. So who the fuck wants to read that book.
I was jarred from my gentle childhood reminiscence by a Mutt and Jeff pair of pimped up Armenian thugs stepping out of the private lap dance room. The little one looked around the club with the cold smile of ownership. It was an arrogance I was used to in Glendale, hell they owned that town, they puffed up and you got out of their way or got run over. But these punks were two miles across the border that we all knew Armenians didn’t cross, at least not strutting their junk. My boss was from Iran and didn’t truck with the Armenian gangsters. They had their own gentleman’s club down by the old Southern Pacific tracks in Glendale, it was my job to gently point them in that direction, draw a map on their face if that’s what it took.
The punks stopped in front of the stage and leered up at China as she slid her ass up along the pole. The skinny little rat-faced one beckoned with a crooked finger for China to come over to the rail. She looked off balance as she danced up to him. She leaned down to hear what he was whispering. His hand shot out and slid up her leg, two fingers stroked her G-string. Shock flitted across her face. I started to push off from the bar but Turaj caught my arm.
“Let it be, they’re good guys,” he said, not meeting my eyes. The skinny punk stepped back from the stage sniffing his fingers and laughing to his huge partner who only returned a stone stare. Whoever had worked them in the lap room hadn’t come out yet. The girls always beat the men out of there, if the guy still had some cash they might come out on his arm, if not they ran for the dressing room to smoke or drink or do whatever it took to wash away the feeling. I moved quickly but without hurry toward the lap room. The bouncer’s strut is a trick of moving rapidly without drawing attention, from the belt up you have to look like there isn’t any place you need to be, while you move your legs fast.
The Lap Dance salon is a small back room lined with mirrors, floor to ceiling. It had six raised booths with chairs in them where men sit and get friction dances. Piper was sitting in one of the chairs, reflected on three sides by the mirrors. Her flame-red hair flowed down her back like a burning waterfall. She had on a tube top that was being stretched beyond the suggested limits of its elasticity, her muscular shoulders gleaming in the dim light and her long powerful legs spilling out of her silk tap pants. She’d been in the game long enough not to cry, but I could see the flicker of pain and fear behind her eyes.
“What’d they do to my lil’ girl?” I said. She looked up at me, hesitating. “If you don’t tell me, I can’t fix it.”
“God damn son of a bitch…the little pencil dick wants a grand a week or…” She didn’t need to finish it. Whatever they said they were going to do to her was ugly and painful. Had to be to scare a pro like Piper.
“How much did you give ‘em?”
“Two hundred hard-earned dollars… Bastard didn’t even pay for his lap dance… Will you do me one lil’ old favor?”
“What’s that, baby doll?”
“Cripple those sons of bitches,” she said, staring past me into space. Like a benediction, sealing the promise, I kissed her forehead and turned on my heels.
Sunlight exploded pinning my pupils as I stepped out of the dark club and onto the sidewalk, I fumbled my shades on to protect me from the day. The two Armenian thugs were moving towards a ten-year-old BMW 740i. A skinny little thing in a leather trench coat and his muscle, a big boy, six foot and pushing 250 hard. Talk was out of the question, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. Odds were even that the big boy could kick my ass if I gave them any slack. I ran full out, before they even knew I was coming I was in midair. I tackled the big boy from behind, catching his hair in my fist I let the momentum of my body weight drive his face down onto the hood of the Beemer. I heard a crunch that I knew was his nose breaking, and he let out a howl. Pulling his head up I smashed it down again, I could feel the muscles in his back loosen, he was going down. A sweep to the back of his knee sent him sprawling on the sidewalk where he lay holding his face, blood flowing through his fingers.
From the corner of my eye, I saw skinny boy reaching into his jacket. In the two steps it took me to reach him, he had his gun out. It was an ugly Glock 9mm. He swung it up, aiming inches from my face.
I froze, my expression going neutral.
He stood in the street between the hood of the Beemer and the trunk of a rusted-out Chevy. “I’m gonna bust a cap in yo ass muthafucka,” he spat out, struggling to sound as Black as possible.
“Do it, please. Come on, pull the trigger. Right here between the eyes.” I pointed at my forehead.
“What? You whacked out?” he said, unsure of his position. It’s hard to threaten a guy who doesn’t give a damn.
“Come on, don’t be a squid, pull the trigger. Pull it!” His eyes flitted off me and to his pal. That instant was all I needed. In one movement I lunged forward shoving his gun up, and him out into an oncoming Monte Carlo. The bass thud of his body against metal was mixed with the treble crack of a bone breaking. He bounced off the grill of the speeding car. For a brief moment he took flight, twisting like a broke winged bird up into the air before tumbling down screaming like a little girl. Thank god it was LA so the car just kept going. Grabbing hold of the scruff of his trench coat I dragged his skinny ass up onto the sidewalk, scooping up the Glock on my way. There are so many more guns than brains in this town. His left leg was twisted in a way nature never intended, and he was shrieking in pain. Looking down at this wailing little puke, all I wanted to do was pound his head into the cement, anything to get him to shut the fuck up.
Luckily the big boy got my attention before I could act on my impulse to stomp. Coming around, he stood up looking at me, his face smeared red with blood. His nose was mashed flat against his face. His eyes were raging as though he was about to charge, then he saw the Glock in my hand. He relaxed, shrugging his shoulders and gave me a look that said it was my move, he’d live or die with whatever I chose. You had to respect him, he hadn’t been dealt the hand he wanted, but he was playing what he had like a man.
“Get this piece of shit off my sidewalk,” I said in as neutral a tone as I could muster. My pulse was pounding, my adrenaline flying high. But this was no time for drama. Things can go ugly in the blink of an eye, and then these boys were looking at the long dirt nap and it’s a steel cage for the rest of my life. The big boy looked down at his squealing buddy, a little embarrassment showing in his eyes. Glancing up at me, he hardened.
“You’re still trying to decide if you can take me, gun and all.” I said flat, “I know I would be. Fuck it kid, take a pass on this one. It ain’t pretty any way you play it.” I was hoping like hell he didn’t attack. If the 9mm didn’t stop him I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t rip my head off. No fear showed in his eyes. He just kept staring at me. Wherever he’d come up it was a hell of a lot rougher than the streets of Glendale. “Whatever you’re going to do, let’s get to it before the blues roll up and I’ve got to explain the gun, the blood, the bodies and this day goes from shit to diarrhea.”
The big boy thought about it for a moment, turning the options over in his head, I could see the gears click away as his eyes bore into mine, searching for my weakness. He was a street fighter, and not one who was used to losing. “It’s over,” I said lowing the gun, giving him space to back down into. His shoulders relaxed, hiking up into another indifferent shrug. He moved past me, closer than comfortable, close enough to let me know he held no fear of an old bastard like me. Skinny boy let out a high-pitched squeal when dumped into the back seat of the Beemer. Leaning in, I slipped my hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Taking his driver’s license and a wad of bills, mostly hundreds, I tossed the wallet onto the front seat. I leaned my face close to him, tapping my finger on his forehead forcing him to focus on my eyes, with my other hand I covered his mouth silencing his whimpers. I spoke in almost a whisper. “You ever even think about my girls again, even a flitting fucking thought and I will find you.” I dropped the clip out of the Glock and kicked it into the storm drain. Ejecting the chambered round, I tossed the nasty plastic gun to the big boy and watched them drive away, wondering what the hell was wrong with the youth of today. Hell, when I was their age, I never would have let some old fuck get the drop on me.
When I reentered the club Piper was on stage dancing to Billy Holiday’s “God Bless The Child.” Spinning around the pole, running her hands up over her fine natural double D’s, fingers dancing circles around her nipples, all the standard moves, moves she could do in her sleep, mechanical moves designed to draw your eye to her body and fill your reptile brain with the need to mate or at least throw dollar bills. The men watching didn’t notice the fear in her eyes. Ok, maybe they didn’t even notice she had eyes. She was parts, real live moving parts.
The fight had cleared my head, and pulled my spirit up enough for me to remember Kelly and her call and her sweet face. I should have walked out then, but then I wouldn’t have been me. Stepping up to the stage I tossed two Benjamins at Piper’s feet. Looking down she smiled, her eyes going soft. Even the lonely men at the rail were impressed by the falling hundreds. She danced the rest of the song for me alone. Eyes on my face, it was a dance honoring her valorous hero. The mind may know it’s all a sham, but blood wants what blood wants. Watching her work her magic on the stage I knew where we would end up. My blood lust had turned to lust lust that quickly. Tits.
Stepping off the stage, she took my hand and started to lead me to the lap room. “I can’t, baby doll, I have to find Kelly,” I said half-heartedly.
“Mo, if you were ten years younger,” Piper purred, “You’d still be ten years too old for that girl child. Now drop the torch Cowboy, that one’s never going to give it up.”
“It ain’t about that, Piper.”
“Tell yourself any little lie you need to, but it’s always about that. You just want her ‘cause she’s not up there offering it. You think she’s your ticket to Straightsville. Now forget Miss Pure White and come show Momma what you got.”
“I think she’s in trouble.”
“We all were in trouble from those punks, but you handled that,” she said, keeping her grip tight.
“Maybe later, she…”
“You plan on banging her?”
“No.”
“Then she’ll wait. Lordy, lordy, lordy, part of you wants to stay. “ Her eyes flicked down to my crotch. “Is that for lil’ ol’ me?”
I gave up my weak attempt to fight it and let her lead me into the shadows. I lied to myself, saying Piper was right, Kelly must have been afraid of the Armenians. Truth was, my erection was doing all the thinking at that moment. My blood was up and screaming for release. Watching Piper’s ass sway before me I couldn’t see a damn thing wrong with this deal.
I told myself one more little lie and slid into the moment, pretending this time it would be different and I wouldn’t end up feeling more empty than when I started. Sitting on a metal chair surrounded by mirrors she slid down onto my lap while somewhere in the distance Nicki Minaj was singing about being the best. Rubbing her fine ass on my crotch she moaned in fake but convincing passion. Her hair against my face, her scent filling my nose, rose water hovering over hair spray and buried down below, just the hint of sweat. To the pulsing beat Piper swayed her full, soft, natural breasts across my face, tracing her cleavage across the hair on my chin. All the while her leg expertly stroked my erection through my jeans. Caressing her hands over my shoulders she felt my breathing slow.
“My big strong hero… give Momma a little cream for her coffee.” Pulling her leg from between mine she smiled down at me, turning slowly around she bent over giving me a moment to look at her fine firm backside without her watching me. Sliding gracefully back, she sat onto my lap, fitting herself down around the bulge in my pants. Rocking her hips to the pulse of the music and the acceleration of my breaths, she ground her ass against my cock until I finally closed my eyes… let go… and came. Climbing off me, she smiled and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you,” I said, “Consider your tab squared.”
“What?” Her smile faded.
“I took care of the punks, you took care of me. We’re even.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Forget it.” She walked out, plastering her sultry there’s nothing I’d rather do than fuck you smile on as she cleared the doorway. I watched her ass twitch away into the shadows of the bar and wondered if I would ever give up trying to understand women.
Staring into the mirror I had to ask myself who that man was. The scruffy red beard, four gold earrings in one ear, a Celtic knot tattoo on his neck, placed there to commemorate the love for a girl he no longer knew. The scar above the left eye from a broken beer bottle. And cold blue eyes, eyes that had seen too much for one life. The Viking heritage showed in the man’s body, he was built for wielding a battle-axe and pulling an oar. I wondered if that man in the mirror came into the club, would we be friends? Probably not, he didn’t look like he had many friends. I’d probably throw his trouble-making ass out on the street.
After the rush of the battle and the bad sex settled, after staring at my face in the mirror for too long… Kelly’s face came into my mind. Her call was the reason I stepped into this mess in the first place. I came in looking for Kelly and wound up getting tossed a thank you lap dance from Piper. Life does have its ups and downs.
With a guilty smirk, I stepped into the men’s room to dab the stain off my jeans. I wasn’t guilty about the lap ride, hell we were both consenting adults and I figure as long as the donkey didn’t die, what adults do behind closed doors is their own damn business. I did feel bad about leaving Kelly hanging while I got my nut off though. It was no way to treat a friend. Men can be jerks sometimes, just a fact. Any possible warm afterglow of the ejaculation was gone before I left the john.
Dropping some change into the pay phone, I dialed Kelly’s number. I was rewarded for my effort with a busy signal. I dialed again but got the same irritating blatting tone. Why would the Armenians have threatened a waitress? She didn’t make the kind of cash the dancers did. When she called, Kelly had said she wasn’t who I thought she was. What did that have to do with the Armenian shakedown? Somewhere between the pay phone and the bar I decided I was going to have to go see Kelly, if only to stop my brain from thinking about it.
Behind the bar Turaj’s eyes were in full flight, lighting on anything in the room but me. I slapped my hands firmly down on the bar top. Turaj gave a little jump then turned a sheepish grin on me.
“You are one slick mother fucker, right?” I purred.
“What? Moses my man, what are you thinking?”
“That you are one slick mother fucker. How much were those Armenian pricks planning to pay you a week, for the right to scalp our girls?” He looked mock stunned.
“I didn’t, they, I never saw-”
“That’s it, just keep digging that grave deeper and deeper.”
“Trust me, I don’t know those punks. What kinda man do you think I am?” A line of sweat was collecting on his weak brow.
“The spineless kind. The kind that gets his rocks off holding power over these girls because they’d never give it to him willingly. That answer your question?”
“Screw you,” he said with no conviction.
“Hand me the phone, I need to talk to your uncle.” At this his mask of cool started to twitch.
“Who’s he going to believe, huh? I’m his blood.”
“Hand me the phone, we’ll find out.” What I really wanted to do was jump over the bar and turn him into a stain on the carpet. I guess he saw it in my eyes because he fell apart, his upper lip started to tremble, he looked down at his hands as though they held some mystic secret.
“Here’s how it works, those fucks or any puke like them comes in here after our girls, you’re going to call me. And if you don’t, what do you think will happen?”
“You’ll tell Uncle Manny.”
“Beep, wrong answer. Forget about Manny, I’ll be coming for you. And I won’t be happy… are we clear?” He nodded ever so slightly, fighting to hold his face from completely falling apart. “All right bitch, I need Kelly’s address.”
“No, no. If she wants to fuck you, she’ll give you her address, not me. You know the rules.”
“I wrote the rules. Now get me Kelly’s address before I remember how pissed off I am at you.”
“Fine, but you don’t tell her I gave it to you.” He scurried off across the club toward the office, glad for the excuse to get away from me. His head was down, and his shoulders sagged. Beating down a whipped dog gave me no pleasure, but screw him, he made his own lumpy bed when he climbed in with wanna be gangsters.
“Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?” China asked, sidling up next to me.
“Just doing my job, like everyone else here.”
“What a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man.” She sang. Winding her small pale finger into a buttonhole on my shirt she pulled me close to her. The word had spread quickly that the Armenian tariff had been lifted. Looking around at the other smiling girls I knew I’d be offered enough free lap rides to keep me happy for days… If only that was what would make me happy. Maybe if I knew what happiness looked like I might know how to go after it. But, forty-three years on this miserable planet only taught me how to survive, not thrive. Every day I felt like just one more soldier trying to make it back to the world in one piece. If I was smart I would stay in the trenches, keep my head low and never play the hero. If I was smart.