Of course I tried the usual remedies to break the hideous cycle of insomnia that I had fallen back into but I am immune to the conventional and therefore my mind refuses to go down for the count when plied with such pedestrian sleep aides as chamomile tea or counting sheep…speaking of counting sheep, I laugh at the cock sucker that first counted sheep as a remedy for sleeplessness and I’m pretty damn sure it was some creepy shepherd way out in the middle of nowhere and that the mother fucker had an IQ of less then 75 because there is no way that anyone with an imagination can fool themselves into picturing sheep repeatedly jumping over a fence. Didn’t this guy’s mind wander out over the grassy plains, past the mountains, over the river to the Two Horse Inn where his friends were buying the object of his affections tall frothing mugs of mead? Did he wonder if perhaps the grass stains on said sweetie pie’s knickers were not from falling down when fetching milk from the goat as she had claimed but from the sexual friction created by a tryst with the town baker behind the privy? Perhaps he didn’t wonder. Perhaps he cuddled up to his sheep. Used one as a pillow and one as a foot rest and one as…
After tossing and turning like a sea bass thrown onto the hood of an idling Camaro I gave up on sleep, got out of bed, and fired up my laptop. Amongst all the beer bottles and half-full coffee cups on my desk I noticed a beer that was three fourths full and so locked my lips around the bottle and suckled at the nipple of Inebrious, winged god of Blotto, who I visited frequently in my quest for dulling of the sharp edges associated with reality.
“Uma, Flea,” I called to my trusty Chihuahuas who came bounding into my study.
I cinched the belt of my bathrobe tightly around my waist and then stuck Uma and Flea on either of my sides inside the bathrobe where they sat happily and drifted off to sleep.
I lit up a Gurkha Regent torpedo which my friend “Igor” from New Orleans had sent me a box of. Quickly my study filled with smoke and the smoke alarm outside my door began to yowl like a weasel with its fingers caught in a car door which sent my two Chihuahua’s, Uma and Flea, into a howling frenzy.
“Aha,” I screamed jumping to my feet and grabbing a thick volume of Shakespeare’s complete works from my bookshelf. I took the book and smashed the smoke alarm into a million pieces. “Take that you wailing bastard,” I screamed. I stomped on the pieces of plastic and wires and batteries and then fell exhausted to the floor. “Grab hold of yourself, man” I said. “You’re losing it. This sleeplessness is getting the best of you.”
As I sat in the hallway on the broken pieces of smoke alarm petting my Chihuahuas and my mind drifted to Janine. My heart still bore the tread marks of this ex-love interest who’d run over my affection, backed up, run over it in reverse, and then drove over it again until finally it was as flat as the seat cushion on a sumo wrestler’s rocking chair. I needed to erase her from the chalkboard of my mind, something that ingesting large amounts of drugs and alcohol would not accomplish on their own. I needed a complete change of scenery, to fill my head with new experiences and purge the past from my conscience and it just so happened that Chester Crenshaw had called me that very day around noon and offered me a proposition that would free me from the confines of Harrisburg. His brother Hoof (nickname) was to be hitched in the coming weeks and he wanted to know if I would accompany them on his brother’s last bachelor outing. Instantly I agreed to this quest for I knew it would do me good to view some anonymous booty, to become blissfully unconcerned with the relationship aspect of women and who knew perhaps my dream woman was a stripper with a saline boob job, false eye lashes, dyed blond hair, and a fake and bake tan.
It was of course sad to see the last of my bachelor friends hit the windshield of marriage like so many winged insects and then to fall bloodied to earth but I understood. I like my nomadic existence too much to marry for the fear of being alone and refuse to settle for someone that cannot accept all my eccentricities, so yes, I may be alone for ever unless I somehow manage to find my elusive dream woman but this is the price I pay for being me.
After some time, when the Chihuahuas were again asleep in my robe, I grabbed a six pack and made my way back to my desk and my laptop. I typed strip clubs Baltimore into the Google search engine and hit enter.
* * *
The next day after work I visited the Beer Zoo and bought two cases of Troegs Hopback, two cases of Yeungling, and two cases of Miller Light, and put them in a giant cooler in the back of my Cherokee. The Crenshaw brother’s could drink their bodyweight in beer and so what might be considered an excessive stockpile of hops laden beverages was in fact the minimum I dared take with me if I planned on maintaining a constant state of inebriation.
I parked my Cherokee on the sidewalk in front of Scott’s Bar and Grille in downtown Harrisburg because there were no parking spots and made my way inside to meet Hoof and Chester.
I was ten minutes early but found those bastards already seated at the bar, each of them taking up two bar stools, and with a half dozen empty pint glasses sitting around them. They also each had two full beers and a shot sitting in front of them.
“It’s only four-fifty are you bastards going to be able to last all night at this pace?” I asked.
Both Crenshaw brothers turned towards me at the same time. Hoof reached out and slapped me on the shoulder and I nearly lost my balance and fell to the ground.
“Easy there, Hoof, I need that arm for writing, golfing and self-manipulation. Did you ever try to masturbate with your weak hand? It’s not pretty and can lead to various abrasions and pulled muscles…so I hear.”
“How are you doing buddy?” Hoof said. He ran his hand through his thick black hair and I noticed he’d let his sideburns grow down to the bottom of his jaw and looked like a muscular Elvis impersonator. And as always he looked like he had spent a month in the Caribbean but then he always looked tan.
“Hey there crazy man what’s up,” Chester said. He tried to slap me on the shoulder too but I jumped out of the way before he could make contact.
“Not, much except for the dislocated shoulder your brother just gave me,” I said, rubbing my shoulder.
I noticed a lot of blond chest hair sticking out of the neck of his flannel shirt and thought for a moment of taking out my mini-Leatherman and cutting it off but knew that he prized his chest hair and might not think it the goodhearted practical joke that I would.
“Should I order a beer?” I asked.
“No, we can finish these up,” Chester said, adjusting his wire rimmed glasses.
Before I could object both brothers had thrown back there shots and chased it with one beer and I swear to God they didn’t take a breath until they moved to the second glass of beer and when I blinked those beers were gone too.
“Ready?” Hoof asked and let out a burp that shook the glasses on the bar.
Now, if anyone else would have burped like that there would have been looks of disdain and perhaps verbal reproach but with the presence of the Crenshaw brothers those that did dare to make any kind of a response smiled and laughed.
“If I burped like that I would have been back handed and knocked behind the bar,” I said.
“I never have that problem,” Chester said. “People always seem to think its funny when I do it.”
“Well, look at you for Christ’s sake you’re built like a mountain gorilla,” I said.
“I’m not quite that hairy,” Chester said.
“Come on let’s get this show on the road. I have an itinerary written out and if we leave now we’ll get make it to the first club when it opens at seven.”
“Since when did you plan anything?” Chester asked, as we walked outside.
“Since never, I just like to use words that make me sound like I’m organized.”
The Crenshaw brothers struggled to get into Hoof’s new black Hummer H3. I sat in the front seat with Hoof because the two brothers in the front seats wouldn’t fit. Shoulder to shoulder those two bastards would have trouble walking through a garage door. I was glad for their great bulk and near superhuman strength for it made me feel secure, like a joey in the pouch of a mother kangaroo. I could hide behind them in any social situation and throw sticks and stones and not having to worry about anything except paying for the damages those two left in their path which I was willing to do since I caused most confrontations. If anyone ever made it through that wall of human flesh that was the Crenshaw brothers, which I seriously doubted would ever happen, I’d be waiting with my brass knuckles belt buckle on the other side and I’d be swinging for the fences.
“Who’s this Janine that Hoof was telling me about?” Chester asked as we lit out onto Route 83.
“Well, apparently it isn’t going to work out with her, there’s the distance and the fact that I laugh to hard, I drink to hard, and I love too hard. Everything I do is too much for her,” I said.
“Buddy, you are a handful, everything you do is at one end of extreme or the other,” Hoof said.
“Thanks for stating the obvious my old friend. Perhaps I am too extreme, but you only get one chance with me, and Janine had her chance and has now been erased from the annals of my personal history,” I said, and crossed my arms defiantly over my chest.
“Okay, let’s not get dramatic. She was in your life and now she’s not,” Hoof said. He cranked up Too Tough to Die by the Ramones and the bass from the stereo vibrated up through my Burmese jungle boots and tickled the bottoms of my feet.
“I even sent her flowers,” I said. “A dozen roses.”
“You sent her a picture of roses over the Internet. It’s not the same thing,” Hoof said.
“It’s the thought that counts,” I said.
I looked into the back seat and Chester had several slices of lunch meat lying on his thigh and he was cutting at them with an Exacto knife. It would appear that with his large hands that he would be somewhat clumsy but Chester is an artist; probably the most talented I’ve ever met and can pluck an image straight out of your dreams and give it legs. I’ve been trying for some time to collaborate with the bastard but the restraints of work and marriage have as of yet dissuaded such a coupling.
“What in the Hell are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m cutting the olives out of this Olive loaf,” Chester said.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy another lunch meat?” I asked.
“No, I like the taste of olive loaf. It’s a fine mixture of beef and pork with a very interesting texture. I just don’t like all the olives in it. ”
“That is definitely whacked,” I said.
He carefully worked around the edges of each olive with the Exacto knife as if he were performing a very delicate surgery. When a slice of olive was completely cut away he placed it in a stack on his left knee which looked like pile of tarnished quarters. After he had about eight pieces of olive loaf stacked up on his right knee he produced a giant baguette from under the seat and laid it across his crotch. From the pockets of his flannel shirt he removed four slices of cheese.
“You’re like a fucking walking deli,” I said. “Just don’t pull a jar of mustard out of your ass.”
“Do you want a sandwich?” Chester asked.
“I’ll pass. How about another beer?” I said.
He handed me a fresh beer and I cracked it open and took a long pull from the bottle. It was then that Hoof handed me a ceramic bowl stuffed with smoldering bud. I took a hit and held the smoke in my lungs and as the oxygen was depleted from my brain I looked into the back seat at Chester. He took the stack of olives slices he’d cut out of the olive loaf off his knee and tossed them into his mouth.
“What the Hell are you doing? I thought you didn’t like olives,” I said, exhaling.
“I like olives just not in my olive loaf,” he said.
He removed a dozen or so packs of mustard from another pocket and smeared them on his baguette. I hit the bowl again and handed it back to Hoof.
“There is no way I could make something like this up,” I said.
“Like what?” Chester asked, baguette falling out of his mouth.
“Like the way you just made that Goddamn sandwich,” I said.
I rolled the passengers window down a few inches and lit a Gurkha Regent torpedo. I followed the smoke as it billowed up to the roof of the H3 and out the window where I imagined it mixed with the air and car exhaust and then flew straight for the ozone layer and bit off a piece as big as a manhole cover. I wondered that since George Bush and Dick Cheney didn’t believe there was a problem with global warming if they wouldn’t mind moving up to the North Pole and living directly under the hole in the ozone layer.
Another Troegs followed another hit off Hoof’s bowl and this pattern continued as my eyes examined the scenery and my mind drifted to places unknown. Something was changing inside me and I couldn’t quite yank it down from the shelf of possibility but knew that it sat there just the same. Was I losing the momentum that had thus far driven me to act in ways that defied social norms? Had my day come and gone? Was searching out my dream woman an ultimately futile attempt at attaining the ever elusive concept of happiness? I took the staircase down into the basement of my mind and searched through rusty filing cabinet after rusty filing cabinet but could not find the documents I had been searching for and thus was still as lost as to the origins of this strange feeling as I was when I stared my mental quest, which fueled by drugs an booze had taken a very strange path indeed.
“We’re here,” Hoof said, and my mind burst from the bubble from which it had been encased.
I gazed up at the pink neon sign that read: Tit-A-Whir Gentleman’s Club, which was the first club on our schedule. I had pictured something more elaborate, something that looked less like a converted auto body shop but figured that even the ugliest trees sometimes bore the sweet fruit.
“What do you think fellas?” I said. “The Tit-A-Whir.”
“It looks like a converted auto body shop,” Chester said, a frown on his face
“Right, listen; when we get in here I want you two bastards to take it easy on the beer. No two fisting and no guzzling. I’d like to keep my buzz going for an hour or two,” I said.
“It’s a race to the finish my friend,” Hoof said. “May the best man win.”
“Damn you bastards would do that to me. You drink beer like a an out of control forest fire chews through a puddle of gasoline but do remember that I’m not far behind you two in consumption abilities and if pushed just might out drink both of you.”
They both snickered.
The club was BYOB so the Crenshaw brothers carried the six foot long cooler into the club. I considered sitting on the cooler and having them carry me in but nixed the idea when I thought that such a move would be too Roman in nature and although I am a man of great excess too I didn’t want to be compared to full grown men that paraded around in bed sheets and drank water that was funneled through lead pipes and which probably drove a good percentage of them mad.
As we entered the converted auto body shop that now housed Tit-A-Whir the smell of stale beer, cigarette smoke and coconut body spray drifted over me in one noxious wave.
“Ten bucks,” the bouncer collecting money said. He had a choppy looking Mohawk which looked like it had been cut with a pair of dull spoons and his physique looked like he lived on a diet consisting of Snickers bars and root beer. His gut hung over his belt and covered his crotch completely. I imagined when he urinated he needed a pole to prop this monstrous belly up with so both his hands would be free to try and locate his penis.
“It’s dark in here,” Hoof said, as he and Chester set the cooler down over by the coat rack.
“Those strobe lights are going to make me sick,” Chester said.
“Quit your whining boys we’re here to see naked women, which should be first and foremost on your minds. Come on,” I said.
As we rounded the corner to the stage I was greeted with the most glorious of sights…naked women. If I had the money I’d decorate my entire house with naked women. I’d have a naked woman for a coffee table and I’d set my beer on her ass…what the Hell was I talking about? Oh, yeah, on stage was a blond with full protruding lips, huge breasts, and long succulent legs. She was wearing white Go Go boots and an orange Day Glo bikini.
“That’s a glorious set of nestled porkers,” Hoof said.
“Her breasts look like giant construction cones in that orange bikini top,” I said.
Hoof was definitely a tit man as was Chester and I although I admire the female body in all its glorious forms I am largely indifferent to the size of a woman’s breasts, it is rather the completeness of the package that attracts me and as I consume more drugs and alcohol the wrapping of the package becomes less and less of a concern.
“Let’s sit here,” Chester, said sitting in a chair along the stage.
I sat beside Chester and Hoof sat on the other side of me. The stripper in the Day Glo bikini turned towards us and smacked her ass in a move that was really quite strange.
“Bravo,” I cried, and stood, throwing dollar bills at her.
“Sit down. You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” Hoof said.
“Right,” I said.
I could smell Sterno and what smelled like tortillas and turned to see from where the odor was coming from. There was a long table behind us against the far wall at which several men were spooning food onto plates.
“Oh, that’s right they have a free Mexican buffet here,” I said.
Before I could turn around fully in my chair again the Crenshaw brothers were at the buffet table piling tacos and refried beans on their plates. It would be a long ride home if they insisted on eating so much fibrous food.
I kicked back and took the scene in; watching the slobbering fools throwing money at the naked women on stage. I noted one husky balding guy in particular across the stage from me. He was staring dreamily into the eyes of thin black woman in front of him and I could tell the bastard was smitten. He rolled dollar bills up one after another and stuck them in her garter so she wouldn’t leave the stage in front of him. Every time I had gone to a strip club I had seen these types, the ones that can’t discern fantasy from reality. They buy into the ruse, they forget that they are paying for a peak and confuse this transaction with love. It was a sad commentary on life and I had to get my mind out from around it less I sink into a melancholy state and ruin my whole night.
The Crenshaw brothers returned and devoured several plates of Mexican food but I abstained for I fear all the carbohydrate laden food would soak up the beer in my belly and render me sober.
The women continued to funnel onto the stage and I continued to drink more and toss more bills at there feet. With each passing naked women the sexual tension in me grew. It was torturous to see them naked and so close, yet so far away.
“I have to go to the pisser,” I said, rising and heading off in the direction of the bathroom.
“Did you try the tacos?” Chester asked.
On the way back from the bathroom I stopped by the DJ booth were I saw the bouncer with the Mohawk.
“I want to buy my friend a lap dance,” I said. “He’s getting married and—”
“Twenty bucks, which one do you want?” he said. He lifted his gut slightly and stuck the money in the front pocket of his jeans.
“The tall blond with the Day Glo orange bikini,” I said.
“Ten minutes,” he said, turned and walked away.
“I got you a lap dance,” I said to Hoof when I sat back down. “It’s with that blond you liked.”
“No, I told the fiancée no lap dances,” he said.
“Are you on crack man?” I said, standing.
“No, I won’t do it,” he said and Chester nodded in agreement.
“You two are more whipped than I ever thought possible. Fine, sit here and stuff your faces with Mexican food. I’ll go get the lap dance,” I said stomping off to find the bouncer and get my lap dance.
* * *
I was lead back into a series of rooms with thick black curtains as doors and deposited inside by a shorter bouncer with a shaved head and plastic discs in each of his ear lobes.
“Do those things hurt,” I asked, as he made to leave.
“Does a dick in your ear hurt?” he said, glaring at me.
“I’m not following but that’s okay, carry on,” I said.
“Drunk jackass,” he said, threw the curtain open and left.
I seated myself on the zebra skin couch and rested my feet on the bamboo coffee table, which I think was actually made of PVC pipes painted yellow. From the pocket of my leather jacket I removed a bottle of Troegs Hopback, opened it, and drank.
After five minutes or so I grew bored of waiting for the stripper and took out one of the Gurkha Regent torpedos “Igor” had given me and lit it with my Zippo. It smoked like a Savanna brush fire and smoke billowed up and collected at the ceiling.
Feeling quite relaxed I leaned back and I didn’t realize it but my cigar was touching a light curtain hanging from the ceiling and before I knew what was happening the curtain had burst into flames. It is not my nature to take these things lightly, to sit back and calmly weigh my options but to spring forth in a purely reactionary manner, to charge directly at the windmill, leading with my lance, to confront the beast when he is off guard and let fate determine the outcome as it would see fit. Inaction is a hobby for the dead.
I jumped to my feet and in the process broke the bamboo coffee table in half. “Damn,” I cried as I grabbed my Troegs Hopback and tried to put out the fire with it but had trouble getting the beer out of the bottle and onto the fire. And then I noticed a fire extinguisher by the entrance and grabbed it. I pulled the pin and squeezed the trigger and in no time the curtain was out but now the room was filled with smoke and I couldn’t see anything. I dropped to the ground and began to crawl towards the door. Just as I was about to pull open the curtain and crawl out the door I ran into a thick pair of ankles. I stood.
“What’s going on in here?” a woman said.
“I lit a cigar and it got out of control,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, and switched on a ceiling fan. Instantly the smoke dissipated. “I guess I’m here to give you a lap dance.”
“Uh, I thought it was with the blond,” I said, stepping back.
“No, you get me,” she said.
She was a big girl with breasts that were so large I suspected they weren’t breasts at all but two craftily constructed hollow compartments in which two midgets might have been stashed in order to sneak them across some border. She saw me looking at her breasts and unhinged her titanic bra. A whoosh of air blew into my face as they swung freely through the room like synchronized wrecking balls.
“You should warn someone when you’re going to do that,” I said, backing up.
“Does daddy want to play?” she said.
“No, offense but I ordered the tall blond with the Day Glo orange bikini.”
“What, I’m not good enough for you?” she said, her voice becoming angry.
“You’re plenty good,” I said, and knowing there was no easy way out of the situation I figured I might as well roll with it. “In fact you’re pretty cute.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said and suddenly sprinted at me and shoved me down on the couch and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to hurt me or be seductive but she played more like a linebacker than a Playboy Playmate. And then without notice she jumped on me and shoved her boobs in my face. She started grinding on my knee and making strange noises that sounded like a squeaky screen door.
“You’re hurting my knee,” I said.
She didn’t listen but ground her breasts into my face harder and put out my cigar. She didn’t scream so I figured the cherry must have fallen off to the side somewhere but couldn’t see it and prayed that it wouldn’t start another fire.
“You want me big guy,” she said.
“Want? You mean in the Biblical sense? Would that cost me extra?” I said.
Her blank stare told me she was getting my humor so I didn’t push on.
“I’ll dance for you all night long and it will only cost you $300 dollars,” she said still grinding.
If there was any spell, which would have been tenuous lusting at best, it was broken when she said $300 dollars.
“Right, well the thing is I’m supposed to get a lap dance from this other stripper.”
Immediately she jumped off my leg, reacting as if she’d been straddling a lawn chair with a nest of hornets underneath it. She landed some three feet away, her breasts swinging back and forth. She hurriedly put on her robe and without a word threw open the curtain and was gone.
“Interesting,” I said to myself.
I wasn’t exactly sure what had transpired but I was pretty sure it hadn’t been successful.
I made my way back to Hoof and Chester and they were still chewing on tacos and throwing dollar bills at strippers like it was confetti and they were at a parade.
“You might want to ease up on the money throwing my friends. We still have several other establishments to visit.”
“What they don’t have ATMs?” Hoof asked with a smile.
“Right,” I said.
“Didn’t you get a lap dance?” Chester asked with a smile.
“You bastards switched strippers on me. You sent me that milk maid which might not have been so bad but she was about as gentle as a grizzly bear in a peanut butter factory,” I said, sitting back down.
“I don’t know if we’re going to make to any other places. It’s getting late,” Hoof said, wiping taco sauce off his chin.
I commenced to down another beer or two as strippers passed in front of me and joined in viewing the flesh parade and I too threw dollar bills like confetti.
It was then, on the far corner of the stage, beneath a purple spotlight, dancing to the Prince’s Raspberry Beret, that I spied her. Immediately we made eye contact…okay, maybe only my eyes contacted her but it is of little importance for she was a vision tweaked from godly sketches of perfection. My chest tightened…no, wait that was heartburn from the beer. Her hair was twisted in corn rows and beaded braids which bounced off her back and looked like the tentacles of some fluorescent, deep sea creature. She was slender but shapely and moved with such grace that I supposed as a toddler she had not first walked but that her first step had been a sophisticated dance step and that her second step led into a pirouette. She winked at me and in my inebriated state I thought to myself that I was probably the only one she ever winked at. Maybe I didn’t really deep down believe that but maybe I told myself that because at that moment I needed to believe that.
“Do you see her?” I asked the Crenshaw brothers, “The young Puerto Rican girl on the other side of the stage.”
Neither brother spoke for both their mouths were filled with refried beans and beer but I could see by their expressions that they knew exactly what I was talking about.
Entranced by the sight of her I could do nothing but those perfunctory processes that allowed me to continue to live i.e., breathe and drink beer.
“Encore, encore,” I cried when she left the stage. Everyone was staring at me but I didn’t care.
“Why don’t you go get a lap dance,” Chester said.
“Right,” I said, standing and making my way to the DJ’s booth were she was putting on her bathrobe.
“Isn’t that a coincidence? I was putting on a bathrobe this morning too,” I said.
She looked at me like I was nuts, which was probably appropriate for the strange comment I had made.
“You are gorgeous and if you are available I’d like to get a lap dance,” I said.
She smiled and I felt the residue of love past come unclogged from my heart and once again it beat with the horsepower of a thousand lawn mowers.
“This way,” she said, taking my hand.
It was then that I thought that perhaps I’d been too hard on the chubby guy that seemed to be in love with the stripper on stage. Perhaps it was possible to fall in love with a naked woman and not know anything else about them except that they looked fabulous in their birthday suits.
The exotic beauty deposited me in one of rooms with curtains for doors and left for a moment. I took out my Binaca Breath spray and shot five mists into my mouth. I cursed myself for smoking the cigar for now my breath would be stale with smoke and beer despite my potent peppermint breath juice.
“You damn idiot,” I said cursing myself.
“Me?” my little love goddess said as she stepped back into the room
“No, not you, you’re not an idiot. Me, I’m the idiot,” I said, sitting up.
She smiled and took off her top and came over to me and sat on my knee. Music suddenly filled the room. I recognized the song as Muse’s Meglomania.
“Meglomania,” I said.
She nodded and placed her hands on my shoulders and slowly pushed her chest towards me. I drained the rest of my beer and put my hands on her hips and she didn’t protest and I knew it was against house rules but I was way too high and drunk to give a shit and besides I had the Crenshaw brothers to back me up if anyone dared to try and reprimand me.
Her deep brown eyes traveled the length of my body and I sucked my gut in but she didn’t seem to notice and stopped and focused on my left pectoral muscle. I figured I must have a ketchup stain on my shirt or perhaps a salsa stain from the Mexican food the Crenshaw brothers were eating.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
She was staring at my pen and notebook.
“I write a little,” I said.
“You’re a writer,” she asked.
“Some people say I am. I prefer to think of myself as a literary juggernaut but of course that’s just the drugs and alcohol talking. Tomorrow I’ll probably loathe myself until my hangover is gone."
“In Hindi you say JagannAth, which means lord of the world and is the title of Vishnu,” she said.
“That’s impressive. I thought juggernaut was old English for, “do you want a jug or not?” which through the centuries came to mean--”
“You really like to hear yourself talk don’t you?” she asked.
“This verbosity is a sickness. Please forgive me,” I said, taking her hand and kissing it.
“I’m Rosita,” she said, “my friends call me Rosy. I’m going to graduate school for journalism. I only work here to pay for tuition.”
“I can’t help but feel we’re doing this backwards. Shouldn’t we have introduced ourselves before I saw you naked?” I said, cracking open another Troegs. “Would you like one?”
“Sure,” she said, “climbing off my lap and sitting beside me. She put on her top which disappointed me but I thought what the Hell she seemed pretty interesting.
I opened a beer and handed it to her.
“So, you’re a writer,” she said, “what do you write?”
“Whatever happens, whatever doesn’t happen, whatever I feel like,” I said.
“It doesn’t sound very disciplined,” she said sipping from her beer.
“You would think so but from all that chaos comes some interesting moments,” I said.
“Do you have a girlfriend,” Rosy asked.
“No…I was interested in a young lass but it didn’t work out…let me ask you this if I sent you roses over the Internet would you think that was a nice gesture?”
“You mean you ordered them over the Internet?” she asked.
“No, not exactly, I sent her a picture of roses over the Internet,” I said.
I studied her for a reaction. Her full lips, painted with purple lipstick came together as if she was sucking on a watermelon Jolly Rancer.
“Yes, if you were thoughtful enough to think of me then it wouldn’t matter if it was a picture or not,” she said, and looked shyly away.
It could be that the seeds of love were planted in the fertile soil of my heart at that very moment.
The curtain parted and I was blinded by the light from the hallway. “Hey, what are you doing in here? You’re up on stage next,” the big fat bouncer with a Mohawk asked.
“Just finishing up,” Rosy said.
“Bastard,” I said, standing. I reached into my wallet and gave her a handful of bills.
“Thank-you,” she said, “look for me before you go.”
“Will, do,” I said.
Rosy stood and hustled out of the room and was gone. I went back to the Crenshaw brothers who were still sitting by the stage throwing dollar bills at the strippers but had thankfully finished with the Mexican buffet.
“Let me get in on the action,” I said. “I haven’t thrown away enough money tonight.”
I opened up my wallet and to my dismay it was empty.
“I’ve been swindled,” I said, frantically rooting through my wallet.
“Calm down,” Chester said. “You probably just spent it all and don’t remember.”
“How the Hell could I spend four hundred dollars and not remember it?” I said, still rooting through my wallet.
“You were throwing money all over the place,” Hoof said, tossing another bill onto the stage in front of a large breasted stripper.
I tried to recall the night and it was hazy at best but I was damn sure I hadn’t spent four hundred dollars.
“Hoof, I gave you some money because you are the man of the night,” I said. “I spent forty on lap dances. I went up and got ones…five times. I couldn’t have spent more than two hundred dollars.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Hoof said. “I’ll cover you.”
“That’s not the point. I can always go to the ATM. I think Rosy robbed me,” I said.
“Rosy?” Chester asked.
“Yes, the exquisite young lass I just got a lap dance from. She was good. I don’t even remember her touching me near my wallet.”
I was convinced that Rosy had set me up, that she’d pretended to be journalism major in order to take my attention away from her crafty little fingers. There would be no changing my mind on this matter for when I am in the throes of a drug and alcohol binge I have horse blinders on to all other possibilities despite how illogical my initial assertions might be.
“I’m going to speak to the management,” I said, standing and swaying.
“Don’t,” Chester said, but it was too late I was already heading to the front desk.
* * *
“I want to lodge a complaint,” I said, to the guy at the front desk, a scrawny character with a weeks worth of grey beard and puffy green eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking a drag on a cigarette.
“One of your girls ripped me off. She stole all my money,” I said.
“You drunk son-of-a-bitches always think the girls take your money. You probably spent it all,” he said.
He took a pile of bills out of the cash register and began to count. I stood there for a few moments but he didn’t look up.
“Seventy-five, seventy-six,” I said, trying to mess up his counting.
“Seventy-seven…God damn it you moron you made me lose count!” he said.
“I want my money back now,” I said, “or I’m going to call the police.”
“Hey, there all thieves what do you want me to do about it?” the bouncer with the Mohawk said, coming up behind me. He took a step towards me, which in my thickly iced mental state felt like a threat.
“Back you bastard,” I cried, taking the ready karate stance. “I rarely finish anything I don’t start. Hoof, Chester, come take care of my light work.”
When my two burly friends didn’t come right away I turned and to my dismay Hoof and Chester were nowhere to be seen. They’d vacated their seats by the stage. I gulped and knew then that my only chance for survival was to act like a madman which really wouldn’t be much of a stretch at all.
“Okay, you bastard,” I yelled. I tried to pull my brass knuckles belt buckle off but for some reason it was stuck. I figured I would fair well against one of the bouncers but several others, including the guy with plastic discs in his ears had gathered behind the guy with the Mohawk. I’d wished I’d never met my little Puerto Rican love Goddess.
I backed up towards the stage. They had surrounded me. I knew that no matter how this went down it wouldn’t be pretty. Suddenly I felt a hand come down on my shoulder. I turned quickly.
“What in the Hell are you doing?” Chester asked, grinning like a court jester. Hoof was standing beside and I heard him grunt.
“I was just telling these bastards that if they wanted to mess with me they’d have to go through you two first. Where were you guys?”
“Bathroom,” Hoof said, cracking his knuckles.
I could see the bouncer with the Mohawk was nervous at the site of the Crenshaw brothers and rightly so. If he was smart he would back down but I knew that he wasn’t smart.
Finally I got my brass knuckles belt buckle unhooked. I put it on my fist and jumped into the face of the Mohawk bouncer.
“What the Hell is he doing?” the Mohawk bouncer asked.
“Whatever he wants,” Hoof said.
The big bouncer with the Mohawk made for me and I readied to punch him with my brass knuckles but before I could Hoof shot between us and grabbed him by the neck and shoved him up against the wall with one arm.
“That’s what I was going to do,” I said.
The bouncer with the plastic discs in his ears made after Chester and then the smallest of the bouncers came after me. Despite the weight of my Burmese jungle boots I jumped up on the stage, turned and kicked the bouncer in the jaw…okay, maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that. It went more like this.
“I don’t really feel like fighting,” I said, “how about a beer?”
“Sure,” the bouncer said. We sat down at a table and watched Chester and Hoof toss the other bouncers around like they were made of straw.
“There you are.” It was Rosy. “I went back in the room to get my shoes after I left. You must have dropped this.”
She handed me a wad of money.
“What’s going on here? Whose fighting?” she asked.
“Those two big brutes were attacking the bouncers,” I said. “Someone should do something about them.”
“You said she stole your money,” the bouncer said.
“No, you’re mistaken,” I said, winking at him.
“No, you said Rosy stole your money,” he insisted.
I knew that I had better think fast or I would get smacked in the face. Too late.
“Ouch, why did you smack me,” I said.
“I thought you were different,” she said, turned and walked away.
“I am different. Come back,” I said standing.
“Come on let’s get out of here,” Chester yelled.
Hoof came up from behind me and started ushering me towards the door.
“Wait, I want to get Rosy’s number,” I said.
“The cops are on there way. We have to go now,” Hoof said.
I took one last look back and Rosy was standing by the rear exit looking quite angry.
“I’ll E-mail you on the Tit-A-Whir website,” I yelled, as Hoof pushed me out the front door.
Chester wrapped one arm around the cooler and ran with it like a football out to the H3.
We peeled out of the parking lot and down the road a ways passed several cop cars on their way to the Tit-A-Whir.
“You almost got us arrested again,” Chester said.
“Almost only counts in the launching of nuclear weapons and running over the toes of a particularly inept president with your car. You two do know that the woman I met, Rosy, was an inspiring journalist. We have to go back,” I said, suddenly going into a panic.
“We will be with you until the end my friend but we’re not going out like that. If we go back there we’ll end up in jail,” Hoof said.
“I’m hungry,” Chester said.
“You’re always hungry,” I said.
“Let’s stop at this diner,” Hoof said, slamming on the brakes and pulling into the parking lot of the Oriole All Night Diner.
“This place is dirty,” I said once we were seated inside.
“The germs are cooked off the food,” Chester said.
“Weren’t you two eating Mexican food all night long?” I asked.
“Drinking makes me hungry,” Hoof said.
We were seated near the door and I heard the bells at the top of it ring and looked up. A group of attractive women entered and one of them was Rosy.
“It’s Rosy,” I said.
The Crenshaw brothers turned and looked.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Hoof said.
I took out my wallet and removed a folded up magazine page.
“What is that?” Chester asked.
“Nothing,” I said rising.
I walked over to where Rosy and her friends were seated and before she could tell me off I handed her the magazine page which held the picture of a dozen roses on it.
She looked at the picture and the anger on her face disappeared.
“Would you ladies like to join us for a late night snack?” I said.
Rosy smiled and I extended my hand to help her up out of the booth.
* * *
Loyalty is a great thing and I will be loyal to the Crenshaw brothers until the day I die but loyalty for the sake of loyalty is not in itself noble. Just look at the cock suckers that were loyal to Hitler, Pol Pot, or Idi Amin. What is noble is to be loyal to those that are worthy of loyalty, to trust in those that you know are good, to see beyond the superficial and to ignore those that consider you expendable. The bastards can only gain power and they can only suck the life from you if you give them attention. Pull away and watch them wither. Respect for your feelings is not an option to be cast aside when the cock suckers decide their own desires are more important than yours.
I’m am on a train traveling through the night and I don’t know where it’s going and I don’t really give a damn that it’s going too fast but I do know that when the train stops in some far away place that I will still be me and you will still be you and you will wonder why things have to be the way they are and I will say “because,” and I will step off the platform and walk away and never look back.
1 comment:
Good stuff. Thanks again for the entertainment.
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