Sledge-Hammered Feet in Four Inch Spikes
Belle’s back hurt. She
had been behind the bar since six and it was almost closing time. Nothing
quite like wearing four inch spikes for making your feet feel
sledgehammered. She always thought she’d like to see Elvis, the owner, in
spikes. She thought of him; a short, enormous jelly belly of lecherous
thought in the mandatory silver “4-inch spikes”. What a picture he would
make. Belle looked at the Budweiser clock on the wall through the fog of
cigarette smoke.
“Hey guys, time, Last call for alcohol”.
A regular was sitting at the end of
the bar with his elbows leaning on the sticky, cracked,
patched-with-black-electrical-tape bar. Wendy, the last dancer of the
night, was just finishing her set. She was doing her pirouette turns to
Maria Muldar’s song, Midnight at the Oasis. A rainbow colored prism
flashed from the rhinestones on her spike-heels. The light under one of the
multi-colored Lucite panels on the three-foot high stage was flickering.
Belle looked around and told Candy,
Sherry and Jules, “Time to start cleaning up.”
Steve, Candy’s boyfriend pushed her
off his lap and the two of them started putting the French-café style
chrome chairs up on the small round empty tables. One of the legs broke off
again on the recently repaired chair. There were fourteen tables and chairs
on three sides of the stage. The fourth side of the stage was the wall,
which were all mirrors. The walls were painted black and the carpeting was
dark.
Elvis, the owner, hated the girls to have their
boyfriends in; he said it was bad for business. Belle thought only a
certifiable nutcase would think that the girls didn’t have outside friends.
She always let Steve in and
gave him a comp drink when she was working night bartender. It saved Candy
stealing one, which she would, and he always helped put up the chairs.
By the end of the shift
she would take any help she could get. Sammy, the bouncer, was checking to
see that all of the customers were out of the men’s room. He always made
her think of a corn-fed farm boy. He walked up on his toes, leaning
forward. He had tried twice to get in to the Sheriff’s Academy but he
hadn’t been able to pass the written part of the test.
Belle gave the regular
sitting at the end of the bar his last draft and gave him a tired smile as
he tucked a dollar in her top. “Thanks”, she said automatically. By 1:55am
everything she did was on autopilot.
“Drink up,” she said, “I’m going to
kick your butt out of here in about four minutes”.
Man, she was tired of
listening to his stupid duck joke. It was only marginally funny the first
time. By the time he told it the sixth, she felt like doing something
physical to him he wouldn’t like. She didn’t have to worry about this guy.
He usually didn’t get too toasted until right before he went home. Belle
wondered sometimes about what his home life must be like to make nursing a
draft for hours better than going home. Did he have no one, or did he hate
the someone he had? Or, maybe, he told that stupid duck joke at home and
whoever was there couldn’t take it either. Sammy had told her he saw him
reeling up the gravel driveway of a house about two blocks from the bar.
Sammy got the rest of the guys
tractored-out of the john and sent them and the regular on their way with,
“Same bat-time, same bat-place”. Belle wished he wouldn’t say that, it
sounded so corny. She hadn’t thought of a way to tell him yet that wouldn’t
hurt his feelings. You had to be careful with Sammy, his feelings got hurt
easily.
“O.k. ladies”, Bell
said, “lets finish cleaning up fast and blow this place.”
She looked around and Sammy was
counting stock and everyone was working. Sherry had just punched in her
favorite, E6, “The Joker”, by Steve Miller Band, on the jukebox.
“Come on Sherry, I like
the song too, but you’ve danced to it all night. Put something on that we
haven’t heard. Punch something like, Don’t let the sun go down on me, or
Ricky don’t lose that number, or, you know what I would really like? S-2, Croce’s, Working at the Carwash
Blues.”
Then she saw Wendy
almost to the door dressed in her street clothes with her grubby pink
Capezeio Ballet bag over her shoulder.
Hey! Wendy, Come over here for a
minute.”
Sammy was yelling from
the back storage room, “Hey Belle, Jules says to leave a note for Elvis
that there is a bulb burned out under the runway, she says tell him it’s
the one under the red Lucite panel. I don’t have any in the stockroom and
add to the list that we are out of Wild Turkey and Jack Daniels.”
“Shit”, Bell said, “The
day girls are not going to like that, the tips are bad enough as it is,
they sure aren’t going to like having the stage ripped up.”
“It’s not the bulb it’s the wiring. Silver
said the girls couldn’t get more that a dollar out of even their regulars
today. She caught Carol at it again in the back. One of these days that
girl is going to get us all busted and the place closed.”
Then she turned to Wendy
who had dumped her ballet bag by the barstool and was coolly lighting a
Marlboro Red.
“And then I get you,
Wendy, Miss prima dona who tries to sneak out the door with out helping. Elvis
said the agency sent you and you got some ballet. Usually Elvis doesn’t
have you work the late shift so maybe you don’t know that we all pitch in
here to clean up.”
Wendy just looked at her
and said, “I never clean.”
“What do you mean you
never clean? Everyone helps clean and close, Sammy helps, and even Candy’s
boyfriend, Steve helps.”
“Just that, I don’t
clean. I don’t clean because I’m not hired to be a waitress or a janitor.
I’m an artist. The agency sends me out to dance. I’m the entertainment and
the entertainment isn’t paid to clean. I’m what people pay money to see.”
“Look,” Belle said, “I
gave you the benefit of the doubt, I give everyone the benefit of the
doubt, I pride myself on it. We all get enough trouble without getting into
it with each other. Candy, Sherry and Jules are entertainment too and they
help. The daygirls told me you were probably a stuck-up bitch and I hate to
say it but I think they’re right. You start cleaning or you are going to
have a world of hurt in about ten seconds and I’m counting.”
“Belle listen to me
before you blow up and hurt me. I know you can. I saw that drunk after you
eighty-sixed him. Man, you really spiked him. Here is the deal. I don’t
think Candy, Julie or Sherry or any of the other dancers should clean up; I
don’t think you or Sammy should clean up either. Elvis doesn’t pay us to
clean. Look at the other shifts. Opening and setting up on the day shift
are part of what they get paid for!”
Belle thought about it
for a minute and then she said, “You know you could have a small point in
that tiny head.”
Wendy looked at Belle
and said, “I know I have more than just a small point and so do you. Give
me that rag, but only this once. I’m not going to slave for Elvis just so
he can wring out a few more bucks from this perverted rat hole he calls a
club.”
Belle looked at her and
said, “You know Wendy, you’re O.K. Do you want to go get something to eat
at Tiny Naylors?”
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