“Who cares? He just took his forty-year-old son home, not to mention our tips.” She frowned. “We could make Al spend every cent in his pocket, if that damn stingy, stick-in-the-mud didn’t always tag along and oversee his spending.”
Gabe might have been a pain in the ass, but stingy was hardly the adjective I’d attach to anyone who dropped as much money on our tip trays as he did.
Gabe was twenty-something, quiet, and enigmatic. Of average height and slim build, he walked with a slow, confident stride, standing straight with his head slightly tilted back as if to say, “Bite my ass.” He drank slowly and spoke only when a grunt wouldn’t serve as suitable answer. When he did speak, an urbane vocabulary embroidered his adopted Texas drawl, which he incorporated into his extremely rare, yet sometimes profound and frequently crude comments.
Gabe’s short blond hair was layered, and swept horizontally across his forehead onto skin tanned from the sun. His flaxen hair was in sharp contrast to his dark, short and well groomed moustache that stood guard over ruby red lips, and his strong, decisive nose amplified his masculinity. Gabe’s handsome looks caused most dancers to come to his table, but his pale blue eyes exuded frigid indifference and the girls swiftly turned their attention to Al. Gabe sat at the table like a bear with a burr up his butt, looking thoroughly irritated as he and Al alternated paying for drinks. Unlike his partner, Gabe never got drunk, but everyone knew to disregard the guy dubbed “arrogant asshole” until his mood got slightly altered by a few beers.
The first time I waited on their table, Al enthusiastically interrogated, “Aren’t you new here? Where’d you work before? Is your name Sherry or Cherry?”
“Oh, pleeeease. My name is pronounced Sha-Ree like Little Stevie Wonder’s new song, My Cherie Amour. It’s French, ya know. And yes, I’m new here. I’m a recently divorced mom with no prior work experience of this nature.” I flashed a big smile and awaited my tip. Gabe stared absently into the smoke filled room as Al and I continued blabbing while he placed money on my tray. Being my nervous but talkative self, I turned to Gabe. “Don’t you ever talk?”
Without changing his gaze, Gabe drew deeply on a cigarette, and then issued a stream of smoke into the air. “Don’t you ever not talk?” he replied icily.
What a jerk! I rushed away, determined not to let the rude asshole dampen my karma.
Nights later while serving beer to the partners, I remained void of comment to Gabe, but cheerful as always to Al, even though he wasn’t reaching into his pocket for money fast enough to suit me. Al started singing My Cherie Amour, lovely as a summer day. I was accustomed to hearing the song customers seemed compelled to sing after hearing my name, but lingering too long at a table meant lost tips elsewhere. I tapped my tip tray on the table. Gabe slowly slid three dollars on it. “Wow, thanks.” I smiled.
With his usual expression, he said, “I’d do just about anything for a piece of ass.”
Al laughed as though his partner was George Carlin. A curious triumph coarsened Gabe’s face. “You uncouth jerk.” I shot Gabe a censorious gaze.
The young one leaned back in his chair and in most derisive tone, retorted, “Well, aren’t we the sanctimonious one?”
How dare he make a lascivious remark and then speak condescendingly to me. I lifted my chin, stormed away, and told Kat I wasn’t waiting on the heathens again, despite their generous tips. She dashed to their table and began saying something, which didn’t look like the reprimand I’d hoped, seeing as how her face was framed in sunshine the entire time. Eventually she twisted her butt back to the waitress area. “They both apologized and promise to behave. Gabe even grinned and said something about you being the most prolix person he’s ever met. What the heck does prolix mean, cutie?”
“It means excessively wordy. But I’d rather be talkative than be a laconic jerk like him.”
“Don’t know what laconic means either, but lighten up and stop being such a square. Gabe’s a decent enough guy, he just likes trying to get a rise out of people.”
It was impossible to avoid Gabe and Al’s table on busy nights, but I took their orders and delivered in speedy fashion. Gabe seemed to delight in getting my reaction to his flat-out vulgarities or phrases filled with double entendre. I frowned, but kept my cool and their tips. On an extremely slow evening as the old one sucked suds, my innate need to chatter kicked in as I turned to the young one. “So, what does ‘trim men’ mean?”
Looking as though talking to me a dreadful chore, Gabe curtly said, “We’re custom carpenters who specialize in spiral staircases.”
“I read Walt Whitman’s father was a carpenter,” I continued in spite of his terse tone.
My comment was apparently amusing to Gabe who shot a look across the table to Al, indicating my IQ less than Lucy and Ethel’s combined, chuckled, threw his head back, swallowed a long drink of Budweiser, then turned his eyes to me. “Yeaaah,” he mocked, “we’re just a couple of worthless, ole carpenters.”
I didn’t consider my remark rude, and didn’t like the way he elongated yeah in arrogant tone. “I never realized using the words carpenter and Whitman in the same sentence could offend anyone.” I scanned the room. “But then, I failed to consider subliterate barflies.”
The words barely fluttered from my mouth before I realized I had committed a major topless club faux pas. Never insult those attached to the hands that toss out the tips that are the paycheck. I attempted a save. “I’m sorry if I offended. I must’ve taken a tiny vacation and left my bitch personality in charge. I’ve been trying to enroll her in a Dale Carnegie course.”
“That’s okay.” Al unleashed a goofy ass grin as he cut his eyes toward Gabe. “Here Cherie, take our last three dollars for your tip. We’ll go without dinner.”
“Thank you so much Al, at least I won’t go without pastie glue. You are the God of generosity, no matter what Greek legends say,” I said sweetly, walking away.
Although Gabe remained reserved, occasionally after a few beers he would casually blurt, “You know I’d do anything for a piece of ass, don’t you?” I learned to ignore his comments and simply move onto the next table, but one night he became difficult, holding my tip tray while slowly singing, “Myyyyyy Cheeeeeeeeerie Amour.”
The guy was starting to crawl up my nerves. “Gabe, please just give me my tray so I can work.” I looked around at lost tips.
“You gonna give me a piece of ass, if I do?” he asked in exaggerated Texas drawl.
“Pleeease stop spouting that stupid line. You need shock therapy or something.”
“I’ll bet shock therapy couldn’t be as electrifying as a piece of ass from you.” He slapped a five dollar tip on my tray.
Okay. The tip momentarily numbed my tongue. But not my desire to beat him at his little game of verbal insolence. “Maybe a cattle prod would get my point across.”
“Whoa, a cattle prod. I grew up on a farm and. . .”
“So did Robert Burns. But you’re hardly poetic. In fact, I think you’re the sort of man who gets excited by a cattle prod and aroused by livestock.”
“Nice return, Blondie.”
“Blondie?”
“Yeaaah, you remind me of that ditzy Goldie chick on Laugh In.”
“Ditzy? Well, you remind me of something my dad once coughed up during a nasty illness.” I grabbed my tip tray and walked away.
“Hey, I think Goldie’s cute and just pretends to be ditzy,” he shouted as my white go-go boots kept walking. “And maybe I’m the one who needs that Dale Carnegie course.”
I relayed mine and Gabe’s encounter to Beau while placing my drink order. Only semi-amused, he took on a stern, fatherly look. “Baby.” He turned his head to hide a little grin, “That phlegm bit wasn’t exactly ladylike verbiage.”
From day one, I sensed Beau was trying to pull a Professor Higgins on me, but I wasn’t a quick study like Eliza Doolittle. “Well pardon me.” I fluttered my eyelashes Katie-Laura fashion, “I didn’t realize your rules for �
�ladylike verbiage’ were written in Sanskrit. But I’ll bet Gabe thinks twice before he spouts off to me again.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Beau shook his head as though talking to me somewhat hopeless. “And you’re one to talk about spouting off. Stop wasting time and losing money by debating customers. Hell, you’re longer winded than Pentecostal preachers speaking in tongues.”
I attempted a Pentecostal chant before grabbing my drink tray to head back into the crowd. I adored Beau, but didn’t think my recurring repartee with Gabe a waste of time, and actually enjoyed the challenging diversion, which established an understanding of sorts between the so-called “arrogant asshole” and me. Even though Gabe usually reigned triumphant, I suspected his public performance failed to correspond with the man inside.
5
The day after I spent three thousand bucks on a used Chevy Nova, Wesley called the Jewel Box threatening me in one breath while begging me to reunite in another. Making foolish mistakes was customary for me, but having the crap beat out of me wasn’t. When the psycho said he was on his way to Houston, I slammed the phone in his ear and told Beau I had to quit.
“I’ve got a plan,” my surrogate father said. “Angel’s pregnant and swelling up like a dirigible. Instead of dancing I’ll have her wait tables until she moves back to Maine. Meanwhile, you lay low.”
“But. . .”
“No buts. Just lease an apartment for you and Nikki, stay away from your usual hangouts including the club, Kat, and Ellen’s house for a couple of weeks.”
I sighed. Buying the Nova left me with less than two hundred bucks.
“Here, baby.” Beau handed me a thousand dollars to prepay rent, buy a bed, and other necessities. “You can pay me back a little each night.”
“You burn cool.” I kissed his cheek.
“Paying several months rent in advance should placate managers enough to let you lease under an alias without questions.”
“And temporary vanishing will hopefully make Wesley vanish forever.”
“Just choose a simple name like Bertha Smith or Carol Wood.”
The look on Beau’s face was so sincere, I respectfully opted for Carol. “Good Lord, Beau. Bertha?”
He chuckled. The Jewel Box was Beau’s first venture in the topless business, although he had owned various clubs in Dallas and Houston after moving to Texas from Nevada, where he had managed several casinos. His wife Celeste owned an exclusive boutique near River Oaks, Houston’s most affluent neighborhood, thus left management of the Jewel Box to Beau. She preferred not to be seen anywhere near the place.
After moving into an apartment as Carol Wood, I spent two wonderful weeks with Nikki. Beau came by for quick visits and taught Nikki card games, while offering me Larry McMurtry novels. Emerson was too esoteric, but I was diggin’ McMurtry. Beau also introduced us to Nora, an older lady who occasionally babysat his son, Gilles. Beau worshipped that boy, so I knew Nikki would be in competent hands. We went through trial runs, and as much as my daughter liked Nora, a day didn’t pass without her pleading to stay with Jimmy again. I finally gave in and took my unrelenting child to see her cousin the weekend before my scheduled return to work. Praying Wesley wasn’t lurking about, I crept through my sister’s neighborhood, eyes peeled for his red convertible. Despite my fears, bruiser Wesley never materialized and the cousins laughed nonstop for two days.
Although Nikki was developing quite the melodramatic personality, she surprised me by not throwing a tantrum when I parked her with sixty-year-old sitter, Nora. After three weeks at work, I repaid Beau, bought nicer furniture, and put money aside for replacing my used car with a new one. But Saturday night of my fourth week dampened my spirits when I only made a hundred dollars. I needed a dependable car for driving late at night.
With a sleeping Nikki sprawled across my shoulder, I was struggling to open my apartment door when Wesley came up behind me and shoved us inside, instantly waking Nikki. The creep had followed me from the Jewel Box to Nora’s, and then to my place. “Shhhh, Mommy,” Nikki whispered as she clung tightly to me watching Wesley’s every move.
“I came to take you back with me.” His voice was eerily calm.
“That’s not a good idea,” I said, trying to sound unruffled.
“Don’t make me beg,” he growled.
Nikki’s grip intensified.
“Let me put her to bed. She’s tired.” My voice was shaky and I wasn’t sure my legs would hold up as I carried her to the bedroom, but I couldn’t allow her to witness any violence I feared might happen. It took forever to calm her to sleep, and then I tiptoed back into the living room.
Wesley stood, looking fatigued. “We’ll pack tomorrow, and get on the road Tuesday.”
My hands trembled as I picked up a note pad by the phone and used Nikki’s red crayon to write capital N, capital O, exclamation point!
Wesley responded by ripping my phone from the wall, then holding a gun at my throat until I promised to accompany him back to El Paso. And marry him. Who could turn down that proposal?
On Sunday Wesley used Nikki as hostage, making me pack belongings while he sat on my sofa watching sitcoms. Love American Style, indeed. Wherever he went, he kept Nikki within reach. Shortly after my Nova keys went missing on Monday, Wesley forced me to close my bank account. Guns are highly persuasive. When he took Nikki along to rent a U-Haul, I briefly attempted to reconnect my ripped phone cord before running to a nearby pay phone. Ellen wasn’t home. I called Mother collect.
A.J. Foyt would’ve been impressed. Mother made the hour drive in forty-five minutes. When she knocked at my door and shouted my name, Nikki bolted from Wesley’s side. He grabbed me. I broke from his grasp, pushed Nikki into the bathroom and ordered her to lock the door. Instead of calling my name, Mother began a loud countdown threatening to call the police when she reached five. On her count of three Wesley opened the door, and she rushed inside displaying a forceful demeanor I had never seen in her. Wesley fell back on his acting career. So ingratiating he could’ve persuaded a Mormon to drink coffee with whiskey and denounce Joseph Smith, Wesley laughed as he told us there were no bullets in the gun. Then he audaciously attempted to convince Mother that he and I belonged together. Okay. Maybe I was a bit emotionally unstable, but this guy was every psychiatrist’s wet dream.
“Unearth her car keys.” My meek, docile, mother interrupted his diatribe.
Wesley dragged my keys from his pants pocket. Mother yanked them from his hand. “We’re heading to Lake Jackson and if you ever come near this family again, you’d better have bullets in your gun. Because I’ll have ‘em in mine, and I’ll blow your brains across Texas.”
You can’t buy memories like that! I gained new respect for my mild-mannered mother who’d turned Superwoman before my eyes.
Nikki and I spent a week in Lake Jackson before heading back to Houston to meet movers who would put our belongings in storage, while we resumed life with Ellen. Being alone was not an option. When I opened the door to an empty apartment, Nikki shrieked and I almost lost my lunch. The psychopath had taken everything we owned, from our sofa to my sweet baby girl’s hair ribbons. Materialistic things meant nothing, but losing Nikki’s favorite doll and baby photos crushed me. I held Nikki in my arms as we sat on the floor and cried.
After a month of turning down minimum wage jobs, I rang Kat. She couldn’t contain her excitement when I asked about returning to the Jewel Box. “Beau’s gonna be tickled.”
Ellen didn’t seem anywhere near tickled, but agreed to watch Nikki when I told her about returning to my restaurant gig. “I’ll only stay overnight with Kat until I can make enough money to buy a better car,” I promised my sister while kissing Nikki’s cheek.
“You’re the best mommy ever.” Nikki stuck her gooey lollipop in my mouth.
Toddlers are so naïve.
Four nights and nine hundred bucks later, I hoped the weekend crowd would propel me closer to the driver’s seat of a Ford Mustang. Next goal was to sock a
way enough money to support us through our future, which I dreamed included owning a home, continued education, and my own business. As in childhood years, I dreamed often, choosing fantasy over reality. Escapism helped me make it through some awful nights. Kat continually assured me things would get easier and I would adjust, but I couldn’t calm down. Thank heaven for Phenaphen. My pain had lost intensity, but I appreciated the dream-state offered by my meds. The Jewel Box unnerved me, especially when a shortage of dancers meant removing my sheer lingerie top, stepping onto the round stage and attempting to dance. I felt sure everyone could hear the fierce pounding of my heart—even over the blaring jukebox.
“Thank you Mr. Gaye,” I mumbled as Marvin sang Grapevine’s ending line. I then scurried to the dressing room with sweat pouring profusely from every pore of my body, trickling into the glue now barely holding pasties over my nipples. Blotting perspiration with a clean, damp bar towel, I was reapplying glue when Kat rushed in.
“C’mon, cutie. Three dancers just walked in followed by Al and Gabe. I told ‘em you’re back and those guys are dying to see you.”
“Hallelujah.” I checked myself in the wall-to-wall mirror before following Kat out. Through a packed house, I could hear Al calling my name from across the room. I looked upward into the noisy crowd of Friday night customers and saw my favorite guys sitting at their usual table. Kat delivered their drinks as I bounced up the two steps to the elevated area near the bar to say hello. It had been weeks since I last saw them and I actually missed these partners.
Smiling and standing up, Al exclaimed in high nasal pitch, “It’s good to have you back. We sure missed you.” Then he reached out and gave me a hug and quick kiss on the cheek. Al had given me pecks on the cheek before, but tonight it felt especially comforting. “Your hair has really grown,” he commented with a grin. “You look great.”
“Thank you.” I patted Al’s shoulder. In spite of the surroundings and our bad start, these two guys always made me feel at ease. It was going to be a good night.
The Jewel Box Page 5