by Ellen Klages
“Hold the knife out a little more.” Haskel peered into the viewfinder of her camera. “Look menacing.”
Helen raised her arm, gravity tugging against the wide sleeve of the heavy, embroidered robe. “And inscrutable?”
“Of course.” Haskel steadied the camera. “That’s it. Hold it.” She took a shot, wound the film forward quickly, took three more. “Good. I can work from these.”
“Finally.” Helen let her arm drop to her side, the prop knife dangling. “I like playing dress-up, but Dr. Wu Yang needs some summer-weight clothes.”
“You’re the one raiding the costume department.” Haskel put down the camera and sketched a few quick charcoal lines onto a pad of paper.
“Mine are all on the skimpy side.”
“Next time you can be the terrified victim.” Haskel lit a cigarette and leaned against a worktable covered with pastel chalks, jars of paintbrushes and pencils. “But Oriental fiends are harder to find.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I suppose.”
Helen took off the round black silk cap with its red tasseled topknot and opened the robe. The breeze from the open window played across her damp skin.
Haskel’s studio was two rooms on the top floor of the Montgomery Block, a squat brown building built in the mid-1800s whose massive bulk surrounded an inner courtyard, filling the interior with natural light. Each room had two windows and a skylight whose slanted glass roof caught the rose-gold glow of both sunset and dawn. The floor was planked wood, knobbed with drips of paint from nine decades of easels.
“Do me one more favor?” Haskel asked.
“Probably.”
“Raid Fish Alley one night after work? I’m almost out of fixative.”
“Sure. Heads and bones do? Sturgeon bladders have been scarce. The fishmongers sell them for soup.”
“Whatever you can scrounge.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Helen let the robe slide to the floor and stood in her bra and slip. She raised her arms over her head, stretching her shoulders, then reached for her toes, her body bent 180 degrees. “Do me a favor back?”
“What?”
“Leering and menacing made me thirsty.”
“I have bourbon.”
“I know.” Helen grimaced. “Let’s walk over to Mona’s and have a proper cocktail.”
“Alright. I haven’t been there since they moved.”
“That was last year.”
“I don’t go out much.” She looked down at her coveralls. “Give me a minute to change while you dress.”
The neighborhood around her building had been fashionable at one time, but at the end of the Depression it verged on the unkempt, squalid in the shadows. Rents were cheap; nearly every building housed artists, writers, actors, and musicians.
Mona’s Club 440 was three blocks up Montgomery Street and a block to the left, at the seedy end of Broadway, an even tougher quarter that stayed in business largely for the purpose of shocking tourists. Visitors who’d come to San Francisco for the world’s fair ventured nervously into the city at night to gape at curiosities that would astound the guys at the office, the ladies in the bridge club back in Dubuque or Chattanooga.
Mona’s occupied the ground floor of a nondescript three-story building, fire escapes zigzagging up the stucco facade. Above an awning hung a metal sign spelling out the name in bright neon, coloring the sidewalk below with garish light.
The club was many things to many people. A tourist trap. A neighborhood bar. A haven where women who loved each other could meet in public without fear or the shame of sidelong glances from “nice” ladies. Mona took care of her girls—butches, femmes, Flos, Freddies, wanna-bees, looky-loos, he-shes. At Mona’s, a girl could be anyone she dreamed, even if for just one night, no questions asked. Or at least no answers required.
Inside, a long bar lined the left wall, a hat-check nook at its far end. An archway led into the show room, with a line of booths down one wall and tables around the stage at the front.
The place was crowded when Helen and Haskel walked in. There were tourists galore, and dozens of women: in dresses and makeup; in slacks and blouses; in rough work clothes, their hair cut short; in tailored men’s suits, hair slicked back with brilliantine, like movie stars. There was a world of difference between Clark Gable and Wallace Beery, Haskel thought as she made her way to the bar, waving in passing to a few artists she knew.
“I swear, Edna. That one has to be a man,” said a middle-aged woman in a flowery dress. She held on to her glass of beer with both hands, as if it would be snatched at any moment.
“No, Irene. I told you, it’s like the ad in the theater program promised—Mona’s. Where girls will be boys.”
“Well, I don’t believe it,” the florid woman said. “It’s just not natural.” The two of them headed toward the show room.
“Tonight they come to see us, tomorrow they’ll drive out to the zoo and stare at the monkeys.” The woman tending bar straightened her bow tie. “What’ll it be?”
“Bourbon, rocks.” Haskel turned to Helen. “What are you drinking?”
“Gin and tonic, thanks.”
“Coming up.” The bartender reached around for a glass. “Shouldn’t complain, I guess. It’s dough from rubes like that keeps us in business, keeps the cops off our backs.”
Haskel tasted her drink. “How do you figure?”
“If it was just us, they’d close the place in a heartbeat. What we are is against the law, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” She handed Helen her drink.
“But the city needs tourists. And they want a peek at the down-and-dirty. Tell the folks back home they saw honest-to-god perverts.”
“Do you get much trouble?”
“Now and then. Usually late, when drunk guys need to prove something—‘what you want is a real man, baby,’” she said in a gruff voice. She polished a glass and set it on the back bar. “I can usually spot ’em. I start watering their drinks—and charging them double. They hightail it somewhere else, muttering about decency.”
“Figures.” Haskel laid a dollar on the bar.
A piano sat at the foot of the stage, a burly crop-haired woman in a pinstriped suit expertly playing casual music as the place filled up. A glass of whiskey and a fishbowl sat on the back of the upright, the bottom of the bowl covered with loose change, a dollar bill resting on it like flotsam.
The booths were full. Helen spotted a small, round table two rows back, and they settled in with their drinks. Ten minutes later, the lights dimmed, and a spotlight lit the stage.
A slim woman in a white dinner jacket stepped up to the microphone. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen and—” she winked “—everyone in between.” The audience laughed, equal parts amusement and nervous uncertainty.
“Tonight you’ll hear songs in English, French—and double entendre.” Chuckles from some of the audience, and whispered “What’s that?” from a few tables. “First up tonight, singing songs your mother didn’t teach you, please welcome—Mickey Minton!”
Another spot followed a dapper woman in a tuxedo, her blond hair gelled into a pompadour. The piano player began an up-tempo melody as she stepped to the mike and began to sing a jaunty tune:
“At Mona’s Club on old Broadway
You’ll hear some people pass and say,
‘If you go in there, you’ll be surprised:
The boys are girlies in disguise!’”
She paused, waiting for the audience reaction, smiled, and continued.
“But never falter, never fear,
We’re here to give the patrons cheer.
You’ll never fall and you’ll never flub
When you come to Mona’s Club!”
The audience applauded, Haskel politely, but briefly.
“Not your style?” Helen asked. She signaled a tuxedoed waitress for another drink when the girl replaced the one on the piano.
“Not really. I’m more of a classical ga
l.” Haskel was quiet for a moment. “I suppose I find it odd, parading private lives in public.”
“At least we’re visible here. We have to hide everywhere else.”
“We can only be ourselves as long as we’re entertainment?” She frowned and lit a cigarette. “I’m not certain that’s a good trade-off.”
“That’s because you can pass, if you want. You dress up and do your hair, you can have tea at the City of Paris. No one would be the wiser. Gals like Big Jack—the piano player—don’t have that luxury. Mona’s is it.”
“She chooses her suits and ties.”
“Didn’t choose who she is.” Helen stared at her drink, then said, quietly, “A lot of places in this town won’t even let me in the door, no matter how nice I look.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“No,” Haskel said after an uneasy minute. “I don’t suppose it is. I hadn’t given it much—”
She was interrupted by an arpeggio from Big Jack, signaling the next act. “Butch” Lewis was a squat, tough-looking woman whose shoulders strained her jacket, and whose lyrics danced along the borders of obscenity. “I stole this one from Finocchio’s. It’s written for a pansy, but hey, queer is queer.” She grinned and began a tango-esque version of “I’d Rather Be Spanish Than Mannish.”
Then she took the mike off the stand, draped it over one shoulder, and stepped down into the audience as she launched into another ribald ditty. She knelt beside the table of an obvious tourist couple. The man looked, then looked away. The woman giggled and covered her mouth.
The singer moved on to a table where an older man with a pencil-thin moustache sat with his arm slung over the shoulders of a rouged peroxide blonde with a plunging neckline. Butch knelt down.
“This what you want?” the blonde asked, laughing. She lifted up her long, flared skirt, and tented it over the singer’s head.
Through the mike, the audience heard a snort of surprise, then a chuckle, and the song shifted to a husky rendition of “I’ll be seeing you—in all the old familiar places—”
That had the audience in stitches for a good five minutes.
When Butch was done and Big Jack’s drink had been replenished again, Haskel stood. “I’m going to use the—”
“—little girls’ room?”
“Around here, you can never be sure.” She walked to the back corner, disappearing down a narrow hallway. She was rinsing her hands at the sink when she heard a roar from the show room. She stepped back into the hall. The lights had been dimmed, low enough that she had to step carefully to make it back to her table.
“What’s the to-do?” she asked.
“Spike, of course. She’s why half the room is here—provincials and natives.”
Haskel finished her drink and looked around for a waitress. “Who’s Spike? Another mannish one?”
“More boyish, wouldn’t you say?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t seen her.”
Helen stared at her, then laughed. “My god, you have no idea. This will be fun.”
Before Haskel had a chance to reply, a single, pinpoint spot illuminated the microphone. A saxophone began a slow, blues-tinged melody that sounded like the city at night: cold drinks and hot neon and people out looking for love, or danger—or both.
A few bars in, a young woman stepped out of the darkness. She wore high-waisted trousers, pleated and cuffed, creased to a knife edge, a fedora cocked at a rakish angle, a few auburn curls straying out. Her white shirt was open at the collar, a cobalt silk scarf at her throat, matching suspenders giving her trim body a streamlined accent. One finger casually hooked a cream-colored dinner jacket over her shoulder. She paused, hip-shot, and grinned out at the audience.
Mona’s exploded with noise: applause, whistles, cat-calls.
When the cacophony died down a bit, Spike hung the jacket on the back of a chair and turned to the piano player. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” she said, and began to sing.
Her voice was smooth and low, an alto that occasionally descended into tenor, like deep, rich honey—relaxed, soft, and intimate. She sang the lyrics as they were written—no parody, no comedy—looking into the middle distance as if she could see the story of the song unfolding.
“Oh, hell!” Haskel gasped in surprise. “That’s, that’s—what’s-her-name. Emily. From Franny’s party last month.” The snooty, opinionated girl.
Helen nodded. “That’s her.”
“Jesus.” Haskel felt the back of her neck prickle. A smile coaxed itself—uninvited—to the corners of her mouth. “She’s good,” she said when the song was over.
“There’s an understatement. Half the women in the room are in love right now. Femmes, mostly, but more than a couple of butches. No one quite knows what to make of her. There’ll be a line of stage-door Janies later on, hoping to take her home and make some private magic.” She sipped her drink. “Far as I know, no one’s ever succeeded. She signs autographs and lets them take all the pictures they want, but that’s all.”
“How come?”
“Beats me. She could have any woman in San Francisco, but she always goes home solo. Some girls think she’s just a snob.” She thought for a minute. “I figure either she hasn’t met the right girl, or she did—and got her heart broken.”
“Usually how it goes.”
The next song was another standard, “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do,” almost a cappella, just a few scattered, minor riffs from the piano as accompaniment. Her voice held longing and regret, and a little tinge of anger. Although once again she changed none of the words to adapt it for her audience, it spoke to everyone in the room who’d ever had a secret.
The applause was deafening. Spike stood, head bowed, palms out at her sides, silently acknowledging the acclaim. A bouquet landed at her feet. Women stood and called her name, over and over, like a primitive chant, like an invocation.
Haskel noticed that half her new drink was already gone, and her cheeks were damp. She wiped her face with the cocktail napkin, the faintest tremble in her hand. She didn’t cry. Hadn’t cried in years, had steeled herself out of the habit.
“Do you take requests?” called a woman from the far wall.
“I can think of a few things I’d like,” yelled a red-faced man in a checked suit.
Spike ignored him and turned to the booths, her hands in her trouser pockets, and waited. The room quieted.
“‘Come Rain or Come Shine’?” the woman asked in an unsteady voice, as if she could not quite believe everything had stopped just for her.
A two-beat, then Spike nodded. “That’s a good one.” She leaned over the piano. “F-major, but bluesy, okay Jack?”
The big woman shrugged and played a few bars. “Like that?”
“Just so.” She stepped back, took the microphone in both hands, and crooned, “I’m gonna love you, like nobody’s loved you, come rain—”
When the song ended, the room was silent for a full minute. No one moved, no one clinked a glass or snapped a lighter or whispered to a friend. Spike stood motionless, then replaced the mike on its stand. As she did, she looked up and saw Haskel. Her head stuttered in surprise, as if she’d gotten a shock from a doorknob. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, then opened them and looked directly at the second row.
Haskel felt as if the room had disappeared. Nothing but that green-eyed gaze, making her feel as though every cell in her body was straining to pay attention, hold this moment, then run—hard—and bury it somewhere deep so the need of it wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her. She bit her lip, the flicker of small pain breaking the spell, and raised her hands in cadenced, slow applause—Clap. Clap. Clap.—until everyone else joined in.
Now half the room was standing, whistling and stomping and calling Spike’s name. As before, she stood, palms out, unmoving. But her head was not bowed. She was looking at Haskel with a little half-grin that said, “So. Whad’ya think of that?”
&nb
sp; The spotlight switched off, leaving the stage in darkness. Jack ran a long, flourishy riff down the keyboard, then stood up and bowed. “Intermission, folks. Half an hour to refill those drinks or make a new friend.” She picked up her own drink, and the fishbowl, now brimming with bills, and exited at the back of the stage.
Haskel sat, staring at the Formica tabletop.
“You okay?” Helen asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She drained her drink and stubbed out the cigarette that had burned down to a tube of ash. “I think I’ll head home.” She stood. “You going to stick around?”
“I shouldn’t. Eddie wants to rehearse a new routine at noon, and we’ve got three shows tomorrow night. An early evening wouldn’t kill me.” They moved slowly through the crush of people heading toward the bar, jostling against the silk, wool, and coarse cotton shoulders of the mixed crowd.
“I tell ya, that last dame was something else,” a man in a tweed jacket said. “If she was a real woman, she could play in a classy club.”
Haskel stopped, patting her pockets. “I left my smokes on the table. You go on ahead, get that beauty rest.”
“Okay. I’ll bring some fish parts around in a day or two.”
“Thanks.” When Haskel returned, people were three deep around the bar. She stood near the open front door. On the sidewalk, a woman in a leather jacket leaned against a lamppost, smoking. Big Jack came out the side entrance, drink in hand. “Bum one, Jonesy?”
“Sure.” She shook a Camel free from the pack. Jack lit it with a flip of her silver Zippo and blew a cloud of blue smoke into the foggy San Francisco night. At the east end of the street, the colored lights from Treasure Island filled the sky like an aurora, tinting the darkness with pastels.
A tourist couple exited, the man helping his wife into a thin green coat with a fox-fur collar. “Okay, Sue Ann. You’ve had your fun. Now can we go someplace normal?”
“Not yet, Bill,” she said in a voice with vowels as flat as the prairie. “There’s another show. I wanna hear that piano player again. He was swell.”
“I tole you, Sue Ann. There’s no he’s in this joint. That’s just a fat bulldagger, and she don’t even play that great, if you ask me.”