by Diane Munier
Everyone burst out laughing. Jules too. What was with this chick?
Bobby had his hand on Dorie’s neck, and he was sitting forward the way Isbe had been. “Come back here with me,” he said, and he got Dorie under the arms and lifted her over the seat before she could have an opinion.
Blondie was watching, and Bobby had her on his lap.
“Oh, you conniver,” Blondie said, cause Bobby had got her away from the hen.
And they all said, “Whoa.”
“You say that again, I might have to crawl up there on your lap, mama,” Audie said. Audie loved a good insult.
“You can crawl, big boy, but leave my lap out of it,” Francis said, but she had a smile. “Come back up here,” she said to Dorie.
“I’m all right,” Dorie whispered, and it was so enthused and sweet they all died laughing, and Jules accidently honked the horn.
Isbe seemed to like Dorie being in the backseat with her. Now Jules had nothing between him and the blonde, and she was a looker but a man-hater too, and he was in no mood to protect his dick all night, and it was already settled who he wanted.
“Get up here,” he said to Isbe in the mirror.
“Dorie is the climber,” she answered, and she batted those thick, dark lashes, and he moved around a little and sped up.
“Where we goin’?” he shouted over Finn’s big mouth.
“Shiney’s,” Audie said.
“He got steak?” Bobby asked. “I could eat me a bear…or a little sister,” he snickered, and Jules saw him squeeze Dorie and nuzzle his face in her short hair.
She looked happy. It was like he’d pulled a lamb into the lion’s cage. But Blondie, she knew the score. He was counting on her to set the line. She was turned in the seat keeping an eye. She actually had reached over the seat to keep her hand on Dorie.
“Save me a bite,” Audie said, leaning over Isbe to talk to Bobby. He said it low, but Audie’s whisper was the same loud tone as everything else.
“Audie,” Jules said, all stern. He’d said that crude shit right in front of Isbe’s face. “Get off her, you damn gorilla.”
Someone honked again.
“Watch the road, soldier,” Francis barked.
“Relax, baby,” Audie said from the back, his arm around Isbe again, but more along the seat, his hand resting up there behind Bobby. “Jules can drive a jeep with a full cup of coffee on his knee. He’s his own kind of miracle, our Jules. You like him? The girls go crazy for him. You wouldn’t know it to look at his sour puss, but he’s a real charmer, you get a couple beers in him.”
Jules turned the radio on.
Audie had said, “Hey little mama.” Then he’d hooted. There was movement, and Isbe plopped down beside Jules.
She’d raised that skirt to climb, and she was smoothing it over her legs now, and they were some gorgeous legs.
“Hi,” she said to him, a little breathy with a white smile, and she laughed.
Relief. He hated to admit it. Why should he care? Because he’s the one who got these girls in this pig pen. He ought to get dibs for it.
Now he had Audie’s big head up here, between Isbe and Francis. “You girls like a good horn? Wait til you hear Shiney. And food—the coloreds know how to live. You like to shake it, mama?”
Francis took her time looking at him. “The right man can get me going.”
Audie grabbed his chest. “Aw, baby, you just pulled the pin and blew up my world.” Jules could see Francis smiling. Gin.
Bobby kept hooting. Baboon. Dorie had her fingers in her ears. Bobby passed the flask to Francis again. These guys were beasts.
Jules took Isbe’s hand. She didn’t pull away. “What took you so long?” he said. Maybe she needed to explain herself.
She laughed, and so did Francis. She had that flask again, and she passed it to Isbe, who took a sip and, wincing, offered it to Jules, and he shook his head.
“Boys,” Francis said low, taking the flask and passing it back to Bobby.
“Girls,” Bobby said, and Dorie giggled.
“Yeah, man. Broads,” Audie said. “Ooh, I’m lonely back here. Wish I had me a girl…like I did…yeah, baby girls, how about one of you two gets back here with a hero from the U.S. Army.”
Isbe scooted closer to Jules. He put his arm around her.
He heard Audie whisper, “Shit,” in his big fat whisper.
Francis turned to him. “You want a girl like you had? Maybe when we get to Shiney’s, you can get one. There’s plenty of fat bottle blonde lushes in Chicago.”
Jules flashed his eyes to the mirror. Audie was dying with glee now. He hooted—like a happy gorilla.
“Those girls are horrible,” Dorie piped up. “We always see them at the Ritz. That one you were with,” she said this to Bobby, “goes down on her knees sometimes, you can see her head disappear. She’s so strange.” Dorie put her hand over her mouth when everyone laughed.
Audie leaned forward and got close to Dorie. “What do you think she’s doing? Looking for dimes, Pollyanna?” He had a big smile. Shit.
Dorie giggled.
“What do you think she’s doing?” Isbe asked Audie.
“You’re the ones who saw this. Maybe she’s a Martian and while the movie plays she turns into a little green cheese lady and runs around doing Martian pee-pee on ladies’ shoes,” Audie said.
Dorie was bent over laughing. Isbe lay on Francis, and they joined in. Bobby kept passing the gin.
“You girls ever wondered how your shoes got wet?” Audie went on.
Jules turned the radio up. A guy was talking about a contest the station was sponsoring. You wrote in and requested a card and when it came, you filled it out with the names of ten soldiers you’d kissed since they came home. When you returned the full card, you were entered into a drawing. The winner won a new radio.
“We should do that,” Dorie said.
“Yeah, baby. I’d change my name ten times for each one of you,” Audie said. “I can kiss ten ways, Blondie baby. You believe me? You want to try me out?”
“No thanks.” Francis and Isbe laughed. “I’ve already seen your…skills.”
Audie sat forward again. Jules could feel Audie’s excitement. He had enough of his own, but Audie’s was always big-assed.
“You seen my skills, mama? How many you count? You see me nibble on her lips…that’s one. Then I gave her my tongue…you see that?”
“Sit the hell back,” Jules said.
“Oh, he’s harmless,” Isbe said.
“Just a little boy holding his wing-ding,” Francis laughed, and Isbe did too. Jules felt his balls twitch.
But Audie liked it. Loved it. He had them talking about his dick. “Oh, baby…you speak wing-ding. Yeah, he likes you.”
“Audie,” Jules said again, “Sit the hell back.”
“Little tense, Jules?” Audie said.
He was tense. He looked in the mirror, and Bobby was going to town on innocent little Dorie, and she looked all in. They were necking up a storm and Blondie hadn’t noticed; she was having too much fun thinking of ways to use the nutcracker on Audie while she tipped that flask again. And Isbe squeezed his leg.
Up ahead was the pink flashing sign.
Shiney’s.
Chapter 3
Shiney’s, Part One
Audie had heard about Shiney’s during the war. Redver drove a supply truck, and he’s the one who told Audie about his uncle’s joint. Shiney wore a white Fedora all year round and played the hell out of a horn or piano with a small band on stage.
The boys had come home to a few changes. Not that much was different, and that was a consolation after the devastation in Europe. But music was being shaken out again, and bebop bands were replacing the big orchestras that had taken the stage before the war. It was a new sound, less organized, unpredictable—like them.
They were starved for music. They’d heard next to none during the war; sometimes a little on the radio out of London, but nah, hardly any, cause they practically
lived outside for two years and spearheading the liberation of Europe wasn’t harmonious with listening to Count Basie and his orchestra.
Their music was the grind of a tank and a half-track, their M-14s and return fire, and bombs and shrapnel and endless strafing.
Their music was the grind of duty, of having a job to do and doing the job, and not complaining but getting it done.
They’d been to Shiney’s a couple times a week since they’d been home this month and a half, because this rundown, ramshackle joint was helping them make up for lost time.
Musicians showed from all around to get the nod from Shiney. That nod meant they could sit in and play with the band—blues, jazz, swing, music of all kinds that was great for listening to while sitting at a table in that dark, smoky room with your head close to some friendly and voluptuous dame, smoking and talking, her hand on your thigh under the table and your hand roaming.
Jules had not yet had that complete experience, but he had observed it the way he’d watched a swinging barn door one night in Belgium because he’d seen something move in the shadowy depths. Morning proved it to be a horse.
He wondered if he was as off about the harmony he imagined the table sitters and dancers felt at Shiney’s. Maybe tonight, Isbe fitting under his hands, pulled against him, he’d find out. He’d move with her when the blues took over, and they always did as the night got deep and the dance floor filled with couples swaying in sweaty embraces while their parts fit together like love and marriage, a horse and carriage, and the world fell the hell away.
Jules pulled the Buick into the already filled lot and killed the engine. His arm was still around Isbe. She felt perfect right there. He smiled at her and moved a little closer and pulled her in at the same time, in case she wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted her to do it. And she did, and her lips were so soft and sweet, the pearly gates to a really good time.
Best they cut the ice now, because once they got in the club, the fig leaves were coming off.
Francis was already out, and Audie. Francis prodded Dorie and Bobby, and Audie was on Jules’s ass again like the Bobby sergeant he was, yanking Jules’s door and telling him to fall out. “You see these wheels around here? Every bastard in Chicago was making time while we were getting our dicks shot at across the pond,” Audie said.
It did feel that way, like the guys who’d stayed behind had conquered civilian life—and passed them by. Everyone said to hire vets, but what kind of jobs? Thirty-five cents an hour was shit. They’d all signed up for the thirteen weeks of unemployment the government allotted them while they got “reoriented” and found jobs, but twenty-one dollars a month was cold-water-room money, more “Brother can you spare a dime” shit than anything.
And then there was the dumb shit he could only blame himself for. They’d done that job for Bobby’s uncle and made that seventy apiece, but that was for a month of toil, and then Jules lost his in one night. Not Audie, though; not Bobby, and if they had money, he did. Especially after—shit—he remembered it now—those mouthies they’d beaten the hell up the night before, the men who’d been laid off by Bobby’s uncle so they could steal their jobs and get their pay. Those two were sore about it, and he got that, but running their mouths and then waiting around the corner at the track with knives in their hands—they should’ve thought twice about that, because once they got beat, they got robbed of what they’d made at the track, and yeah…they should’ve thought twice about it.
Well, they’d all been two sheets to the wind. That very morning he’d picked part of someone’s tooth out of his knuckle. It hurt his hand to think about it. But they’d got to swinging, the three monkeys, and it was mayhem at the zoo.
So here they were in their borrowed Buick—three punks, two of them drunk, Jules about to be, and these three girls straight from the land of second chances, and them not a thing to offer but this joint, a good time and a sloppy promise of dinner.
But Audie didn’t waste time. He got next to Francis, and her arms were folded under her breasts. “Feel that rhythm, mama?”
Francis wore a black-and-white checked dress and a red belt and little black shoes without the socks Isbe and Dorie wore. Francis had that glamorous look Audie liked, but she played it down. She had it all under control, and even tipsy, she stared at him with her eyebrows raised.
Jules got out and took off his jacket first thing and rolled up one sleeve, then the other, of his white shirt while he waited for Isbe to put on some lipstick in the rearview, then scoot out beside him. She took his jacket and put it on the seat with hers, then reached up and unbuttoned one more button on his shirt. He had on a white undershirt, of course, but she did that and looked up at him and whispered, “Live a little, hero.”
He laughed and kissed her again, quick cause Audie was still ragging. He slammed that door, pocketed the keys, and held her around the waist. Bobby ran to the porch carrying Dorie, who probably didn’t weigh more than his duffel bag had. Dorie squealed all the way.
Jules got in two more smooches before they reached the porch. He pushed Isbe against the wall, just lightly, and kissed her again. She was so warm and smooth, and he loved the way she let him do it—kiss her, handle her. She was open and easy with him, like a lover and not some girl he’d just met.
“Jules,” she said all breathy, and his name sounded so good like that, like he’d just put his dick in her sweet spot. Then she reached up and wiped his lips with her thumb, and he saw how he’d smeared her lipstick, and he wiped at that with his thumb. Then he kissed her again because those lips needed to be kissed. God.
“You taste good,” he whispered, and her eyes were so dark and deep he fell head over heels right there.
“Get your ass in here,” Audie called.
He took hold of Isbe then, his arm around her. He had this weird feeling…happiness. He felt happy as they went through the screen-door, like with her he’d caught up—maybe.
It was hot, and it was packed. Audie was ahead gesturing and already yelling at Redver. He looked back at Jules and gestured that they should move forward, and man, into the sardine can they went, the music blaring, the smell of people’s sweaty bodies, perfume cooking on high, Old Spice or Brylcreem or some shit, and food, spicy, pit-cooked—damn, sign him up.
He didn’t like a crowd, but it was easy to get out. He already knew the three ways. He always looked for those first for his twenty-three skiddo. But he was alive, and he had this beautiful girl—all of a sudden—he had Isbe, and he’d already had her lips, and he wanted every inch of every part of her.
There was no damn table, so they followed Audie and the others into the kitchen. Audie had Francis’s hand, and she wasn’t complaining, and Little Bits was on Bobby’s back now. It was hot as hell in the kitchen, and they went straight through, and Shiney had a picnic table out back, and Audie asked if they had steaks tonight and the cook, Shiney’s sister Glenda, who loved to cook for Audie, or just loved Audie, said yes. So he called out their fat order on the way outside, pouring on the charm.
Once the girls got seated, Audie and Bobby went back in to get drinks. Jules straddled the end of the bench one side of the table and pulled Isbe between his legs. He had his arms around her. Dorie stared off and touched her lips, and Francis put her head down on the checkered cloth and closed her eyes. “My head is spinning,” Francis said.
“Mine too,” Dorie whispered, grinning.
Jules and Isbe laughed, and she looked at him, and he burrowed one hand under her hair to cradle the back of her head and the other he kept around her waist, and he kissed her three times in a row.
She was butter. This girl would do anything if he wanted to take it. He wanted it, but should he take it? He was a nasty prick, and he could coax her out of it, he knew. But she didn’t seem to have any more experience than Dorie. Everything he did, like touch her and squeeze a little, or rub on her somewhere, kiss on her, she was right there, and damn, she melted into him, and her heart fluttered. He didn’t even car
e about that steak. All he wanted was this crazy willowy dame.
He didn’t know about Blondie, but his instinct told him she’d had some bad times in there, some hurts maybe. But this girl, his girl, she was past due and hot toward him, open. Those mama’s boys she’d been dating hadn’t got it done, is what he guessed—hoped. And that’s where he had not lost ground. He knew how to please a woman. And this one drove him out of his mind.
Chapter 4
Shiney’s, Part Two
“Holy macaroni,” Dorie breathed, leaning against the chipped porcelain sink, “these are men! These are men!”
A woman was laughing as she waited for Dorie to move away so she could wash. “What did you want them to be, girl?” she said. “They sure are some fine pieces of man,” she said, soaping her hands. Like most of the women here, this woman was working her curves, wearing a swell tight green dress, high heels and stockings and jewelry. Dorie looked like a kid next to her in her jeans and bobby socks.
Isbe and Francis were at the mirror trying to fix the damage from delicious greasy meat and salty, crunchy fries and lots of beer and being manhandled and handling back and sweaty lust and jitter-bugging their brains out.
“Talk, Isbe,” Francis said, putting on the lipstick Isbe had thought to stick in her pocket just in case they picked up some cute guys at the show. They never had—until tonight—and jeepers, had they ever.
Isbe waited for the Negro woman to leave cause she didn’t want to say it in front of a stranger, not that anyone in this place was a stranger now, the way they’d all been carrying on all over that dance floor. “I’m in love.”
“No.” Francis straightened, screwing the Island’s Fire stick of red back into its tube.
“That’s the whiskey he’s been pumping you full of.”
“It’s not,” Isbe insisted. “You look at him? How…how did I land a man like him?”
“Are you cl…crazy?” Francis said, steadying herself against the wall. “He’s lucky to get his battered hands on you. I don’t trust that one. He’s too quiet.” Francis belched silently and nearly touched her newly painted lips. “And that Bobby…he’s even quieter,” she hiccupped, “than horn-toad. And handsy. Dorie, if you don’t stop humping on him—what’s the matter with you, pumpkin? You go from never dating to shimmying all over this guy’s peanut?”