Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it—
When you take money from my wallet without asking, is that stealing or not?
I, I, yes it is, but I don’t do that anymore.
You mean since yesterday. So she gives you money?
Sometimes.
More than I do?
I’m sorry, J. D.
Oh, that’s all right. I fuckin’ forgive her. Well, get me some money. Steal me or beg me one of her world-renowned hundred-dollar bills, because I’m going to Vallejo to drink a Hot Bitch. Ask Karen if she knows what a Hot Bitch is. Pay attention and tell me exactly what she says. When are you dating her next?
Well, I . . .
From your guilty look, it must be soon. Is it today? Aha, it is. Then I want a hundred dollars tomorrow. Do that, and I won’t call you Frank all week.
J. D., I’m a little scared.
Of what?
The way she looks at me, I believe she knows everything.
Grimacing like an over-eater surprised by acid reflux, he said: Well then, let her know. What the hell do I care?
So the next day she brought him a crisp hundred-dollar note, series 1987, apparently uncirculated, so he patted her on the head and said: Good dog, Frank. Now, did you ask her what I told you to?
Yes, honey, and as soon as I said Hot Bitch she looked really sad.
And then what?
She asked me if that question came from you.
And?
And I said yes. And she said to tell you that she used to order that drink with her girlfriend.
What else?
And that you can come and see her whenever—
Whenever I take a fuckin’ number, he said. Does she wash her pussy in between, or do y’all just swap bodily fluids? You know what a petri dish is?
No, I’m sorry—
Of course you don’t. Well, I didn’t marry you for your education. All right, Frank, run along. Go sniff assholes like the sad old coonhound you are, and—
That’s not nice.
It isn’t? Whoops! he shouted in delight. Now out you go.
After locating the establishment’s coordinates on [email protected], our emperor of Empire Residences rode the Amtrak to Martinez, decided not to invite his ex-sister-in-law to lunch, ordered up a ride from that underdog of a smart phone application called Hitch, and seven minutes later was easing his throbbing ankles out of the car, whose operator, a Mr. Abdul Buruma, he tipped two dollars.
Jingle’s delighted him even from the outside. Two matches, and he could burn the place down.
The automated teller machine must have come in during the 1990s, but the cigarette machine looked vintage. There were three televisions; back in 1982 there wouldn’t have been more than one. As for that plastic dragonfly dangling on wires from the ceiling, well, quien sabe, Lone Ranger? This place was even better than the Y Bar.
No, I never knew her name, said the old barmaid. Is she in trouble?
Not at all, replied the retired policeman. Her great-aunt in Wisconsin died last year, and it turns out there’s a legacy involved, so they hired me to bring her the good news. I shouldn’t say this, but we’re talking significant money, more than you or I will probably see.
Well, I play the lottery, said the barmaid, so never say never.
Never, said the retired policeman.
Are you mocking me?
Never, said the retired policeman. Anyhow, it sure would be a shame if we couldn’t drop a little joy into this lucky lady’s hand. Very pretty from the look of her.
Oh, she was. We always used to call her killer, because she’d bring in one girl after the other, and they went goo-goo for her like she was the bee’s knees. In those days we minded our own business. It wasn’t like today, where you can’t hardly get away from being spied on. I guess we all knew she was gay, but the thing about Jingle’s is, we have each other’s backs. You do your business, and nobody’s going to snitch on you.
I can relate to that, he said. I’m a capitalist myself.
What does that mean?
I mean how long did your pretty little killer girl keep coming in here?
Well, gosh, I should say, for at least twenty years. She kept getting older, and the other girls didn’t, and then she started coming with a gal that couldn’t have been that much younger, and they were an item for, oh, I would say a good two or three years, and then they just stopped.
Have you seen this person? he inquired, sliding Karen Strand’s photograph across that wraparound Formica bar.
No, mister. Her I don’t recognize. Before my time, maybe. Anyway, what do you want with her? Are you telling me she got some kind of legacy, too?
Never say never, he advised her.
You’re full of it, she said.
In that case I’ll take a Hot Bitch, straight up, so I can send it straight down.
Now there’s a cruise down memory lane. We hardly ever get an order for those anymore. Now everybody wants to drink a Hell’s Balls, although they’re actually not that different, in flavor at least. But I should warn you that a Hot Bitch is kind of a girly drink. Are you sure that’s what you want?
Well, I’ve never tried one. You see, this friend of mine . . .
Say no more. I don’t get between a man and his friends.
Maybe you and I will be friends. And if killer wants to get in between us, if you see what I mean—
Now that I think about it, the lady you’re looking for, that was definitely her drink. I wish I could tell her name, but I never knew it. One Hot Bitch, coming up!
All the other old lizards in the bar upraised their scaly necks and flexed their claws in delight, telling each other: Did you hear that? That fucker just ordered a Hot Bitch! Did you ever? The first man who ever—
And so the retired policeman had finally accomplished some good in the world. He’d brought the twentieth century back.
His Hot Bitch was pink and oh, so sweet, just like Sandra’s idea of a mermaid’s pussy. He choked it down with a double Old Crow.
31
On the following day nearly all of us were at the Y Bar, waiting for darkness in case a naked tattooed woman might come laughing and gliding across the stage, or else maybe the lesbian would arrive. (The next turn would be Erin’s; her upside-down face reminded the retired policeman of a doll’s head.) Sandra dropped in to ask whether anyone had found her hairbrush in the vicinity of all those bottles of ours, which resembled radioactive jewels. Meanwhile Xenia stopped by to use the toilet. Just then she appeared as frail as a certain tiny treasure looted from an Egyptian sarcophagus: a wide-eyed bird-woman, whose pubic hair was painted on.—I’ve only been out fourteen years, she told me. I told my son, what I do in my bedroom is none of your business and when you’re in your bedroom it’s not my business. He’s not real impolite, because if he was I’d kill him.—I should have asked her how much worse were tomb-robbers than death itself. But when the retired policeman breezed in, I forgot.—Shantelle, in her camisole and nothing else, sat at the bar with her long hair falling down her spine, and her back and shoulders glowing reddish-orange while the bottles glowed blue and green like ocean jewels. Meanwhile Alicia, also known as Bubbles, kept bitching about covering Francine’s shifts, when she actually felt delighted. (Francine, of course, was at the Hotel Reddy getting that old time religion from Neva.)
What’s your pleasure? said Alicia.
Offended by her ignorance, the retired policeman said: Old Crow. Two shots, straight up.
Well, that goddamned cunt dribbled out his poison adequately, but then, get this: She plumped a fat ice cube in it!—Here you go, she proudly said.
I told you straight up.
Irritably, Alicia fished out the ice cube with two fingers and flipped it into the sink. He was just fixing to cut her a new asshole when the lesbian wa
lked in.
She looked more tired than he remembered. Most of all she resembled a woman who lives off men, or women, or admiration, or something. Even he could not help but experience her promise of the new, much as when an airplane passenger overgazes the dawning earth whose misty purple-silver, neither darkness nor ocean, sometimes hints at rivers and roads, and whose upper edge is bordered red beneath a wider stripe of orange shading into yellow. But he rejected these sensations, recategorizing her as equivalent to an entry-level television actress, or maybe one of those young lingerie models whom department stores use once or twice in the Sunday advertising sections of dying newspapers because each one can smile innocently, with her pubis sweetly rounded but eternally coincidentally slitless as she cocks her head, pretending (cheating bitch!) not to notice that she is in her undies, while above her they show off kitchen appliances and below her the supermarket has peddled cheap ham with the pinkness, unlike hers, enhanced.
Shantelle gazed at her with jealous adoration, whispering some obscenity into her ear. Neva smiled back. He longed to punch them both in the teeth.
Then Al walked in, at which point the investigation’s subject kissed Shantelle’s cheek, waved to Alicia and took Al’s hand. They walked out.
She’s not even a lez, he realized. Well, he had known that before, but for some reason it enraged him all the more.
Upraising his drink, he approached Shantelle, determined to rake through her mind about Neva, but she misconstrued his end goal and had long since re-decided never to date this fat old white freak who missed the good old Ohio days when a murderess would be fried in the electric chair.
Eight dollars, said Alicia.
Seven, he said.
Excuse me, sir?
It’s seven dollars. That’s your goddamned price. Do you get it?
It’s eight dollars, sir. Now, are you gonna pay me or is there gonna be trouble?
I’m not drinkin’ it, he said.
Drink it or not, you’re paying for it.
You don’t know the law. The law is that you don’t have to pay until you consume whatever food or drink is being sold to you, and I didn’t consume it because I didn’t order an ice cube or your dirty fingers in my drink, bitch. And did you ever hear of California Health and Safety Code Number Sixty-Nine? It particularly pertains to the unclean actions of women. Now pay attention: When a female inserts her grubby fingers in the so-called orifice of a previously used shotglass, thereby endangering her customer in his prospective performance of a no-salt rim job . . .
Alicia was yelling and swearing; Shantelle was hurraying—good girl!—and he Sieg Heil’d us all, mission accomplished! But Al and this Karen Strand were already out of sight. He knew where Karen lived, of course, but in the absence of a warrant he could wait. You see, he was retired.
I’m calling the police, said Alicia. And she actually picked up the phone.
I’ll save you the trouble, he replied cheerfully. Here’s a police tip: If it’s a legitimate license plate they can trace it, but if it’s an undercover license plate it’ll come back blank. That’s free of charge. So long, cunt.
When the transwoman heard about this adventure, she consoled him that he had had another sneak peek at the lesbian—a chance to weigh in, vote and even feel significant. And then, strange to say, when this darling Judy of his slowly, slowly lowered her head toward his crotch, and her hair began to brush against his thigh, he felt a tingling of the same stream of pleasure-electrons that she felt whenever she was with the lesbian, and his penis sprang erect the way it used to do when he was a young and healthy man.
32
Now what was it about Karen Strand, he asked himself. Why didn’t I step in? Oh. I see. I’m getting soft.
The fact was that he had been dazzled, which he would not admit to himself.
All night long he sat drinking in bed, wondering how it would be to fuck a woman like that, a woman so perfect, at least as met the eye, that he could only half believe in her, which sweetened the fantasy much as was the case when the transwoman was doing certain things to him and he to her if he was tipsy or high on pain pills while she was high on something else, in order to pretend to be real and he could pretend that real was what he wanted.
But he never did touch Neva, preventing any exception from vandalizing the astonishing general truth that no one ever made love with her while pretending she was someone else.
The next day, determined to get back up on that metaphorical bucking horse (a principle equally well observed by Judy, who despite having overscheduled herself with Neva kept tricking, doing her job better than before), he returned to the Y Bar, whose inhabitants now turned toward him, on account of the streetshine that he brought by standing in the opened door, just within which leaned Shantelle, observing him in much the same way as Karen Strand’s cat Princess used to watch the world through half-closed eyes, basking on the sofa, while some well-wisher deposited meaty tidbits into her dish; whenever the admirer looked back Princess pretended to be asleep, but once she felt alone she would gobble it up; and in this spirit Shantelle said: Hey, come in or go the fuck away; you’re hurting our eyes, at which he came in, and the door fell shut behind him.
Well, Francine, he said.
Double Old Crow straight up? was her reply.
Yeah. No. I want ice, he said, just to throw her off.
Xenia winked at him and said: How about it?
How about what?
You know. I can feel a boner from two miles away. I’m like a mosquito sensing cholesterol.
Oh, yeah? Well, keep sucking Judy’s blood. I’m not interested.
In her bitchiest voice she replied: I don’t charge Judy. The only reason I’d ever go to bed with you is to make some fresh money. And if you think you’re so goddamned hot—
Enough, said Francine.
Turning his back on that jilted houri, he stood looking the lesbian up and down. Then he sized her up as follows: Guilty as hell.
As coolly neutral as the marble likeness of a Roman maiden—thoughtful, lovely, smooth and pale—she nodded at him, then turned patiently back to Shantelle. It now began to seem that he had in fact seen her on television, but if her career had gone anywhere good, why the fuck was she here? Besides, no Karen Strand appeared in the “RealNames” window of StarHunter.com. Faithfully hating her, he made up his mind that since she had not already gotten what she deserved, she soon enough would, amen!
Eight dollars, said Francine.
I thought it was happy hour, he said.
That just goes for well drinks. You didn’t specify, so it’s four and four. If you want me to dump it out and pour you a fucking well drink, just say so.
Pour me a fucking well drink.
Seven dollars, said Francine, flicking the unwanted double down the sink. She looked very angry.
He slid ten singles across the bar and said: Sorry about your mother.
Her face froze down. The death was her private business, evidently. Well, he could respect that even though she was a goddamned bulldogging bitch.—Finally she said: Thanks, J. D.
But why did Karen Strand remind him of someone familiar? He remembered admiring on his television screen the sultry mug shot of the twenty-seven-year-old mother whom the assistant district attorney called a calculating child killer. Melba, who adored the true crime channel, informed him that when they brought in this defendant, who was as pretty as a Christmas package in her handcuffs, for the opening day of her trial, she began to sob and her lawyer hugged her (seeing which, Melba had to masturbate); after which Judy, anxious to outdo Melba, advised him that this murderess frequently vomited in the prison van on her morning commute to the courthouse; the thought of that darkhaired defendant in distress certainly got him going; he liked it when he came in Judy’s mouth and she gagged, which she rarely did, more’s the pity; sometime he should order her to . . . During
the trial, the child killer kept sweetly tissuing away her tears. Her name was Kimberly Kenniston. She could weep for her brain-dead son, and then calmly, cheerfully answer questions. She had poisoned his feeding tube with salt in order to get sympathy. They nailed her after she phoned up her friend and asked her to throw away the feeding bag in secret. It was a very entertaining case which included a sexy district attorney named Chrissy Borealis and some sweet autopsy photos.
Another? inquired Francine.
Triple it up, and no ice.
Nine dollars.
Staring at Karen Strand (the silently singing woman who offered strong drink to her lovers) until he could project her image within his closed eyelids, he now decided that she resembled a bored college girl who would slum it here for a month or two, then disappear to law school or some all-American corporate job, something wonderful, like monetizing things that used to be free. But Karen Strand was thirty-six now, or fifty-one, or whatever. According to his research she had never gone to college. Here she was, our perpetual social worker, playing Lady Bountiful to welfare queens. He’d checked the SpiderWeb: no marriage reported for that individual, no arrest, no Vallejo teacher sex scandal during her high school years, no girl-on-girl statutory rape then, either, although even if some motel called the police the officer might have just instructed Karen and her girlfriend to get lost, after which—human nature!—any busy cop would have dropped it. We were too fuckin’ innocent back then, he realized. An opposite sex encounter with that age difference would have been charged as a sex crime, but lesbos always did get away with murder.
He found himself hoping for another blast of Karen’s famous charm, but maybe it was just as well that he didn’t feel anything. To hell with her anyhow.
Shantelle’s cell phone buzzed. Removing it from her purse, she offered its glowing screen to the lesbian, and then they both giggled. That infuriated him.
A grinning German blonde, built like a refrigerator, stood waiting by the toilets. Shantelle, queen of the world, stood up, kissed the back of Neva’s head and went to negotiate. Taking the German woman by the hand she said: No, I got my policy. I only put out when you get me high. High or loaded, either one.
The Lucky Star Page 35