Showplace, Part I

The bar is large and square, taking up most of the room in the center of the place. There are two stages behind that bar where the girls dance, and I could tell they were barely trying.

The place smells like piss, but after enough whiskey I never cared. I order another shot of whiskey, and the bartender pours me what looks like a triple. She gives me a crooked smile as I thank her, but she still isn’t getting a tip because it took her a half a fucking hour to get over here in the first place. Even the strippers have told me that she’s a bitch, each time in their cute broken English. Surprise, surprise.

The girls are all Russians, and I get the feeling that the Russian Mob runs the whole show here. I can imagine the sweet blondes in little villages near the Volga, getting snatched off the streets and sent to America to dance on stage and do heroin and be dead by 25.

There are also two doors by the bathroom that the girls look over at whenever you ask them for something you shouldn’t be asking for. It’s a scared, sheepish look, as if they’re unsure of what will happen if they get out of line. As I start drawing my gaze back to the stages, the black one comes up behind me, puts her arms around my chest.

“So when we going in the back honey?”

“Whenever you fucking find someone. Get on it.” I say.

She exhales hard, walks away frustrated. A half- hour later, I see her talking to some guido looking guy in the back by the pool tables. Spiky hair, arrogant, wearing sunglasses at night; I might enjoy this one. She’s smiling at him, rubbing her hands all over him. He’s loving it as she drags him out the backdoor and into the parking lot. I take what’s left of the whiskey and drop the glass on the floor. Fuck that bartender.

I walk out the front door and into the night, head right towards the bed of my truck. I light a cigarette, count out two minutes, and then grab the heavy steel pipe. It’s cold and wet, it must have rained while I was inside. Better off that way. I head around the back of the building.

The scene is unfolding by the back door. She’s got her back to the wall and her hands low, and they’re messing with his belt. He’s kissing her neck, rubbing her up and down. All I can think of is Why the fuck is he kissing a stripper? Whatever. She looks at me impatiently over his shoulder, her eyes wide, saying, What are you waiting for?

I stomp out the cigarette.


He had a lot of cash on him, so I gave her more than I did last time. Lucky her. I drove away in a haze, with smoke slowly filling the cab of the truck. I never tell her my name, because when things go like they did tonight, she’d roll me over in a second; this guy was bloody. I think he was alive…but then that’s not really my concern, what my concern is the money in my pocket and the small fifth of Jack Daniel’s that I found under the seat two minutes ago.

Pulling something like this would get you killed back east, being as the Mob worked the clubs over, and anything that drove customers away was something worth shooting me for. Out here though, it was easier. The Russians were a little more lax, and the area was different. A man could disappear out here in the thick woods and rolling hills, and no one would be the wiser until it was too late. Tom Petty comes on the radio, and I turn it up as the wind rolls through the car…find that saving grace.

I remembered her face, the blonde hair, the slight nose, happy eyes. Oh, you would not be happy with your boy now. I don’t give a fuck. You left me, and there’s not much left for me to care about. I can’t even talk about her without grimacing. I take some more out of the bottle, consider stopping, but at this point I can’t get much more drunk, so what the hell.

Oh shit, I should have stopped. The road is winding and my eyes are going up and down, and all I can think of is her hair and that blood and oh shit I drank too much whiskey it’s all hitting me right fucking now. The road turns slowly and soon enough, I see the bark of the tree that has split my hood in two and is staring back at me through my windshield. There’s blood on the dashboard. This isn’t good at all.

I’ve got to get rid of that pipe, that fucking pipe that has a whole lot of blood on it that isn’t mine. Shit. The door barely opens, and I try to get out. My legs don’t work, and I tumble as soon as a foot hits the wet grass. I try to pull myself up on the bed, but my ribs are cracked and it takes me a minute to pull myself up. I grab the pipe out of the bed, and walk off the road. There’s a river back here, and hopefully they won’t find it if I can throw it out there. I leaned back, and with all the strength I had, whipped it into the darkness. I buckled again, and fell, landing hard on a rock with my left elbow as I heard the pipe splash in the murky black water that I knew was out there. I look down, and I see blood on my hands, and it’s spreading all over, up my wrists and around my fingers. I start raking my hands over the dirt trying to get it off, but the more I do it the deeper the red gets.

There’s a white light. Oh shit. There’s two. They’re headlights. That’s worse than death. Damn. I realize how pathetic I must look, all busted up and dragging my hands through the dirt.

The car door opens, and I see black cowboy boots at my eye level. The door slams, and the boots start walking towards me until they’re right next to my face.

“Little too much to drink?” he asks, in a drawling voice that crawls of the South.

“Fuck you.” I say. He kicks me in the ribs with that one. At least he’s not a cop, then.

“Get up son. I think you better come with me.”

“Suck a dick. I don’t know you,” I say, gradually rising, still hunched protecting my shattered rib that this asshole just kicked. This guy is wearing a wide rimmed black hat and a black jacket. Somehow he reminds me of Ted Turner if he was a bit more intimidating.

“No, son, but I know you. I know what you done.”

“The fuck are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

“Yea you did. I done saw the blood.”

“It’s mine,” I say. He smiles. As I look down, my hands are clear. I look back at him.

“Fuck you. I’m outta here.”

I’m trying to walk away, but I’m bleeding from other places, and a piece of the fan is lodged in my leg. I don’t know how I missed that one.

He looks at me, then turns away. Blood runs down and into my eyes.


----------------------------------
First foray into fiction. Part II coming soon.