Tales from a Titty Bar, Vol. XIV

A long time ago, I was a cocktail waitress in a gentleman's club, a place rather randomly cleped "The Parachute Lounge". The Parachute Lounge squatted, a ramshackle building of cinderblock and particle-board, by the side of scenic Highway XX in metropolitan downtown Bumfuck, Alabama. The Parachute was a popular dive, there being not much to do in Bumfuck, Alabama, save drinking, drugs, and activities leading to or involving fucking. I made a lot of money there, and created many adventures, some of which I have related to you before.

Know you this, as well: there are very few actual gentlemen in any given gentleman's club, especially in Bumfuck, Alabama. Personally, I prefer the term titty bar; no, it isn't pretty, but at least the phrase allows for some accurate representation of what actually goes on inside - specifically, mass alcohol consumption and lots of tit-jiggling. Although the tit-jiggling was not my particular province - I took care of generously lubricating the wallets who walked through the door - we bar-staff types were still expected to look good, smell good, smile at everyone, and display a relaxed tolerance and an amount of flesh that would have gotten us arrested in more conservative counties. To that end, the Parachute uniform: a faux flight suit, seemingly cut for a toddler, made of gunmetal-gray spandex and zippered down the front. A little bit of ass-cheek peeked out of each and every uniform behind, and the zipper had to be stepped at low mast for Jimmie, the manager, to be at all happy. A patch over the left breast displayed my nom de guerre, and under it rode a another patch, embroidered to resemble decorations of the military kind. The outfit was topped by a rakish hat and mirrored sunglasses, pilot-style, and as I slung longneck Buds and Jack-and-Cokes to the waiting clientèle, I teeter-tottered around on four-inch heels set in thigh-high black leather boots. Jimmie's little joke was that the uniforms were one-size-fits-all, and if a girl couldn't fit into the one size, she was too expensive to hire. He was a cheap bastard, and I laugh to think of it now, that I ever fit in such a thing, and my feet ache in sympathy for the girl-that-was-me, way back then.

The order of the evening? Arrive at four, toting a hard-shell guitar case that contained all my work gear. Unlock the back entrance for the other employees, turn on the lights and the window-unit air-conditioner that served the dancers' dressing room, strip naked, and change into my uniform. Four-thirty: crack open a beer, light a joint, stock the garnish tray. Five: have a cigarette, pee, snoot a rail or two, plenty in each nostril. Check mirror for visible cocaine residue, resume bar-stock. Five-fifteen: snoot a keybump, check mirror, sweep floor. Five-thirty, hork down another pair of lines, pat a little coke between cheek and gum, pop a ten-milligram Valium, unlock the front door. Six o'clock, and the working boys began to file in, hangdog and sheepish until the sun went down...and so it went.

Now, most of the fellows who frequented The Parachute were gentle enough souls, lonely men just looking to peer at a piece of goodlooking snatch, or talk to a pretty woman with tits in full view. I would even hazard a guess that ninety-seven percent of the men who offered us their regular custom were there as much to mix and mingle with their friends and drink the liquor we afforded them as to look a naked women. Every once in a while, though, we got a nasty one, a mean drunk, a man hell-bent on causing a ruckus and getting the shit kicked out of him by the bouncers. One such person was Rickey P., a notorious meth-head and vicious, vicious alcoholic.

I remember one Saturday night vividly. The Parachute was packed, the joint jumping. Aerosmith boomed out of the tall black speakers that flanked the barroom, disco-lights bouncing off every surface and smoothing into nothingness the cellulite and stretch-marks that all women - even titty-dancers - possess. I wove in and out of the tiny tables, flirting with my regulars, keeping the liquor and beer flowing, happily raking in the tips with both hands. Around eleven-thirty, I'd ducked into the back office with Jimmie the manager, to freshen my numb-nose and turn a fistful of dollar-tips into twenties. As we exited the office, we heard the roar; Rickey P. had arrived, drunk as fuck and in high dudgeon over something, and neither Bubba nor Lou, the bouncers, anywhere to be seen.

The music still pounded - Def Leppard, as I recall - and around the room, five or six girls undulated atop various rickety tables. Rickey P. stood below one of these four-tops, screaming unintelligibly at a doe-eyed, round-shouldered young thing who called herself Star, one of our newest dancers. Why, just that very evening I'd taught the girl the stripper trick that allows the show to go on even during menstruation, the old tuck-the-string-tight-into-the-pussy thing - she was that raw-green. One glance at her face told me Star was terrified, and, as Jimmie bounded toward the parking lot to see what in hell had become of the bouncers (lured away when Rickey smashed the window of a patron's Ford), I slipped up behind Rickey P.

Just as I moved into position, Rickey's hand went out, and he literally grabbed Star by the mons and dragged her towards him, nearly pulling her off the table. Queenie, of course, saw red and went immediately into overdrive - it's all fun and games until somebody hurts one of my friends - and I snatched the first thing to hand, a mostly-full bottle of Rolling Rock. I reared back with all my considerable strength, and bashed Rickey in the back of the head with the bottle.

You know how, in the movies, when someone smashes a bottle over someone else's head, the recipient of the blow goes down like a house of cards? Well, I am here to tell you that this is not what happens in real life, at least not when the dumb fucker you bash is as thick-skulled and high as was Rickey P. Rickey abruptly released Star's pubis, turned around, and punched me in the face so hard that my only thought was "dear God, not my nose again." I hit the floor like a sack of taters, bleeding as if he'd slit my throat...and Star, barely-legal, raw-green Star, swung into action.

Fire lit her eyes as that little redneck girl leaped off the table and onto Rickey's back. Star proceeded to scratch and bite everything she could get ahold of, ripping the flesh of his face with her red, rapier-blade nails. I lay on the floor, watching, in a daze that made everything appear stop-motion, as she chewed off a significant portion of his left ear. He screamed and swatted at her, making vain attempts to grab a hank of hair with which to drag her off of him. Just then - probably only seconds after Rickey had hit me - the bouncers reappeared. As they made their way across the crowded room and over to the scene of the crime, Star let go of Rickey with one hand, and that little doll - bless her heart - reached into the place where I'd taught her the stripper trick, pulled out the bloodiest, clottiest tampon you've ever seen, and shoved it right into Rickey's open and caterwauling piehole.

Friends, it was beautiful. I don't know if it was delayed reaction from the beer-bottle to the back of the head, loss of blood from his chewed-off ear, or simple and overwhelming disgust, but Rickey screamed like a little girl and went down like a ton of bricks. He fell on my shins - two hundred and forty pounds of fucked-up cracker white-trash, bleeding all over my thigh-highs - and there he lay, bloody, coldcocked, and with a used tampon stuck to his chin, until the police came to put him in the county lockup.

Jimmie told me a couple of weeks later that I'd taken a chip out of Rickey's skull with the beer-bottle, and that the doctors had recommended reconstructive surgery to restore Rickey's ear. He also told me that when Rickey awoke -sobered, chastened and repentant - the cops had asked him why in hell he'd gone for Star like he did. Rickey's reply?

"I only wanted to touch the fuzz..."

Gentleman's club, indeed.

Posted by Queenie at October 10, 2005 08:39 PM | TrackBack