Prologue: Moby's Dick
He called me Ishmael.
Well, truth be told, what the old codger said was, "ish my Elle here?" Which is not nearly as strong an opening line. I should know, I am the world's most well-read strip club bouncer. When it comes to openings, I've seen 'em all, except the dancers', because at Bam Bam's BoomBoom Room Gentleman's Club; they get paid to not show those.
I stared down my crooked nose at the doddering customer, his lisp the result of a discernable lack of teeth. Ditto the stream of drool hanging out of his mouth. "Nope," I told him, "she doesn't dance here these days." I watched as his back bent a little more. Elle might have been the only thing keeping this Civil War veteran alive. "We got some new girls though if you're interested."
He shook his head and slowly meandered outside; his posture stooped like my father's once was before he passed away. 'Scimitar straight,' I used to call it, the result of the figurative, and in some cases literal, weight some men must carry. Speaking of weight, did I just hear the DJ announce that Nadine was on the stage?
Since grandpa was the first potential customer we had in over an hour, I figured I could leave the door for a few and watch my favorite dancer jiggle around the stage. So, I got up and walked into the club. Immediately I was assaulted by the stench of dried jizz, stale beer, and quavering cunts. It made me hungry for some reason.
On the main stage, under the miniscule lights specifically designed to not show her off, Nadine wobbled her bountiful curves for the financial appreciation of a couple of bored truckers. Her alabaster skin was so pale she looked like an albino polar bear. She gestured to take her top off and the truckers threw a couple of dollars at her to keep it on, because at Bam Bam's BoomBoom Room Gentleman's Club the dancers are so ugly the patrons pay them to stay clothed.
I loved her all the same though, even if she didn't know it. Sure, Nadine had the stretch marks, the varicose veins, the appendectomy scars, and a prolapsed belly button from multiple hernia operations, but I didn't care. I had to have her. I wasn't Ishmael, I was Ahab; and Nadine was my white whale.
While she did her set; I overheard two dancers behind me talking.
"So Cherry, what's the biggest dick you ever sucked?"
The redhead seated with her smacked her gum and took her time answering. "I dunno, eighteen inches I think."
The brunette busted out laughing. "Haha, ain't no dick eighteen inches long. The world's record is like, shit; twelve inches. I think there's a guy out there with a twelve-inch dick."
"Oh," Cherry said, sounding bored, "You didn't specify it had to be a guy's dick."
I got up and made my way further from the stage.
Nadine finished her set and I waved her over to a table in the corner. When she got closer, I could see the rivulets of sweat running from her flesh like raindrops sliding off a neoprene poncho. I held the chair for her, and she sat in a huff.
"Billy you sure you can leave the door unattended long enough to buy me a drink?"
"Not buying you a drink, I'm buying you a bottle," I told her as I patted her on her shoulder.
"But Billy- "
"Nope, don't want to hear it. You need money to get to Lake Havasu, so that's that." I sat down across from her and studied her stunned expression. She recovered quickly and leaned over the table and kissed me. Before I could even register what had just happened, or speculated on whether her Thrush mouth had cleared up, we were interrupted.
"Get a room you two," Darla, our snarky waitress, had arrived with our champagne. As she cleaned off the dust and cobwebs from the bottle, I felt myself blush.
'Here I am, a bouncer at the worst, most rundown strip club in Texas, getting red in the face over a dancer. What would the fellas think?' Suddenly my perspective shifted, I saw myself seated there with Nadine. The looks between us, but also, the smirk Darla had. Jim at the bar was rolling his eyes. Mike in the booth was laughing at us, at me. Somehow, I could even see Greg watching through the monitors in his office, he was rolling on the floor.
I stood up as Darla popped the cork. "I gotta go," I stammered. An expression of hurt crossed Nadine's features. "The door, I gotta watch it. Enjoy the bottle, and Lake Havasu." I nearly tripped as I fled from her, from us.
Once I was safely ensconced at the entrance; I lit a cigarette with shaky hands and traced the row of stitches above my right eye. I couldn't forget the bikers who came in the other evening. 'That's right, what if they try to come back. Somebody has to be ready for them.'
God, how I wished for them to return then and there. That was a brawl, no doubt. I searched and found that feeling of purity, the screams, covered in blood, the sounds of bones being broken. "I'm not a coward," I whispered so softly I could not hear myself. I looked inside and saw Nadine, still at our table. Her head was down, and her shoulders were shaking.
"I'm not."
Part one: Find a New You at Lake Havasu
Nadine Lipton had no one to blame but herself. If there was one lesson she took to heart growing up as white trash on the outskirts of Candyville, Texas, it was that life was one long, inexorable moment of torment demarcated only by intermittent phases of despair. And yet, she had hoped that this excursion would bring something different. Maybe hoped was too strong a word. Wagered is a more fitting term. As a dancer at the only club in Candyville, Nadine was used to drawing the same cards from a loaded deck night after night. For the preceding four years young Nadine would ascend a small stage stained by beer and various bodily fluids and gyrate in a manner that could best be described as something approaching an epileptic seizure, or a religious conversion. All the while he would be adorned in dental floss. Beneath her would be a few bored patrons, so unimpressed with her looks and dancing technique they would pay her to stay clothed.
So, after having looked at the same poker hand yet again, she decided to really gamble and took several weeks earnings from Bam Bam's BoomBoom Room Gentleman's Club and applied them towards a four-day long excursion in Lake Havasu, Arizona. She couldn't wait on Billy Warner to man up anymore, if she was going to break free, she had to do it on her own.
Her trip would take place during spring break. Nadine felt certain that if the tired, near blind regulars of Bam Bam's were incapable of truly appreciating her massive charms; surely the young, drunken, horny college males would. Not only that, but perhaps she would find her soulmate. As far as soulmates go, Nadine was not a very particular woman. Her prospective life-long partner had to stand at least six foot four, with a square jaw, chiseled abs, blonde, well endowed, blue eyes, a deep voice, a generous trust fund, and inherent ability and capacious desire to perform cunnilingus.
Nadine was aware that for her to succeed in finding her Prince Charming, she would have to take a proactive approach. Well-schooled in the art of seduction as taught by the Real Housewives of Atlanta television show, Nadine felt the best course would be to bare her bosoms while standing in the middle of a throng of drunk college kids. Her plan of attack established; Nadine chose her weapons accordingly. Her very first day in Lake Havasu, after she had finished checking into her motel room, she showered and then bathed in exotic oils, like Golden Lotus Blossom of The Thousand Palms and Milk of the Manticore's Scrotum.
That part completed, she briefly studied herself in the mirror and practiced sucking in her pot belly. She then applied a cream to hide her stretch marks. Still not satisfied, she doused herself in a perfume especially formulated with feline pheromones. It was expensive, so she normally couldn't afford Eau De Pussy, but Billy had basically paid for it with tips at the club. It wasn't much, still she felt that, when combined with her experience as a dancer, she knew the male mind well enough to safely assume that men would be instantly attracted to anything even remotely related with the name of said perfume.
Next, Nadine shimmied her way into a two-piece bikini designed for inopportune wardrobe malfunctions. Ecstatic with the final product, she made her way from her motel and walked to a bar situated on the lake. Nadine had calculated that where there was a drinking establishment, there would be drinking. And where there was drinking, there would be flashing, and where there was flashing, there would ultimately be marriage proposals.
Once inside, Nadine wasted little time removing her top and awaited the resulting rain of Mardi Gras beads. Alas, it was not to be. After a few minutes of fruitless jiggling, Nadine noted with chagrin, that there were several other half-dressed females present. She expected competition, what shocked her was that the one female receiving most of the male affection was a beautiful young woman of Arab descent.
Of course, Nadine was not a prejudiced person. If asked about any minority, Nadine was more than happy to lie and say that the people within that particular group were her friends.
Her real issue with Arabs wasn't that she was racist, per se. It stemmed more from her childhood memories of her father, drunkenly screaming about an Iraqi prostitute named Abdul who gave him syphilis during Operation Desert Storm. After his screaming had passed, her father would then scratch his crotch furiously while muttering about various appliances built by General Electric and then pass out in a fitful slumber. From those days forward, when Nadine would dream of what her life might have been if not for GE and Arab prostitutes; she swore to avoid both at all costs. And yet, standing between her and happiness once again, was an Arab. With her blood boiling, she decided she would walk over and put a Texas sized ass whooping on her newest obstacle to happiness. She did just that.
Well, sort of. She did walk over. Nadine did shove the smaller woman and did mutter a racial epithet so severe it started a riot. Before Nadine could see what havoc her words had wrought, however, the young Arab woman managed to land a tremendous reverse crane kick to the side of Nadine's face.
While Nadine was unconscious, the violence in the bar spread into neighboring establishments. Shortly thereafter, several cars were overturned as wasted college boys of any and all ethnic backgrounds did battle, loot, and pillage. Several hours later the national Guard had to be called in to restore order. Since Nadine was at the epicenter, the rescue teams got to her last.
When they found her, she was still on the ground, both her breasts exposed, and surrounded by at least three dozen male cats who were busy licking and rubbing themselves against various and sundry parts of Nadine's body. As she slumbered, she smiled, dreaming of multiple Bradley Coopers kissing every inch of her more than willing form. Both EMTs would later testify that in that moment Nadine looked quite beautiful, almost perfect, if not for the unsightly bulge above her chin that denoted a broken jaw.
***
Part Two: Cowards Die a Thousand Deaths, Idiots Die Just Once
I had every reason to be unhappy. There I was, stuck in Candyville Texas, home of the world's largest trailer park and RV campground, 'Dead Pines'. Meanwhile, the girl I loved, Nadine Lipton, had disappeared. Rumor had it she started a riot in Lake Havasu and that she had fled to Guatemala and started a religious cult. All I knew was that it had been six weeks since she left, and not a word from her.
Add to that the unhappy realization I had that evening that my hairline was receding so quickly my mullet was in real danger of turning into a flounder. 'Screw getting a haircut,' I thought to myself as I tried styling a combover in the mirror. I was interrupted by the phone ringing.
"Damnit." I picked it up from the cradle. "Hello, Billy Warner speaking.
"Hey Billy, its Bobby," the drawl on the other end was unmistakable. "I need to talk to Benny, it's about Betty."
