Seventy-four dollars?
David thought as he studied his checking account online for the third time that afternoon. Seventy-four dollars would have to last him for the next three weeks. Even though David got paid that next Friday, that money was already earmarked for rent on his studio apartment and his electric bill that was already past due from last month. Luckily, the apartment came with free heat and cable TV, and nearly-free WiFi. That bill would come due some day when the fifty-something woman next door realized that David was using her open signal. She knew what he did for a living and she'd want something special for David's continued use of her internet connection, but for now she was none the wiser and David put it out of his mind and focused on his monetary predicament.
Never mind how he was going to eat for the next 21 days, how was he going to pay Louie what he owed? Five thousand bucks plus ten percent by Friday or the son-of-a-bitch shark would send his goons over and put him out of commission. David was put together well, kept in shape and worked out constantly. You had to in his profession, but he was no match for Louie the Nine's muscle. Two or three of Louie's henchmen could do some serious damage to David and keep him from his livelihood. David thanked his lucky stars that he was a single man. Louie got the nickname "The Nine" by, purportedly, making delinquent borrowers watch, after a harsh beating, of course, while the swindler slammed his nine-inch pecker into their wife or girlfriend. David also gave thanks that Louie the Nine wasn't gay!
If he didn't pay Louie, David would surely feel the loan shark's wrath. And if he didn't pay his rent, David would get tossed out into the street sure as Hell. The owner of his apartment building was generous with the free heat, but more than once David had seen other tenants return to their homes to find their belongings, what was left of them anyway after the street urchins took what they wanted, strewn across the sidewalk after missing their payment date. Everest Developments and its owner, Earl Everest, was not one to be taken lightly so David had to come up with a solution quickly to keep a roof over his head and his legs unbroken.
Broken legs weren't something that would go over well in his profession. David Anders was a dancer at Maxxy's, a strip club on the outskirts of Gravel City. Although Maxxy's was open 6 days a week (closed on Sundays, of course), invariably, most of the action happened on Fridays and Saturdays. David worked his way up from slinging drinks on the stagnant Wednesday afternoon shift when the women danced for horny businessmen to the coveted weekend evening shows. Maxxy's became a male revue on Fridays and Saturdays and the dollar bills flowed from seemingly bottomless purses of estrogen-enraged screaming twentysomething girls on the town for bachelorette parties, groups of neglected housewives looking for changes of pace, and lonely hard-working women in business suits hoping for any kind of interaction with muscular, half-naked boytoys that, for a couple Ben Franklins, might break the house rules and take them to private rooms for extracurricular activities.
David wasn't one of the dancers that broke the rules at Maxxy's. If the owner, Max Devlin, caught one of his male employees breaking his rules with a customer, he'd give that employee the "Silver Boot," which was first a swift kick to the dancer's exposed scrotum with Max's silver-tipped left Durango cowboy boot, and then the "boot" out the back door with the matching right (Max was, evidently, ambidextrous) and on to the unemployment line. David desperately needed the job and wanted to keep his balls dent-free, so he kept any extracurriculars separate from work. Now, however, David contemplated risking Max's wrath and the "Silver Boot" if he thought it would help his financial situation.
If only Mom and Dad could see me now,
he thought as he readied himself for his Friday night shift.
++++++++++
"Oh, come on, Miranda!" Jessie shouted at her friend. "Just come out for a little while. All the girls miss you and, quite honestly, you work too much. You need some down time and we know just the place!" Jessie tapped her red acrylic nails on her friend's mahogany desk as if she was impatiently waiting for Miranda's reply. She really just liked the sound her fake claws made on the lacquered finish, so Jessie continued her drumming until her friend reached across the desk and took her hand.
"Jessie, you know how busy I am these days." Miranda replied as she released her friend's hand from her grip. "This latest acquisition is huge and if I let someone else take the lead then something could slip through the cracks and kill the deal. I have to handle this personally, Jess."
"You could take a few hours off, yknow..." Jessie countered. "It's Friday! Time to blow off some steam have a few drinks and make a few bad decisions that you'll regret tomorrow morning. It wouldn't kill you take one night off, Rand. And Allen wouldn't want you to be cooped up in his old office slaving away seven days a week and having no fun..." Jessie immediately regretted bringing up Allen, but she was desperate to get through to her workaholic friend.
Miranda laid her pen on the oversized desk and sat back in her leather cushioned chair. She ran her fingers through her cropped blonde hair. "It was three years last month, Jess..." Miranda stated matter-of-factly. "I almost forgot about it because of my Brussels trip. I was so focused on that last deal that it didn't dawn on me until 9:30 that night." A tear slipped from the corner of Miranda's left eye as the memories of her deceased husband rushed through her mind, starting with their first encounter and ending with the day of his untimely death. An aggressive form of pancreatic cancer had taken Allen from Miranda when he was only 34 and she was just 28.
"Sorry, Rand..." Jessie said softly as she walked around the large desk and wrapped her arms around her still-grieving best friend. Jessie and Miranda met in seventh grade PE class and instantly bonded while learning the finer points of field hockey. The two were inseparable throughout high school and roomed together in college. Jessie was Miranda's maid of honor when she married Allen and her rock when Allen succumbed to his ailment. Even though Miranda busied herself with the running of Allen's corporation (she still didn't think of it as
her
corporation), she and Jessie met at least once a week to catch up over lunch or coffee at Peanut's down the street from Miranda's office.
Jessie spoke as she held Miranda in her comforting embrace, "I know these last couple of years have been rough, Rand. And we all loved Allen. You two were great together and you brought out the best in each other. But he's gone, baby. It's been so long since I've seen you really smile..." Jessie's own tears began to flow as she released Miranda and took her friend's face in her hands. "And I want to see you smile again, Rand..."
Miranda wiped the tears from her face and struggled to stretch a grin across her face. "OK, Jess... I can take a little time off tonight." Miranda put her hands over Jessie's that were still holding her face. Jessie smacked her lips to Miranda's as she had done thousands of times before then rested her forehead on Miranda's.
"You know," Jessie said with a tear-stained grin, "if I was into girls, you'd have been my bitch a long time ago!" The two friends laughed like they always had at the tired old joke between them. Jessie always used that line when Miranda needed cheering up or calming down. She used the same line on Miranda just before she walked down the aisle to marry Allen and it soothed her runaway bride nerves.
"So," Jessie continued as she stood up and smoothed her flowered sundress, "meet us at Maxxy's at 9pm and bring lots of dollar bills."
"Maxxy's?!" Miranda protested. "Really? Do we have to go there? I mean, a strip club?"
"It's Monica's bachelorette party!" Jessie countered. "Where did you think we were going to go, Rand? The Putt-Putt Palace? Just meet us there at nine and buy me some drinks! It'll be just what you need!" With that, Jessie triumphantly strode out of Miranda's office leaving the young widow alone, as it often was, with her thoughts and a stack of papers on her large desk.
"Maxxy's..." Miranda said to her empty office. "Just what I need..."
++++++++++
April is hit-or-miss in Michigan when it comes to weather. Sunny and seventy degrees can turn to snow and thirty in a matter of a few hours. David was glad that this weekend's forecast called for clear skies and warmer-than-normal temperatures. Clear and warm meant he could ride his motorcycle to work instead of driving his gas hog of a truck and save a few bucks on fueling up. David turned the key and hit the starter button on his Honda CBR250R and the bike roared to life. At 57mpg, the Honda would get him back and forth for quite some time if the weather held out. Even though it was legal for David to ride without a helmet in Michigan, he was no fool and slipped the full-faced protective dome over his head.
It was a twenty-five-minute drive to Maxxy's from David's apartment and the display on the Honda's speedometer read 6:32pm. Max wanted all his entertainers at the club at least ninety minutes before showtime so that they could enter the club and get ready without wading through the crowd of women that would be outside the entrance waiting to go into the club. David always showed up a half hour before Max's deadline. Being late wouldn't get you the Silver Boot, but it would get you a severe dressing down and possibly cost you your spot on the weekend shift, so it paid to stay on Max's good side.
As he released the clutch and the sleek crotch rocket moved forward, David's mind went back to the thought he had just before exiting his apartment and climbing aboard the Honda:
If only Mom and Dad could see me now.
He chuckled internally at the thought. The last conversation he'd had with his parents was a heated exchange six years ago at their home in Columbus, Ohio. That conversation culminated with a typical parental statement from his father: "My house, my rules, Mister! You don't like it? There's the door!" David's reply was silent but poignant. He stuffed some extra clothes in his backpack and went through the door of his parent's home for the last time. David climbed aboard his Honda (the very same he was riding to work now) and sped away from his childhood home. It was the only time he didn't wear his helmet while riding and David's parents caught his icy stare as they stood in the front doorway and watched as their only son rode out of their lives forever.
As the sun beat down on David as he rode to Maxxy's that night, he was glad for the tinted visor on his full-faced helmet. There was no sun to blind his eyes that March afternoon six years ago as he zoomed up US-23 to Ann Arbor where his sister, Danielle, lived with her husband and twin daughters. Even though Danielle and her husband, Greg, said David could stay with them as long as he wanted, and as much as the girls loved having "Unka Davy" around, David knew he had to strike out on his own. After staying with his sister's family for a month, David hugged Danielle and his nieces one last time then left to begin his new life in Gravel City.
