by D Keith Mano
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despised me. It isn’t easy for a sixteen-year-old boy to withstand
the mature and elegant loathing of a powerful adult male. I spent
my Sundays withering in front of him.
Now I ’m a priest. That’ll teach ’em.
Getting Amanda pregnant was such a suicidal mistake, not
like me at all. I ’m really a decent chap, an ethical drudge, in
fact. A respecter of authority. A suicidal act it was—almost as
bad as, well, running a topless bar. Do Episcopalians come in
here often? I hope not—and they should be ashamed of themselves if they do.
At eight the shifts change. Ttao bartenders (both female) and
a drink hostess (or two) replace Pearl. Leonard arrives, yawning. And, on weekends, a tall, skinny kid with long hair named Freddy works as assistant bouncer. The cash registers are turned
over. Single dollar bills are crucial—they’re die chief unit of
exchange for those who tip. Singles circulate constantly. From
customer to girl. From girl to bartender. From bartender back
to customer again. It isn’t unusual for a bartender to give a
customer sixteen singles in change for a twenty dollar bill—after
deducting $4.00 for the drink. On any given night there must
be as many as S00 singles circulating around The Car. This
makes it a hemorrhoidal pain to count up receipts at day’s end.
Quarters, too, must be available for the Joker Poker machine
(though these don’t have to be counted and rolled as often).
Around six, people start coming in. A lot of people. I ’m kind
of astounded—there are usually twenty men standing against the
walls from 8 p.m. until at least 2 a.m. Figure a transient attendance of nearly 100. Figure even one beer for each of these (and most drink a lot more than that)—The Smoking Car must be
doing very well, indeed. I don’t think anyone who knew Tony
as an adolescent could’ve imagined—in the slightest—that he
would own a place like this. He was Huck Finn. A good old kid
with freckles.
Yet every other hour now I get a report about my brother that
modulates my POV. Tanya was leaving around 8 p.m ., and one
of the Silicone Sisters said something uncomplimentary under
her breath.
“ You don’t like her,” I said.
“ None of us do. Her shit don’t smell. Just because she did a
bank commercial. I mean she was an extra, just standing in line
for a deposit. ”
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D. Keith Mano
“ She dances pretty w ell.’’
“ She dances lousy. This isn’t, you know, the ballet. It looks
stupid—a Swan Lake routine when your tits’re going boing-
boing.”
“ Well, now that you mention it—’’
“ And if you knew what she did t’Tony . . . ”
“ W hat?”
“ Oh, I ’m not supposed t ’say. Forget it.”
“ Say.”
“ I shouldn’t . ”
“ Say or you’re fired.” I was surprised at myself. But it
worked.
* ‘Well, if you’re that way about it. Tanya and him were getting
it on. And I think, from what I hear, she hit him up for lotsa
cash.”
“ Hear from where?”
“ Around. It’s all around. Everyone would tell you that. Tony
was tough, but that one had his num ber.”
“ What about this other girl, Rita?”
“ Oh, she hated it. He never lent her anything. She was jealous of Thnya.”
“ You wanna work here?”
“ Sure. Hey, what’s the strong arm stuff? You think you’re
Tony?”
“ You wanna work here, you stop talking about my brother.
And that goes for your clone on stage. Got it?”
She nodded. She really just nodded. And a surge of power—
I ’ll do big penance for that one—rushed through me. I understand what Tony must’ve felt. It was something you could get addicted to.
Bubbles and a girl named Shane were dancing. Alternately,
in a pair, Mayo and one Silicone Sister. I don’t know how I ’ll
ever keep their names and faces straight—especially as I tend to
look away when I ’m talking „with any of them. I counted 150
names in Tony’s notebook. (Seeing his handwriting there made
my throat go thick.) Some names are active, some inactive—
and two or three new ones come along each day. But there is a.
core group of ten or twelve that you could call regular. On Sunday (yes, this place is actually open on Sunday, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m .) we use just two girls. Monday, TUesday and Wednesday
we use six: a pair alternating from 11:45 a.m. to 7:45 p.m ., a
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pair from 5:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m ., and a pair from 7:30 p.m.
to 4 a.m. This means that from 5:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m ., the
busiest period, the shifts overlap, and we have two girls dancing
at the same time. Thursday, Friday and Saturday we use eight:
two extra from 7:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. So from 7:30 p.m. to
12:30 a.m. we have three girls on a very crowded stage. That
means I ’m responsible for booking 44 dancers a week. This
is not going to be easy.
And is it ever, oh, boh-ring. All new to me and still I ’m
bored. I ’d rather watch someone x-ray luggage at LaGuardia. If
you’re not here to get drunk or take a dancer home to bed (every
john’s dream), then the whole thing is just deafening dullness.
(I must get earplugs.) There’s a good pinball machine called
Firehouse, but I don’t score well (an emblem of my character—
I can never bring myself to bang the sides of the machine, the
way big league scorers do). Also—it doesn’t look right, the boss
playing pinball. Here I am already trying to find the proper, you
know, demeanor for a topless bar king.
The electronic poker game has a large following. I don’t quite
understand the fascination—paying twenty-five cents to play an
imaginary hand of five card draw. I mean, you could do the
same thing with a deck of cards. We have a big sign that says
FOR FUN ONLY, NO CASH PAY-OUTS WHATEVER, so it
can’t be the money, I think. I went over and played a couple of
quarters desultorily—but my presence seemed to dampen everyone’s fun. Most started to drift away, and Leonard seemed so passionately to be rooting against me that I gave it up.
Leonard has become a problem: I mean, yes, I have asked
for instruction, but that doesn’t mean Leonard has to climb inside my ear. Mostly what he talks about is people: customers, and what makes them go berserk. In fact, of course, he’s trying
to scare me off his turf with tales of violence. How he had to
screw this guy’s head off like a gas-tank cap or pry that man’s
eyes out. New York war stories.
The Smoking Car has been robbed twice at gunpoint: customers and dancers down flat on their stomachs, professional heists. One time Leonard wasn’t on duty. Once it was just too
crowded for him to do anything (humanitarian that he is). Leonard carries a gun—he’s going to bring his license in and show it to me. He suggests I get one, too (especially since I plan on
taking the receipts home every night). Leonard hasn’t said so,
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D. Keith Mono
but I assume Tony also carried a gun. (That’
s in keeping with
my memories—Tony had an air pistol when he was twelve and
he always appreciated a well-made weapon. I think he did some
hunting, if I remember. That may be why Tony bought his place
in the Poconos.) But me? The six-gun priest? Hopalong Clergyman? Somehow I don’t picture it.
Meanwhile it’s just hard enough finding a place to stand.
Behind the bar is no good: people expect me to pour them drinks.
For that, as I ’ve said, we have two bartenderesses at night—and
one or two cocktail hostesses to service the tables. Scanty
dress is required: leotards and deep-cut necklines. The two
regular behind-the-bar girls are M elissa, who stutters (y’want
a B-bb-bud Light?) and Friend (her real name), who seems
to be asleep on her feet.
When I stand at the rear end of the bar, near the kitchen, I ’m
stuck with Leonard. Still, this is probably the best place. From
there you can watch the door and most of the tables. And you
can see the stage, if you want to, reflected in the bar mirror.
There seems to be a prejudice against anyone from the staff
sitting down. Takes up a paying customer’s seat. But I don’t
think I can put up with hearing about Lennie’s adventures eight
hours a day—on Topless Time.
(I say Topless Time because topless joints, figuratively and
actually, are in a time warp. All topless clocks are set ten minutes fast—I ’m still not used to it. The reason is utilitarian: it helps us clear everyone out before the 4 a.m. city curfew. But it
means that dancers dance and things are done at The Car by our
time. For someone like me who rushes in and out on various
errands—I might as well be crossing a small International Time
Line all day long. Add the night-day alternation and my biological clock is overwound. Add to this the fact that Kay’s watch gains about ten minutes a day anyhow, as if trying to synchronize itself with Topless Time, and . . .) And besides, who can hear? Every conversation is a double
crostic puzzle: a word here, a word there. I ’ve given up asking
people to repeat their remarks—they aren’t worth it, most times.
O f course, what the Boss says is super-significant—so I have to
chew my cud twice over. And most of what I say doesn’t bear
repetition—certainly not to me. So we leam to nod and laugh
when the other guy is laboring through a joke. You can’t call it
a deepening experience.
My salvation (or my doom) may be Joe Solomon, the retired
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homicide detective. I like him. For all the violence he’s seen
(he’s been decorated for heroism six times), Joe cultivates an
almost feminine manner. Talks in an overprecise, slightly fey
voice—under which there is a long habit of authority. He’s gray
and balding (there’s a big scar on his scalp) and kind of sallowskinned—I don’t think his health can be all that good. Joe is a widower and sometimes goes to the track with Pearl: they come
from the same part of Jackson Heights. But, best of all, Joe
carries a miniature chess board everywhere. I haven’t played in
a while: still, we seem well matched. Around ten he and I went
outside (the air conditioning is on OVERKILL, I ’m bound to
get a cold) and played a couple of speed games on the fender of
my Lincoln.
Joe told me he played with (and most often lost to) my brother.
So I tried a little exploratory surgery. I asked Joe what the police
thought about Tony’s disappearance—was it foul play? I regretted that. Asking.
“ From what I gather—and I ’m not in the office much any
more—there seems t’be some cynicism in the department. ”
“ Which means?”
“ Tony was upta something—whether this was just adultery
or something more profitable, I dunno.”
“ You think he’s alive?”
“ He struck me as a man who survives. Check.”
“ You liked him.”
“ A great deal. Not your average topless capo. A bright man,
but sometimes, if you’ll pardon me, not so schmartdt. Listen,
Mike, I ’m gonna tell you something. I ’m gonna tell you just
once. Because I like The Car and, I ’d hate Pearl t’be out of a
job. Just once and no names.”
“ Uh-oh. Yes?”
“ Drugs are being dealt in there. A considerable amount of
drugs. People are aware of this. And—unless it’s cleaned up
soon—action will come down.”
“ Christ. What should I do?”
“ Stop it.”
“ Christ,” I said again. “ They’d close us down, I suppose.
Right?” He shrugged. “ Even if I knew nothing about it?”
“ You’re supposta know. You’re management.”
“ Are you saying Tony knew?”
“ I am of two minds about that.”
“ Maybe he tried t’stop them—and they got rid of him.”
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D. Keith Mono
“ It’s a possibility.” Joe forked my queen and my king.
“ You’re a nudnik idiot t ’get involved in this. ”
“ You’re telling m e.”
“ One more thing. It’s illegal t ’pay off on the Joker Poker
m achine.”
“ We don’t. There’s a sign—”
“ Holy Moses, where did they get you from, a monastery?”
(Has Pearl told him anything?) “ ‘There’s a sign,’ he says.”
“ Hold on now. I may be new on the job but I ’m not—”
“ You’re a babe in the woods. Though, give you—give anyone—a month in that place arid—” He shrugged.
“ You seem t ’know enough t ’get us shut down a half dozen
times. So? Why hasn’t it happened?”
“ I ’m retired.”
“ Isn’t that complicity?”
“ Maybe—but I like The Car. Tony and I had the same taste
in women. I could reminisce t’myself about my lost manhood. ’’
“ Don’t break my heart.”
“ Clean it up fast, Mike. You’ve got hours, not even days.”
This depressed me no end. I can hardly ask Ethel for help—
beyond a certain amount of moral support. I ’m the male: she’s
hired me to straighten her business out. I have no doubt that
Leonard Krause at least condones (if he hasn’t instigated) whatever illegalities there may be at The Car. But, frankly, I ’m afraid to make a move. Both physically afraid (yes, Leonard is an
awesome pile of flesh) and afraid, also, that I ’ll find out my
brother has been behind it all.
Worse, there was a guy waiting for me when I walked into
The Car. He got up from his table and snatched at the back of
my shirt. In so doing, his fingernails broke flesh. I saw Leonard
and Freddy start lumbering toward me. But the guy was shorter
than I am, and very soused, so he didn’t seem to present a
dramatic threat. He did, however, seem mightily annoyed.
“ You Wilson?” he said.
“ Yes.”
“ Well you or somebody owes me $7500 bucks. And I want
it. I ’m not gonna be jerked around, you get m e?”
“ I don’t even know you,” I said, and I walked on, but he
caught at my shirt again. “ Take your hand off. ”
“ Not ’til I get some satisfaction.” Leonard came over: he
ha
d the smile and saunter of a trained assassin. Freddy held
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something solid and leaden-looking in his fist—welded knuckles? A cosh?
“ Get off him,” Leonard said. The man got off.
“ He owes me, $7500—you know that, Leonard. Tony was
gonna get me the TV sets. You heard us talking.”
“ What is this?” I asked.
“ This guy is a pain, Mike. He’s always pretending t’do big
deals—he does shit. Now he’s getting out. ’ ’
Leonard, upsy-daisy, just lifted the poor man by his s k in -
two nasty handholds under the armpit—and then carried him out
to Northern Boulevard. I should’ve followed: I should’ve tried
to secure more information—but ignorance is bliss. In extenuation, there was no way to prove the guy’s allegations: it was his word against Tony’s—there are advantages to being missing.
But televisions. There is something particularly sordid about
televisions.
I was sitting at the bar around 3:30, when Bubbles came over
to me. My brain had gone punchy with rock reverb and existential angst. Bubbles was dressed in an old poncho and, at best, she looked like a bag lady. It is amazing—the metamorphoses
continue to shock me—how a shlumpy, plain female can become—with makeup, glitter, lighting and her God-given bare flesh—a paralyzing vamp. Women are protean. They change so
much more than men do. And Bubbles was an extreme case.
All glitz and glamour on stage. Campy, overdone—broad as a
gay’s imitation of Bette Davis. And then—shazam!—a dowdy
burlap sack on her way out into the street.
Anyhow, she sat beside me.
“ Lemme buy you a drink,” she said.
“ That’d be a waste of money. Anyhow, I don’t drink on the
job.”
“ Yeah. But it’s a gesture.”
“ Well, thanks.”
“ Here’s another gesture.” Bubbles took a key ring out and
handed it to me. “ My apartment’s on the ground floor. Here’s
the address.”
“ Not tonight—” I handed the keys back. But why, I thought,
did I say, “ Not tonight?” I meant “ never,” didn’t I? Or was I
just being polite?
“ Keep ’em .”
“ Nope. Hey, you don’t even know me, I could sneak into
your place and rape you.”
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D. Keith Mono
“ Please. Just don’t rip off my VCR, I ’m taping the Bon Jovi
