Wolf Howling

by Brian van Brunt

  I smile for another picture and pretend to take a drink from the spiked lemonade. That is something I have to be careful about. The last thing I need is to be drunk tonight. I walk a bit behind them and spill some out as we move towards Bourbon. Huck leads the crew and we hoot and holler down the street.

  On either side of Bourbon, men and women throw beads down on the crowd from their balconies. Keith raises his shirt to a few of the ladies, displaying a rather impressive six-pack. Huh, good for him. Women toss beads at him while he tosses them back to us. He pulls his shorts down a bit and shows them his little happy trail. If you don’t know, this is where they can almost see the top of his pubic hair. He does a little dance for them while women hoot and holler. They toss even more beads at him. One lets a feather boa fall slowly down into his waiting hands. He wraps it around his neck and blows them a kiss and says, “You’re welcome.” Soon, we look like everyone else on Bourbon, swaying to the music, beads hanging off our necks; looking to see how many of the deadly sins we can check off our list in one night.

  Bunch of fucking rabble, if you ask me. They once had some kind of bullshit wrestling event here at the sports dome and it reminds me of that day. Fucking in-bred yokels carrying belts around like they won some kind of fight. A plague would do this city good.

  We pass by another bar with a very chesty, short, fat woman out front with a collection of test tube shots. Her clothes are way too tight, goddamn fat pig. But I will say this, her tits are like these watermelon sized things. She catches Dan’s eyes and puts one of the shots between her massive breasts and pulls him in close. Dan shrugs and puts his mouth on the tube, snuggling between those massive breasts like a prairie dog finding his home. Dan does this a number of times while we watch and pose for pictures. #boysnightout #nobitches

  I am sure to smile in all of these pictures. Smiling with my drink in hand, now almost empty, as most of it was spilled on St. Louis leading to Bourbon. I take two of the empty test tubes and wave them around as well. Drunk Al, having the time of his life. All part of the plan. Chapter 3:4-5, “Choose wisely your path; be sly and clever, like the fox. Hunt, and forsake the howl.” I cover my path. Which is easy, given the basic nature of Huck, Dan, and Keith. Idiots.

  Keith leads us up to a fancier strip club called The Bayou. While the street is mostly filled with the indistinguishable rabble of Bourbon, I notice this tall guy in a Rolling Stones t-shirt who looks very familiar to me. I can’t place him, but he reminds me of an academic or maybe a visiting lecturer in one of my classes. It’s annoying. Anyway, he’s arguing with a goofy looking drunk wearing a “Bourbon-Faced on Shit Street” t-shirt. I laugh at that. Novelty t-shirts amuse me.

  Huck and Dan walk past me, missing the argument and focusing instead on this hot redhead piece of ass outside the club wearing a tight black bikini. Bourbon-Faced steps toward the older dude and seems to take a swing at him. He’s clearly drunk and misses, falling off-balance, and his cigarette launches out of his hand a few feet to my left. The drunk tries to steady himself as he starts to go down by grabbing the nearest object. That nearest object is Huck. Specifically, it’s Huck’s beer-holding arm. The remaining beer spills all over Huck. Dan has this epic, kind of distant grin that comes across his face, like a dog that suddenly breaks free of a leash.

  The beer cup goes flying into a nearby homeless man’s cardboard sign and baseball cap, sending coins spilling onto the street. The old homeless man swats the cup away with a look of disdain and wipes beer off his notebook with a muffled swear. Dan gives this kick to the guy who spilled Huck’s drink and calls him a drunk. Huck looks sadly at his lost beer. Dan gives the drunken guy another few kicks. The man huddles into a fetal position to protect his face. I see the bouncer, this massive guy who reminds me of Dr. Vin Diesel, starting to move toward the ruckus. A couple of guys wearing nice clothes start shouting at Dan to leave the drunk alone. Huck sees this as well and pulls Dan off the drunk guy on the ground.

  Keith says, “Maybe this isn’t the best club for us tonight. I know another one down the way. The girls are way more handsy.” Dan puts his hands up in an “I ain’t got no problem” manner and walks away from the bouncer. Bourbon-Faced groans and struggles to his feet. Mr. Rolling Stones is nowhere to be seen.

  We walk further down Bourbon and find Huck another giant beer. We stop in a tequila bar and Dan teaches us all the proper way to have a tequila shot dressed with salt and lime. After two of these, I start thinking that I need to find a way to move somewhere else. I can hold my liquor, but getting drunk tonight isn’t in the plans for me. I need somewhere that doesn’t have my every shot watched.

  “Hey Keith, you said there was a club a little further down with some handsy girls?” I ask.

  Keith brightens at this and says, “Hell yeah! Come on.” He pulls on Dan and Huck. “Let’s get Al some pussy in his face.”

  Done. Fucking lemmings, these guys are.

  Dan pays the bill again and I move up close to him the way I should and say, “Man, thanks for doing that. I’m already feeling like that BITCH is far behind me. You guys are good friends.” Dan smiles at this and says back, “Of course man, we have to stick together. We’ve all been there before. You’ll find another piece soon enough.”

  Keith and Huck are out ahead of us and I walk out with Dan. Keith leads us down two more blocks to a club called The Thang. The sign out front says, “LIVE SEX ACTS! ON STAGE!” Leave it to Keith to find this place. The girl at the front must be in her early 30s. She is wearing tight black shorts and a matching referee stripe shirt. She holds a large cardboard sign that says, “NO COVER, Two drink minimum.”

  The hallway into The Thang is short. There is a bar on the left and a bunch of seating with tables before it. There are three or four women in various styles of lingerie sitting on couches near the entrance in front of the bar. Dan orders us two beers each and starts a tab. The bartender, an older woman who looks like Mrs. Claus if she was addicted to meth and started doing tricks down at the local truck stop, stamps each of us to show we paid for our alcohol and are legit to be in the club. It’s a little red kitty. I look at mine on the back of my hand.

  Keith sidles right up to the stage. There is a brown-haired woman in her twenties dancing. In a vomit inducing show of crass sexuality,there is a bed on the back of the stage. The stripper dances seductively around the pole near the bed. Keith lays down some singles on the stage. She comes up to him and moves his two beers out of the way. Free of the obstruction, she wraps her legs around his head and pulls him close. Keith is like a kid in a candy shop. He stands up and motor-boats her smallish breasts.

  Dan and Huck sit down a row back from the stage with me. We watch the stripper continue to rub herself all over Keith and drink our beers. I get up to go to the bathroom in the back and take my first beer with me. I slap Keith on the shoulder as I go by and notice another stripper in the back part of the room wearing a police officer outfit and pretending to handcuff an older man. I hear her cough as I walk by to the bathroom. Deep and contagious, like something that probably needs to be seen by a doctor quickly.

  The bathroom doesn’t have a door. There’s one stall in the far corner and two urinals. The mirror seems to be made out of some kind of metal rather than glass. It has been scratched and graffitied up to the point where you can barely make yourself out in it, let alone make any cosmetic adjustments. I pour the beer down the sink and set the bottle on the shelf. I use the urinal.

  “Pssst.”

  I freeze, the piss immediately stopping and my balls now clinging tight to me.

  From the stall to my left, “Hey, kid. C’mere.”

  I zip up and then take the beer bottle in my hand. It’s Mr. Conrad, the shark.

  “Ya got that stick with you today? Big day. I know how much you like it. Swinging it around, poking at the lady and I, eh? And really, you earned it back, didn’t you? Paid in full.”

  I back up without looking at the stall. I know what I’d see. The leathery
skin and brilliant white teeth. I can hear the sound of him moving against the walls and his shoes shuffling on the floor. It’s a small stall, so he doesn’t fit well. His thick shoulders and biceps must bulge against the grey suit and slide against the narrow walls. He’d have on a blood red tie with a single pearl in the center.

  But he is right. This is a big day. And I’m not going to be thrown off by this fuck. Not today. I walk out of the bathroom and hear him in a faint whisper, “Good luck there, kid. We’ll be watching.”

  I sit down at one of the back tables to gather my thoughts before returning to Dan, Huck, and Keith. I try not to look around to see if Valentine is somewhere in the club. I can’t handle that right now. The brown-haired girl is now sitting next to Keith and talking to him. Dan and Huck have moved up to the stage and are locked in a debate as another girl dances on stage around the pole. She has a rather large baby bump and what appear to be engorged and dark brown areolas peeking through her sheer bra. A matching sheer fabric flows around her belly, doing a poor job of hiding her pregnancy.

  “Hey, there,” comes from behind me. I jump.

  I panic and think its Valentine. I resist the urge to scream and take a deep breath and return to the good book, Chapter 8:7, “Leave the sharks to eat their dead.”

  It’s just the words, not the voice. This calms me. It is the voice of an older woman, probably in her sixties, with big tits and leathery skin. She’s dressed up in a nurse’s outfit, with a white hat and a big red cross. I almost wish it was Valentine. Well, not really.

  “Wanna see a trick?” she asks me and begins to fidget with her costume.

  “Um, no thank you. I’m with some friends over there,” I say and stand up to rejoin the guys.

  “Suit yourself. It’s a really good trick.” She goes back to fidgeting with her costume.

  I cross the club and pretend to take a long drag to finish off my already finished beer. I sit back down at my seat and watch Huck and Dan continue their debate in front of the pregnant stripper. Keith walks to the back of the club with his new friend for an extended lap dance. He high-fives Dan as he goes by. Like it’s a challenge to get a stripper to strip for you when you give her money.

  I look around. The club is about half full, a mix of tourists and locals hanging out. There are still two or three strippers sitting on the couches by the door. The music is 80s hair band metal that is starting to grate on my nerves. I get up and head over to strung-out Mrs. Claus and order three double whiskey shots and a half coke/half club soda. She asks if I want it on my friend’s tab and I decline and set down a twenty and ten. She takes the money and gives me back my change in singles. I leave her a few ones and walk the drinks over to Dan and Keith.

  The pregnant dancer moves over to stage left, closer to the back of the club. Dan and Keith step back from the stage, each finishing off their second beer. I put whiskey shots in front of each of them. I tell them, “You guys are the best!” over the loud club music. They smile back and take their whiskey and toast me. My smile is very genuine. I drink down the mixture of coke and club soda. My thoughts wander to what will happen later. How it is going to feel. My smile gets even bigger at this thought. Don’t be a fuck about it. Just give me this minute to myself. I lean back and smile. Cheshire cat.

  There is a slow clapping that starts with a group of beaded girls in the front of the club. Several others join in the clapping. The older stripper in the nurse’s outfit takes the stage. It isn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you that. I turn back to Dan and Huck.

  “What were you two talking about up there?” I ask, pointing to the girl on the back end of the stage partially blocked by the elder nurse. The pregnant dancer found a black man with his white girlfriend to dance in front of and she is currently slapping her full breasts back and forth in the girl’s face while her man claps his hands and leans back to take it all in.

  Dan points at Huck, “This dumb-ass didn’t know that she was pregnant. He just thought that she was a big girl.”

  Huck defends himself and says, “Who would get up there and dance while she’s pregnant, man? There is no way. No one is that sketchy.”

  Dan laughs and says, “See! Come on man. She’s a damned stripper. She isn’t making good, safe choices in her life. Hey, maybe you could ask her for a dance and see if she would give you a discount on a threesome!” Dan laughs loudly at this.

  Huck drinks his whiskey and shakes his head. I’m just happy they’re both drinking heavily. On stage, the nurse takes out one of her breasts as some Whitesnake ballad blares over the bad sound system. The crowd starts to clap as she takes out her other breast and I can see what seem to be two wooden matches in the piercing holes of her nipples. Without missing a beat, she lights the first match and then the second. The crowd claps loudly and she dances about, saluting those who are throwing dollar bills at her.

  As she puts out the fire on her breasts, Keith walks back with his new stripper friend looking a bit disheveled after their private lap dance. He sits down in front of his second beer and whiskey. He drinks the whiskey down and takes the beer as a chaser.

  “Good dance?” Dan asks him as the nurse moves to the second stage position and the pregnant dancer steps down. A tall, too-thin bald girl with more tattoos than I have ever seen on one person takes the stage.

  Keith smiles back and says, “Fuck yeah!”

  Huck says, “Hey, I need some food. You guys willing to hit another club and grab something on the way?” He looks over to me, “Unless Al here wants a dance with the nurse.”

  I’m tired of all of this. Cover story or no, it’s time to move them along. I laugh and say, “Ha. Even I’m not that heartbroken. I could totally use a hotdog and a new club.”

  Dan pays the tab on the way out. We walk out onto Bourbon and across the street is a Lucky Dog cart. We order four with the works and then get some beers from another nearby bar window. I take a bite of the hotdog and enjoy the taste. I know I will need this energy later. I take a slow swig on the beer and begin the process of letting it spill as we walk down the street.

  “Hey, let’s try that Bayou place again. It’s my favorite,” Keith says.

  We nod in unison and walk up the steps to The Bayou. The redhead in the black bikini has been replaced by an athletic black girl in a neon pink fishnet outfit. The muscled bouncer is still outside. He seems to have let bygones be bygones and allows us in the club. Dan pays a five-dollar cover for each of us. The bouncer adds a black sharpie B to our hands above the red kitty. I suggest Dan take a picture. He obliges. Four men on the town for a boys’ night. He convinces the stripper out front in the fishnet outfit to get into the picture with us and then posts it. #boysnightout #nobitches

  This club couldn’t be any more different than the last place. The bar is long, sleek, and black, and currently being tended by a fancy guy in a black t-shirt and dark hair. Where the other club blasted 80s hair band rock, here the music is electronica with thumping bass throughout that seems to make every surface in the place vibrate. I will give this to Keith: he does know how to pick a strip club. This one is packed with people compared to the last. There must be a dozen dancers mixed in with the businessmen, bachelor party guys, and a remarkable number of couples and women. I guess the times are changing for the lesbian chic. Whole goddamn city is a Sodom and Gomorrah. Lubricate them Sodomites up with some napalm. I laugh at this. Don’t be a fuck about it.

  As we wait at the bar, we realize the place is too packed to have the bartender even notice us. Where beer was the main drink at the last, ramshackle place, this guy is working the cocktail stick and shaker at a top-shelf pace. After I see him make the third martini, the charm of his bartending skills begins to fade. Dan pulls us over to a table near the right side of the stage to sit down. He points to a waitress with blue, short hair in a corset top, black hot pants, and fishnet stockings, who seems to be taking drink orders from around the club.

  Next to us are four large black men with two strippers sitting at
their table. There is a lot of “Hey honey, come sit here on my lap, I’ll be your black Santa Claus,” and ample touching as the women lean in and whisper god knows what to the men. We settle in and smile and watch the thin girl on stage with the angel wing tattoos do some impressive pole work. Another stripper is at the stage with a group of college guys and women waving dollar bills. She reaches up from her seat and kisses the stripper on stage full on the mouth and slips a five in her G-string. The crowd loves it and hoots and claps their appreciation.

  “What’ll it be?” the waitress asks us. Dan orders a round of crown and cokes for the table and some tequila shots. He slips the waitress his credit card to a round of back slapping from Huck, Keith, and me.

  Two girls come over to our table and start talking up Huck and Dan. The DJ, set somewhere high up and in the back of the club, says, “Let’s hear it for Mercedes! All you cheap bastards out there put your hands together!” Huck and Dan talk to their new lady friends and Keith taps me on the arm all excited.

  “Oh, man. You are gonna love this next girl. She is amazing.” Keith gestures to a tall woman in a black dress, slim and sleek, deeply cut. He’s right, this girl is in another league compared to the ones from the last club. More like another species.

  Keith moves up to the stage and leaves me with Dan and Huck. Huck’s girl, short and Asian, climbs up in his lap like some kind of cat. Dan is leaning in and talking into his girl’s ear. Keith is eagerly sitting at the stage like a kid at a carnival show. The DJ announces, “Let’s give it up for Cassandra!!!”

  The music switches over to a slow and seductive techno beat. Something like the Cure meets Depeche Mode, kind of hypnotic and dark. Cassandra starts to dance. She is exotic and much taller than the last dancer. She reminds me of how a snake slides and slithers. She has a simple silver locket that hangs between her breasts that catches my eye. I give props again to Keith; he knows his strippers.