The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

But if she just smiled and took their money and danced off her clothes, then she was Spring. Breasts and flat belly, ass and thighs and long swinging hair and big smile. Every one of them could look and look at those and she, April, could stay inside in that dark, quiet part of herself that wasn’t here at all, had never been, was back home with her daughter, though tonight her Franny was in Tina’s office, and as April danced now in the VIP for a fat man in a loosened tie, she was really with her baby on Tina’s couch, the two of them eating ice cream and watching Ariel fall in love with a prince on land who would love her forever if only she’d come join him.

  April could feel how close Franny was, knew she had to go there soon before climbing back onstage for her second act. When she was Spring and not April it was always easier to harden herself to everything—the bend overs and come sit on this, some of the men’s faces so drunk and lonely, their eyes mean and dead-looking. But here in the smoky haze of the VIP under the dimmed light over the easy chair, this one kept smiling at her. He’d left his drink back at his table and he kept smiling and smiling. A big wide face with glasses and square teeth, his cheeks flushed. Her skirt and blouse were off, draped over the chair arms and his lap where she liked to put them. Make them feel they were special so they sometimes tipped a five on top of the twenty. And now her T-back. Other girls ripped free the Velcro all at once, letting themselves pop out sexy as toast from a toaster, saving their drama for their stage act, but not Spring; Spring had style all night long and now she rocked her hips from side to side, let him watch her do it slowly till her T-back was loose and she held it there with her fingers, watched him look hungrily from them to her still-covered breasts to her face, then back to her fingers, and that’s when she lifted her left hand and let that cup fall and dangle, her right breast still covered, and it was funny how they always looked at the naked one only a second or two, their eyes on her hand now over her loosened cup over the other. This music was good. A man’s voice singing high and hurt, guitar strings whining. And why didn’t they ever look longer at the naked one? Why was the covered one more interesting now? It sometimes made her wonder why they came here at all.

  Now the music changed, got harder and faster, the man’s voice full of so much longing he was almost angry. She dropped her hand and let her bra fall open. Pulling one arm out of it, then the other, she dropped it onto his knee—silk pants she noticed just now, some money here, a banker or lawyer or bank’s lawyer.

  The song was almost over and it was time to give him bottoms too. She let her body move to the song whichever way it wanted. She put both hands behind her neck, lifting her hair, bringing her elbows in slightly, swaying in time, though there wasn’t much time left. His eyes were on her belly, flat as it’d always been; she could eat anything and never worry because she was always moving and never staying still and this one was through with her breasts and had moved on to the next hidden thing, his eyes on her crotch. There were only a few seconds left in the song and when it ended she’d have her twenty already and didn’t have to do more now, but this one had some cash—she could feel it—and it wouldn’t take much, and she ran her fingers down along her ribs to her hips, hooking her thumbs into her G-string just as the number was ending, the singer’s voice still lonely and riding out the last ringing guitar chord, and she noticed her customer was hard, something that usually happened with the young ones but not the busy busy men in the middle of their lives, this one with a short tent in his pants, her crotch close to his face, the song over now, but she showed him anyway, pushed her G-string down till her arms locked straight and she let him see the coarse hair there she didn’t trim as closely as the other girls because they didn’t have what she did, a scar from Franny. Her baby pulled out of the cut they made there, then sewed up badly, Glenn sitting stoned on a stool. He never touched her. Not a hand on her shoulder or forehead. Just sat there in the scrubs they made him put on, his eyes dark pools above his blue mask.

  She pulled her G-string up and let it pop back into place. She smiled down at this fat banker with glasses, his shiny cheeks, though at this moment she didn’t really care if he lived a long happy life or died right there in that chair. She picked her T-back and skirt off his knee. The next number had started and she was late, liked to be dressed again before that. Getting the clothes back on even more important than stripping them off. She stepped into her skirt and pulled it up, his eyes on her breasts still. She laughed a nightlaugh and told him he was getting a freebie now and if he wanted she’d do this number for him, too. He didn’t answer her. And he wasn’t reaching for any extra to give her either. His pants still a tent. His silk pants full of cash he wasn’t going to do the right thing with.

  She grabbed her blouse off the chair arm and put her back to him. She pulled on her T-back, snapped it closed, and walked fast out of the VIP, thinking, Fuck him. Fuck him. But it was wrong to get pulled into any kind of emotion at all. It would throw off the whole night.

  “Everything cool?” Paco’s voice floated briefly through the music and bar noise as she walked by him. She nodded and kept going. In the blue darkness at the half wall she pulled on her blouse and buttoned it. Onstage a new girl was only a quarter into her song and had her top off too soon, the crowd calling out things, a lot of young men tonight, drunk and smoking house cigars. April buttoned her last button as Retro walked by and winked at her, leading one of her regulars by his hand. He was a long-faced man in an out-of-fashion tie, and he was looking hard not at Retro’s ass behind her red leather shorts but at the back of her head, like that’s where he wanted to be—in Retro’s brain. To see if she thought about him at all.

  And now her fat banker was at the bar ordering a drink and looking straight ahead at his reflection in the mirror. His twenty was folded tightly into her garter with three others, and Renée was up after this new girl, this skinny redhead who had taken off everything way too fast so now the crowd was going to expect some floor action. Now they’d expect her to take them farther, to reach down and open her lips and show them some pink.

  April was dressed again and ready to work, but her body wasn’t moving. She could feel Franny in Tina’s office somewhere behind her, her twenty-nine-pound daughter a wedge between being herself and being Spring. Tonight she was stuck somewhere between the two and right now she just wanted to walk through the dark crowded floor back to the dressing room to her baby. Maybe if she sat with her till she fell asleep, or at least till she had to do her act, it’d be better; she’d be able to see she was okay and finally let go completely into being Spring. Start dancing with no feelings about it either way.

  It was too late for this song, but soon enough the second number began, a sugary hit by some country singer with high hair April’d seen on TV. The new girl was working the pole too much, hanging on it and snapping her hair out of time to the music. She had the whole song to work and nothing more to take off. Her legs were thin and white and she had a flat ass and made jerky movements that didn’t come from the song and April knew Louis had only hired her for her breasts. They were huge and real, but because she danced so badly they swung around heavy as cow udders. April didn’t have anything to do with these girls, but she’d have a talk with this one. Tell her to listen to the music. To work the apron of the stage more. Draw men up from their seats one at a time. And don’t give them so much so soon. Don’t do what the new girl began to do now, panic because she could see how much more they wanted before she was through and she was so new to this she thought she had to give it to them, lie down on her back and do a spread, then hump the air, her face pointed up at the lights, her eyes closed, probably praying for the DJ to speed up the song. A man in a white cap stood where he could see everything. He held a bill out to her like bait for a porpoise to jump for in those shows down in Miami, and now the new girl was smiling at him between her knees, reaching down to open herself up. The man leaned right over her with the bill. April was surprised they were letting him get that close.

  She pushed herself
from the wall and moved back into the smoke and darkness of the crowded main floor. More than half the tables were occupied and set with electric candles in a Puma glass. Up above the stage lights, close to the ceiling in the far wall, was the red glow of Louis’s office window, him standing there, a black shadow watching them all make him money.

  Men looked up at her as she passed, but more were watching the act than before. Watching this new girl raise the bar higher for all of them. Something she’d get talked to about by Tina. Or Marianne. If Wendy or Retro knew what this one was up to, they’d threaten her with a beating if she tried it again. Lonnie was coming down the steps from the Amazon Bar, his eyes on the man at the stage still waving his bill over the girl.

  April’s legs felt heavy, her upper body stiff. She shouldn’t’ve stopped at all. Shouldn’t’ve brought Franny. Should’ve taken her chances and taken the loss and called in sick; now she was moving just to move, to move back into Spring, and there, a few tables ahead, was one of Wendy’s regulars smiling up at her. A tall man with big hands and a sweet face. Her nightsmile smiled and she brushed her hair back off her shoulder and sidestepped between two tables. There was still time to do this one and maybe even get him for a double before she had to change for her act. He looked back at the stage and craned his neck to see better. She’d have to work harder to hook him now and, because he was a regular, he knew he wouldn’t get any pink in the VIP.

  “Meese?”

  A finger pressed her arm, then pulled away. A short man stood there, the amber light of the stage on his face. Young, her age probably, with deep eyes, and he was smiling at her, nodding his head. She glanced over at Wendy’s regular but he’d forgotten her and she looked down at this short foreigner, Greek or Italian, and leaned close. “Want a private?”

  “Yes, yes.” An accent there, the smell of onions and cigarettes on his breath, and he was wearing a knockoff polo shirt and khakis. She led him through the tables to the VIP, walking fast to catch at least the last half of the number. She smiled at whoever looked up, though she hoped to nail this one for a double. The country singer’s voice sang on and on and over it came the crash of something. It was behind April and she knew what it was and didn’t want to take the time to see and maybe distract her customer, slow his momentum in following her, but in the blue light of the entry to the VIP, she turned and saw Lonnie standing with his back to the stage and the new girl, her legs together now, watching Scaggs and Larry T lift a man up off the floor, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open.

  She turned and led this foreign boy past the bar into the smells of cigar smoke and the dried glass rings on the tables of highballs and blender drinks and bottles of beer. She headed straight for an easy chair, Retro on the other side sitting on the cocktail table listening to her regular talk. Most of the other girls already had their tops off, dancing for their one-on-ones, running their hands over their hips, some turning around and bending over to watch the interruption on the main floor.

  At the cocktail table in front of an empty easy chair, April let go of the man’s hand and smiled at him to have a seat, her hips already moving, her fingers on her blouse button.

  “No, please.” He shook his head. He nodded in the direction of Little Andy in the corner. Andy hardly ever got off his stool, but right now he was standing there watching the other floor hosts carry the man out of the club.

  “It’s all right. He sits there all the time. Have a seat.”

  “No.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills. He held it low in front of him like it was the answer to some kind of question she didn’t need to ask. His eyes passed over her body—her breasts, belly, and hips. “Please, Champagne.”

  “The Champagne Room? You want to go to the Champagne?”

  He nodded and peeled five hundreds off his roll, pressing two into her hand. Five and a half months at the Puma and only once had she gotten a high roller who wanted to go to the Champagne. She’d be off rotation and could stay back there as long as he wanted. Two hundred to her for just that one hour.

  He was walking ahead of her with his cash toward Little Andy in his dark corner on his stool, and she had to follow him.

  But Franny. First she had to go back. Check on her. He could wait five minutes, couldn’t he?

  But he was handing the three hundred to Little Andy, who stood and held open the black velvet curtain, looking at her, waiting for her. The foreigner, too; he stood there looking eager, his head cocked to the side, his eyes two dark holes. He’d pick another, she knew that. Now was the time he wanted, and if she turned and walked away and made him wait, he’d want his money back to give to Retro or Wendy or Marianne, so she had to, her body already taking her there, her nightsmile too, Franny back behind the narrow walls in Tina’s office. It would only be for an hour anyway.

  April stepped by the waiting foreigner and Little Andy. He smelled faintly like aftershave and bacon.

  “You’re gonna tell Tina I’m off rotation, right?”

  “Yep.” He let the heavy velvet drop behind her, the black-painted door in front of them, the red bulb above, her Champagne customer standing there with his intent eyes and fat roll of cash. She reached by him for the crystal knob and felt herself lift out of her body and back through the curtain to the bright dressing room and Tina’s TV-lit office, her daughter on the couch waiting for her. April there with her now. The two of them snuggled on a single cushion. Only Spring turning the knob and stepping into the Champagne now. Not April. Just Spring.

  AT THE CORNER of the Amazon Bar, Lonnie pressed a dampened bar napkin to the base knuckle of his right middle finger. Dolphins Cap had gone down so easily, but under that thick beard he must have a snaggletooth or maybe his mouth had been open. Nobody touched the girls. Not out in the open anyway. And even the big spenders didn’t get to do what Dolphins Cap did. Lean over the stage and brush his folded dollar along what this new dancer was showing, other men shouting him along, a brushfire that had to be tamped. And when Lonnie got there, the new one, this young skinny redhead with big breasts, didn’t know she could dance away from that, and she just lay there spreading herself open. Dolphins Cap saying cunt. Something else and cunt. At the apron in the stage light in front of them all, Lonnie tapped the new girl’s ankle and shook his head. At first she didn’t seem to know what he wanted, Dolphins Cap standing there with his dollar. But then she took in Lonnie’s Puma T-shirt, and her fake smile fell away and she sat up. Dolphins Cap stepped back, his eyes on Lonnie now. He was squinting hard at him and was half a foot taller and much heavier, but it was the hollering customers behind him Lonnie needed to show something. One of them motioned with his arm for Lonnie to move out of the way.

  Lonnie pointed at Dolphins Cap’s chest, then the door. He mouthed the word go, saw the wedge of pink light as the front curtain parted and Larry T came walking. Scaggs, too.

  “Go.”

  Dolphins Cap looked back down at the new girl, his silver belt buckle glinting in the stage light. The DJ had lowered the music some, but still the singer sang and Lonnie heard only that, saw the man’s lips beneath his whiskers say cunt as he wadded up his bill and flicked it in her direction and the jolt was almost always a surprise, a hard thrust into his shoulder, a sting in his hand, his arm just a conduit between the two as Dolphins Cap fell backward onto the table of the loud boys and it flipped their rum and Cokes, vodka shots, and half-empty beer bottles, their ashtray full of cigar stubs raining down onto Dolphins Cap, though he didn’t seem to notice or care; his eyes were closed and Lonnie watched Larry T and Scaggs haul him up and carry him out.

  There were a few more chords left in the new girl’s song, but she was on her knees gathering the curled bills on the dusty stage around her, her breasts swaying heavily. Louis sent over two waitresses to clean up the mess and bring a free round to the young men with no drinks. Some stood to the side to make room for Larry T, Scaggs, and what they carried. A couple of them looked Lonnie up and down and when
their eyes met his they looked away and Lonnie turned and waited for the new girl to leave the stage. She held her outfit under one arm. In the shifting light—pink and white now for the next act—she paused at the curtain and glanced at him. A strand of hair hung in her face, and she looked embarrassed, relieved, and a little scared. The DJ skipped the pause between numbers and cranked the system higher, a lot of bass for “You’re as Cold as Ice,” Renée rushing out in her ice queen costume, her big fake breasts and white eyeliner. Nobody hollered out to her. It would take a few minutes for the party to get revved back up again the way it should, and Lonnie stepped by the loud boys, who were quiet now, sitting at their clean table.

  His knuckle stung. He found himself thinking of bacteria and tetanus shots and what a strange night it was becoming. Earlier he’d known he’d have to confront Dolphins Cap again but not so soon, and as he dipped a new bar napkin into his ice water and pressed it back on his hand, he did what he often did after dropping one of them—he went over it in his mind, asking himself if he’d done it because he had to or just wanted to, and with this one it was both; he’d shut his filthy mouth for him; he’d shut up the table behind him too.

  His heart was just beginning to slow back to normal. Out in the VIP the girls were doing a good night’s business, naked and half-naked bodies writhing in the dimmed lights at the easy chairs. Little Andy held open the curtain to the Champagne Room for Spring and a small man in a polo shirt. Lonnie watched them. Something began to tick deep behind his ribs. He looked away, saw Paco in the blue light of the VIP raise his Coke glass to him, his dark Asian face smiling wide. Lonnie nodded and scanned the main floor for more pockets. He’d have to keep his eye on the front entrance now. He opened and closed his hand. Sometimes, especially when they were as drunk as Dolphins Cap, he’d start to feel some remorse for hurting them but not much. The truth is, he enjoyed doing it. Maybe it was how other people felt swinging a bat and watching the baseball fly far out over the field, or with a basketball, springing off the court, flicking the wrist, and hearing the swish of net. For him, it was putting a bigger man to the ground, his chin and shoulders dropping as he pivoted off his back foot, his torso following through, his fist just the messenger boy.