Squid Pulp Blues (2 page)

“What can I get for you guys?”

“Bottle of Bud,” Dix said.

“Same here,” said Henry.

Peggy leaned over for the beer, her breasts even more exposed. Red Henry saw himself burying his face in there, licking the sweat from underneath those mounds. He snapped out of it when she put the beer in front of him.

“
Wanna
see a trick?” Peggy still held Henry’s bottle.

“Uh, okay.”

Peggy held the bottle at an angle so that it was pointing towards her. She held it out as far as she could and leaned her head back. Henry looked at Dix who just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Peggy cleared her throat and spat up into the air. The ball of phlegm rose in the air and dropped into Henry’s beer bottle with a fizzy splash.

“Jesus Christ,” Henry said.

Peggy laughed and said, “Well, sweetie, that’s sort of a Scooter tradition. You
gotta
drink it all up. You do that and you’ll have good luck the rest of the night.”

Good luck, yeah right.
Henry looked over at Dix.

“You heard the woman, Henry. Drink that shit up,” Dix said.

Henry picked up the bottle.
Hell, I’ve done worse
. He took a big gulp and felt Peggy’s
goo
slide down his throat. He saw that she was watching him to see what his reaction would be so he just put the bottle down and wiped his mouth.

“Pretty good,” he said. Peggy gave a faux bow and walked away.

Dix said, “So, what do you think of her?”

“Who, Peggy?”

“No, the stripper.”

Henry looked over and cringed when he saw the dancer bending
over,
the butterfly perched on top of her ass like a stinky and crudely drawn pest.

“The tattoos are ugly and she’s too boney.”

“Yeah but she’s Russian. I love Russian chicks.”

Henry said, “I don’t know. There’re too many Russian strippers in Jersey. Just give me some good old American white trash or a nice Puerto Rican chick.”

Dix laughed. The dancer was making her way over to him, moving her hands up and down her body and shaking her small bikini-covered tits.

With a heavy accent she said, “Hi, honey, what’s your name?”

Dix leaned his head close to her and said, “What was that?”

“I said
what’s your name
.”

“Oh. Dix.”

The stripper covered her mouth and laughed. “Dicks?”

“No, D-
i
-x. Dix.”

She said, “Strange American name, huh?”

“No, not that strange,” he said, getting tired of her talking and just wanting her to do something that warranted his sticking a dollar bill between her tits.

Henry was daydreaming, wondering when the next dancer would come on stage. He had some singles in his pocket but didn’t want to waste them on that skinny bitch. While Dix was busy talking to her, another girl was making her way to the stage. She was carrying a purse in one hand and a coffee cup in the other.
Fucking shit
, Henry thought,
what a dose of reality
. He didn’t want to see a stripper drinking a coffee or carrying her shit to the stage. Might as well show him pictures of her kids or take out her past-due electric bill.

Next to him, he heard the Russian say something to Dix that sounded like “Dunce” but then realized that she was saying “dance” as in “lap dance”. Dix elbowed Henry.

“Man, I’ll be back in a few minutes, watch my beer for me.”

Dix followed the Russian to a back room and the new dancer got on stage after taking one last hit of caffeine and making sure her purse and car keys were set right in front of Henry on the edge of the stage. It was a cheap purse made of fake red leather. The car keys were connected to far too many key chains, Henry thought. He was beginning to get depressed.

Then he actually took a look at the girl.

*
                     
*
                     
*

The back room was exactly that: a drab room in the back of the bar that could’ve very well been used for storing surplus cases of beer. There were a couple of chairs against each wall and a few vintage movie posters (walking in, Dix noticed
The Asphalt Jungle
and to his right, the face of Barbara
Stanwyck
in
Lady of Burlesque
).

Dix sat down in the chair facing the Barbara
Stanwyck
poster and the Russian straddled him. She started moving, not exactly dancing, to the music that was playing at the bar. Her tits brushed against Dix’s nose and he smelt her sweat. She turned over and stuck her ass out against his chest, the butterfly staring at him.

The stripper looked over her shoulder. “You, what you do?”

Dix said, “What do you mean?” He wanted so much to put his face to her ass.

“For job, what do you do for job?” She bounced her ass up and down though it didn’t do much considering it was mostly all bone.

What the hell was he supposed to say to her?
Yeah, sweetie, I rob places for a living. Banks, jewelry stores, you name it. Want me to take you to work sometime? Yeah, I think “Take your stripper to work day” is coming up soon.

Dix said, “Uh, different things, here and there.”
 

She seemed to take that as an answer and slid her ass of him and lounged on the floor in front of him. She was on her back, her legs up in the air, and her crotch mostly exposed but for the thin strip of her bikini bottom. “You like? You like lick?” She rubbed herself.

Dix nodded.

The Russian turned over and sat on all fours. “You like lick like this?” she said and started furiously licking the cement floor. “Like this you lick juicy
cunt
, juicy pussy.” Her tongue was widened and was dragged across the floor until Dix could actually see where it picked up all of the dirt from the cement.

Dix whispered, “Jesus Christ,” but continued to watch in stunned fascination at the puddle of spit that was growing on the floor. While he stared, a man came into the room. He was short and fat with a beer belly like a beach ball beneath his Journey t-shirt.

The man said, “Hey,
Alina
, you get the money upfront for this?”

Alina
took her tongue off of the floor and said, “No, did not.”

Dix dug in his pocket for the money and the man walked up to him quickly.

“Next time you accept a dance from one of the girls, the money comes first, got that? Or your ass is out.” He took the twenty-dollar bill from Dix and then said, “You looking for anything special?” His voice got lower. “Weed? Pills? I got some coke that’ll knock your fucking socks off. Not really coke, to tell you the truth, but better. Guy told me it’s made from squid, fucking squid. It’ll fucking make time stop.”

Dix felt uncomfortable. He was in the middle of a freaky lap dance and here was this guy, probably the owner, trying to sell him weed, pills, and fucking squid powder.

“Nah, I’ll pass.”

The man made a sour face. “Shit, man, your fucking loss.” He looked at
Alina
. “Got two minutes left,” he said and started walking out of the room.

She said, “Yes, Rick.”

The girl stood up and lifted her top, airing out her tiny breasts.
This is more like it. Some good old
titties
.

Alina
started slapping her breasts. First with her right hand and then her left. Right. Left. Right. Left.

Then harder and faster until her hands were a blur and her breasts were covered in red, fleshy blotches. Dix got up from the chair and grabbed her arms. “Knock it off, what the fuck you doing?” He held her wrists but she didn’t fight him off.

Alina
said, “You don’t like?”

“Shit no,” Dix said. He let go of her and started towards the door. She called out behind him and he turned around.

She was up against the wall, licking Barbara
Stanwyck’s
face.

“Christ,” Dix said and went back to the bar.

*
                     
*
                     
*

The stripper that replaced the Russian was beautiful, Henry decided. She wasn’t beautiful
for a stripper
but just plain beautiful no matter what profession she was in. Cute Betty Page haircut, no tattoos (which was always better than ugly tattoos), and the prettiest, most hypnotic eyes that Red Henry had ever seen.

He watched her do her routine with more enthusiasm than you usually see at any go-go bar or strip club in
New Jersey
. Henry looked at her shoes and was happy to see she wasn’t wearing the clunky high heels strippers usually wore but rather a black pair of heels that would’ve been more appropriate on a female executive. Henry liked that.

The girl came over to him and he got a couple singles ready. She smiled and said, “Hi.”

Henry said, “Hi there.”

“What’s your name?”

“Henry. You?”

“Sweetie Martini.”
She laughed like she was embarrassed by it.

“Sweetie Martini, huh?
Guess your parents hated you, huh?”

Her smile lessened. “It’s a stage name.”

Henry said, “I know. I was joking.”

“They made me pick one when I started dancing at the club.”

Club?
Henry didn’t consider this place a strip club per se. It was a bar. A go-go bar. Strip clubs allowed the girls to actually show some nipple on stage.

Henry said, “I figured. Sorry I said anything.”

Sweetie nodded and then pushed her plump breasts together. Henry slipped his hand in between them and left two dollars there. She held them in place with her tits. “Thanks,” she said.

She took a step backwards and put her leg up on the bar in front of him. The bottom of her shoe was in his face and he thought he caught a whiff of her foot, sweaty like the inside of a sneaker. She must have changed from her sneakers into those heels. There was no way she drove to work in those. He wanted to get closer but didn’t.

Sweetie grabbed the shoe and slipped it off, her bare foot now revealed, the stench not a mystery anymore as it mingled with the smell of beer. She scrunched up her toes and then wiggled them. They begged for more singles so Henry slowly put one dollar between each toe while savoring the aroma of her foot.

“Thanks,
hon
,” she said after he had put a total of four dollars in there. Then Sweetie took her foot down, grabbed the dollars from her feet, and walked over to the side and took a sip of her coffee. Then she scratched her ass.

Red Henry shook his head.
Another dose of reality. Fucking shit.

Chapter Four

Grant sat on the bed while the episode of
The Golden Girls
ended only to be replaced with the pilot episode of
Golden
Palace
, a spin-off of the previous show.

He popped open another beer and thought about Red Henry. Though he could admit to himself he had been a prick, Grant didn’t think he deserved having beer thrown at him.
It wasn’t like I was saying anything that wasn’t true. Susie was a whore, plain and simple. Henry always thinking he’s better than me, he’s the one married to a whore.

Grant dug in his pants pocket and brought two large green pills that he swallowed with a mouthful of beer. He leaned his head back and the ceiling became a movie screen whereupon Grant saw himself forcing Susie to have sex with him. That was three months ago.

Grant had said, “Loosen up, Susie. Henry’s my friend and he’s locked up so I’m here to take care of you.” His hand grabbed her breast hard and squeezed until her eyes filled with tears.

“Let me go,” she said.

“Not until you show me some of your special moves, that thing you do with the squid.”

Susie said, “Okay, just let go.”
 
The next hour was spent with her doing whatever she could to satisfy Grant and get him the hell out of her apartment. She had decided she wasn’t going to tell Henry.

So Grant stared up at the motel room ceiling and saw the events of the past transpire while the walls transformed into giant pink crab shells with swirls of blue.

Christ, this is crazy shit.
Grant always hated seafood and the sight of the crab shell walls made him a little queasy. Growing up in Thompson, his parents always took him to The Chowder Shack every Saturday afternoon where they made him order either squid or crab. It was a tough choice considering he liked neither but his parents would never hear it. The only redeeming part of the meals was the hush puppies. It was the only thing that quelled the nausea.

Still, he was intrigued by the wall. He sat up and stumbled over to it, feeling that it was indeed rough like the shell of a crab. Grant’s eyes caught glimmers of red and blue images so he looked up. Memories of his grandfather played on the ceiling.

Wait a minute. I never even met grandpa.

New memories oozed into his head: his parents showing him the footage from a projector, his father saying, “There’s grandpa fighting for our country. Son, look at that and be proud.”

The uniformed man resembled a thinner version of Grant standing on some large rocks next to the beach. He was alone but shouting out to the water, waving his gun in the air. To the right of him, a Japanese spider crab scurried to him. Grant was frightened. The crab was monstrous; its legs six feet long and razor sharp. It then used those legs to eviscerate Grant’s grandfather. Sprays of blood sprinkled the rocks. The crab seemed to tremble with excitement and Grant had to look away.

Inside of Grant’s stomach, the two green pills dissolved completely, sending a new rush through his system. His senses became more sensitive and he smelt the entire history of the room: cigarette smoke, semen, beer, piss, taco meat, mayonnaise, shit, and old paint. All of the stenches coalesced into a thick olfactory paste that bombarded Grant’s nerves.

The crab shell wall dissolved into streaks of white light and Grant stumbled back to the bed and put his head on the pillow.
Here it comes, here it comes.
But nothing really came, just noises: canned laughter from the television, the buzz of the electric currents, and a sniffing sound. There was something else under those noises, a sound that pierced Grant’s brain and tickled the hairs inside his ears. It was a combination of whimpering and the splash of a liquid.