The Jewel Box (6 page)

My garrulous nature blended with anxiety and generated ceaseless babble as I moved through the crowd hustling quarters by asking, “Got a dollar for the jukebox?” I always got at least ten bucks. Maybe it was just the eagerness of the men to get the music going and another half naked girl dancing, but not once did I hear any complaints about the jukebox costing a dollar a song. Jeez, back in Lake Jackson you could get six plays for a quarter.

As I danced (if you could call it that), I simply absorbed the music and stared dreamily into the crowd of faceless men, thinking anything other than where I was or what I was doing. Listening to
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
, I often transposed the motley crew into Twain, Whitman, Frost, Burns, and even Ana s Nin, as I recited “Life has no plot,” while turning in circles on the tiny stage waiting for Marvin’s last line. People say “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger,” but every time I stepped down and slithered into the dressing room, I thanked God I was a full-time waitress and only danced occasionally. Dancers were a different breed altogether, which Beau explained ranged from aspiring Penthouse Pets who had recently left their job slinging hash, to college girls from assorted backgrounds supporting their education, and tattooed motorcycle mamas supporting their old men and drug habits. Beau rarely turned down unattractive dancers, letting them stay to make enough money to move on, which he expedited by padding their nightly pay with twenty dollars more in drink sales than they sold. He said without dancers he’d have no Jewel Box, so he never made them adhere to a schedule like us waitresses. But he kept a vigil watch over them, and fired those caught soliciting prostitution.

“Amazing Paulette,” Beau said with a hint of intrigue as he watched a gorgeous dancer work the crowd.

I refreshed my pastel pink lipstick. “I can’t believe that drop-dead beauty is leaving for Copenhagen soon. She sells tons of cocktails and always reminds men to tip us.”

Beau nodded as Kat leaned toward me. “Paulette’s real name is Paul. Our only dancer with fake boobs is going through steps to become a woman,” Kat whispered. “I don’t know where he hides his jewels since Beau labeled our dressing room off limits and he shows up in work attire, but he/she does it well.”

“Oh my God.” I bit my tongue in disbelief.

“Keep mute about it,” Beau requested. “The transgender process has been around for a couple of decades in other countries. Germany and Denmark, mostly. I ran into a few guys awaiting feminization surgery in Vegas, but never one anywhere near this passable. Hell, he’s more feminine than most women.”

I stood stunned, likely with mouth wide open. Paulette was about five foot two, small boned, and spoke in such girly tones I couldn’t believe she was a he. Men practically drooled over her while digging cash from their wallets.

“Wipe that shocked look off your face,” Kat said. “And let’s go make the most of her last week here. She’s the prettiest, sweetest, best smelling dancer on board right now.”

“And my least problematic,” Beau added as Kat dragged me away by my hair.

During the following week, I scrutinized Paulette for signs of Paul, to no avail. Silky smooth legs led to nothing discernable under the sequined bikini bottoms all employees wore. Kat presumed Paul had never been blessed with a sizable penis. Beau figured duct tape. I envied his delicate beauty, and was bewildered by his almost invisible Adam’s apple.

I’d earned nearly enough to buy a used car for getting back and forth to Ellen’s so I could sleep with Nikki, but my second stint at the Jewel Box wasn’t going much better than my first. And men like “Slick” didn’t make things any easier. The young, brawny biker-type wore his jet black hair slicked down with grease and dressed head to toe in black leather accessorized with garish chains. This thug who claimed he was a Mafia hit man,
always sat at the end of the bar by the waitress station, laying on the charm while asking me or Kat to go out with him. When we refused his advances, he became obnoxious. “Slick’s the kind of guy who could probably spread vaginal diseases just by standing too close,” Kat warned me. Beau occasionally booted his odious butt out the door. Slick usually left growling about us now being on “the list” while slowly caressing his boot at ankle level, as though his hidden Luger would someday settle the issue.

On the flip side, we had Gabe and Al. These business partners called themselves “trim men,” and Kat and I called them our “Nicer than nicest, nice guys,” because these repeat customers were extremely generous with their money and never tried to cop a feel like most men who came in. But they were hardly saints. With the exception of me and Kat, Gabe immediately attached an unpleasant nickname to every girl in the house, regardless of her chosen alias. The two married men wore T-shirts and faded blue jeans, but in spite of their clothing and slight sawdust smell, they always seemed exceptionally clean from face to fingernails.

Al was forty-something, super polite and friendly. Elfin-like and slightly graying, he had mischievous eyes, a fuzzy worm-looking moustache on his rubicund face, and cheeks that begged to be pinched. After a couple of beers, his voice jumped an octave, his nose reddened to match his cheeks, and he grinned from ear to ear as his eyes darted from dancer to dancer. The girls loved his amenable behavior and extravagant spending, and Al loved the girl’s attention. So much so that he fell in love every time the moon changed. Many dancers counted on him for a profitable evening and took advantage of his generosity—until Gabe intervened, spoiling everyone’s fun. Most nights when the partners left the club, an excessively maudlin, slightly stumbling Al was calmly guided out by Gabe, who often shook his head and rendered the same expression exasperated parents make when trying to control their unruly kids. One night as Gabe did his ushering bit, he turned to me as the door closed and grumbled, “Everyone knows old men are twice boys.”

“Was he quoting Aristophanes?” I asked Kat as she flew by.

“Who cares? He just took his forty-year-old son home, not to mention our tips.” She frowned. “We could make Al spend every cent in his pocket, if that damn stingy, stick-in-the-mud didn’t always tag along and oversee his spending.”

Gabe might have been a pain in the ass, but stingy was hardly the adjective I’d attach to anyone who dropped as much money on our tip trays as he did.

Gabe was twenty-something, quiet, and enigmatic. Of average height and slim build, he walked with a slow, confident stride, standing straight with his head slightly tilted back as if to say, “Bite my ass.” He drank slowly and spoke only when a grunt wouldn’t serve as suitable answer. When he did speak, an urbane vocabulary embroidered his adopted Texas drawl, which he incorporated into his extremely rare, yet sometimes profound and frequently crude comments.

Gabe’s short blond hair was layered, and swept horizontally across his forehead onto skin tanned from the sun. His flaxen hair was in sharp contrast to his dark, short and well groomed moustache that stood guard over ruby red lips, and his strong, decisive nose amplified his masculinity. Gabe’s handsome looks caused most dancers to come to his table, but his pale blue eyes exuded frigid indifference and the girls swiftly turned their attention to Al. Gabe sat at the table like a bear with a burr up his butt, looking thoroughly irritated as he and Al alternated paying for drinks. Unlike his partner, Gabe never got drunk, but everyone knew to disregard the guy dubbed “arrogant asshole” until his mood got slightly altered by a few beers.

The first time I waited on their table, Al enthusiastically interrogated, “Aren’t you new here? Where’d you work before? Is your name Sherry or Cherry?”

“Oh, pleeeease. My name is pronounced Sha-Ree like Little Stevie Wonder’s new song,
My Cherie Amour
. It’s French, ya know. And yes, I’m new here. I’m a recently divorced mom with no prior work experience of this nature.” I flashed a big smile and awaited my tip. Gabe stared absently into the smoke filled room as Al and I continued blabbing while he placed money on my tray. Being my nervous but talkative self, I turned to Gabe. “Don’t you ever talk?”

Without changing his gaze, Gabe drew deeply on a cigarette, and then issued a stream of smoke into the air. “Don’t you ever
not
talk?” he replied icily.

What a jerk! I rushed away, determined not to let the rude asshole dampen my karma.

Nights later while serving beer to the partners, I remained void of comment to Gabe, but cheerful as always to Al, even though he wasn’t reaching into his pocket for money fast enough to suit me. Al started singing
My Cherie Amour, lovely as a summer day.
I was accustomed to hearing the song customers seemed compelled to sing after hearing my name, but lingering too long at a table meant lost tips elsewhere. I tapped my tip tray on the table. Gabe slowly slid three dollars on it. “Wow, thanks.” I smiled.

With his usual expression, he said, “I’d do just about anything for a piece of ass.”

Al laughed as though his partner was George Carlin. A curious triumph coarsened Gabe’s face. “You uncouth jerk.” I shot Gabe a censorious gaze.

The young one leaned back in his chair and in most derisive tone, retorted, “Well, aren’t we the sanctimonious one?”

How dare he make a lascivious remark and then speak condescendingly to me. I lifted my chin, stormed away, and told Kat I wasn’t waiting on the heathens again, despite their generous tips. She dashed to their table and began saying something, which didn’t look like the reprimand I’d hoped, seeing as how her face was framed in sunshine the entire time. Eventually she twisted her butt back to the waitress area. “They both apologized and promise to behave. Gabe even grinned and said something about you being the most
prolix
person he’s ever met. What the heck does prolix mean, cutie?”

“It means excessively wordy. But I’d rather be talkative than be a laconic jerk like him.”

“Don’t know what laconic means either, but lighten up and stop being such a square. Gabe’s a decent enough guy, he just likes trying to get a rise out of people.”

It was impossible to avoid Gabe and Al’s table on busy nights, but I took their orders and delivered in speedy fashion. Gabe seemed to delight in getting my reaction to his flat-out vulgarities or phrases filled with
double entendre
. I frowned, but kept my cool and their tips.
On an extremely slow evening as the old one sucked suds, my innate need to chatter kicked in as I turned to the young one. “So, what does ‘trim men’ mean?”

Looking as though talking to me a dreadful chore, Gabe curtly said, “We’re custom carpenters who specialize in spiral staircases.”

“I read Walt Whitman’s father was a carpenter,” I continued in spite of his terse tone.

My comment was apparently amusing to Gabe who shot a look across the table to Al, indicating my IQ less than Lucy and Ethel’s combined, chuckled, threw his head back, swallowed a long drink of Budweiser, then turned his eyes to me. “Yeaaah,” he mocked, “we’re just a couple of worthless, ole carpenters.”

I didn’t consider my remark rude, and didn’t like the way he elongated yeah in arrogant tone. “I never realized using the words carpenter and Whitman in the same sentence could offend anyone.” I scanned the room. “But then, I failed to consider subliterate barflies.”

The words barely fluttered from my mouth before I realized I had committed a major topless club
faux pas
. Never insult those attached to the hands that toss out the tips that are the paycheck. I attempted a save. “I’m sorry if I offended. I must’ve taken a tiny vacation and left my bitch personality in charge. I’ve been trying to enroll her in a Dale Carnegie course.”

“That’s okay.” Al unleashed a goofy ass grin as he cut his eyes toward Gabe. “Here Cherie, take our last three dollars for your tip. We’ll go without dinner.”

“Thank you so much Al, at least I won’t go without pastie glue. You are the God of generosity, no matter what Greek legends say,” I said sweetly, walking away.

Although Gabe remained reserved, occasionally after a few beers he would casually blurt, “You know I’d do anything for a piece of ass, don’t you?” I learned to ignore his comments and simply move onto the next table, but one night he became difficult, holding my tip tray while slowly singing, “Myyyyyy Cheeeeeeeeerie Amour.”

The guy was starting to crawl up my nerves. “Gabe, please just give me my tray so I can work.” I looked around at lost tips.

“You gonna give me a piece of ass, if I do?” he asked in exaggerated Texas drawl.

“Pleeease stop spouting that stupid line. You need shock therapy or something.”

“I’ll bet shock therapy couldn’t be as electrifying as a piece of ass from you.” He slapped a five dollar tip on my tray.

Okay. The tip momentarily numbed my tongue. But not my desire to beat him at his little game of verbal insolence. “Maybe a cattle prod would get my point across.”

“Whoa, a cattle prod. I grew up on a farm and. . .”

“So did Robert Burns. But you’re hardly poetic. In fact, I think you’re the sort of man who gets excited by a cattle prod and aroused by livestock.”

“Nice return, Blondie.”

“Blondie?”

“Yeaaah, you remind me of that ditzy Goldie chick on
Laugh In
.”

“Ditzy? Well, you remind me of something my dad once coughed up during a nasty illness.” I grabbed my tip tray and walked away.

“Hey, I think Goldie’s cute and just pretends to be ditzy,” he shouted as my white go-go boots kept walking. “And maybe I’m the one who needs that Dale Carnegie course.”

I relayed mine and Gabe’s encounter to Beau while placing my drink order. Only semi-amused, he took on a stern, fatherly look. “Baby.” He turned his head to hide a little grin, “That phlegm bit wasn’t exactly ladylike verbiage.”

From day one, I sensed Beau was trying to pull a Professor Higgins on me, but I wasn’t a quick study like Eliza Doolittle. “Well pardon me.” I fluttered my eyelashes Katie-Laura fashion, “I didn’t realize your rules for ‘ladylike verbiage’ were written in Sanskrit. But I’ll bet Gabe thinks twice before he spouts off to me again.”