American Outlaw - Jesse James [79]
“These are my people,” I explained to Rick.
“I may need a few more beers to deal with them,” he said.
We ducked into a strip bar, where I switched to vodka and cranberry. “Make it strong,” I warned the bartender, “or I’m leaving.” I frowned, watching an elderly-looking biker slut doing a full split on the filthy, beer-stained floor. Hey, nice leather thong, I thought, feeling the flush of the alcohol in my face.
We sat back in the corner, our backs pressed up against vinyl cushions, progressively getting drunker and drunker. Strippers with flabby stomachs circulated through the bar, proposing lap dances. We waved them away impatiently.
“I’m feeling sick,” I told Rick. “I need some dollar bills to throw at people.”
Rick handed me a handful of dollars. Slowly and carefully, I folded them over, twice, then three times.
“I used to play football.” I hefted them up toward the stage, one hand on my drink. “Watch me go.”
Drink after drink, I drained sweet liquid through thin red bar straws, laughing, as my dollar bills hit blond strippers on top of their hair. The grimy dollars fell to the floor, looking diseased in the purplish neon of the Daytona nightclub.
The phone in my pocket rang. I looked at the number. It was Karla.
“Hi, honey.”
“Where are you?” she said.
“We’re at the club, baby,” I said. “Me and Rick.”
“What a surprise,” Karla said, annoyed.
“Baby, do you know how many T-shirts we sold?” I began, triumphantly.
“I don’t care, Jesse, I really don’t,” Karla said. She sounded exhausted. “Look, I’m just calling you because I need to know, are you coming back to Long Beach tomorrow, or Tuesday?”
“Call the shop.” Rick goosed me in the side, pointing out a very fat dancing girl. I stifled a giggle. “Because right now, I just don’t have any idea.”
“Yes, I’ll call the shop,” Karla hissed. “They’ll tell me when my husband is coming home. That’s just great.”
“You’re killing my buzz, Karla,” I said, pronouncing every word carefully. “Murdering it.”
“Well, I won’t do that anymore,” she said, furious, and hung up the phone.
I held the phone up to my face for several seconds longer, though I knew it was dead.
“Who was that?” Rick asked, not taking his eyes off the stage.
“My wife,” I said. “She was curious to know if you and I are going to have another vodka and cranberry here, or move on to the next bar.”
“Next bar,” Rick said.
The street was a blur. We stumbled down it. For shits and giggles, I pushed a big meathead-looking jock in the back.
“Watch it, douche bag!” he yelled.
“You want to throw down?” I mumbled. A sour taste came up in my mouth and I vomited in front of me, coming about an inch away from ruining my jeans.
“Let him go,” the guy’s girlfriend told him. “He’s totally wasted.”
Rick steered me into another club. We sat behind the bar and listened to heavy metal on the shitty speakers. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. A douche with leopard-spotted hair sat next to me. I waved at him in the mirror.
“Hi!” I said. “You have a lot of earrings, don’t you?”
He frowned at me. “Whatever, dude.”
“No, really,” I cried, “your earrings go all the way up to the top of your ear! Did you even see that? Hey Rick, get a load of this feller’s sexy little hoop earrings!” I laughed uproariously.
“Calm down, Jesse,” Rick said.
“I am calm,” I told him, calmly. “Waitress,” I said. “Oops. I mean, bartender. Barkeep! We’d like a bottle of vodka, over here.”
“A bottle?” she said.
“An entire bottle, miss,” I answered. “Your best stuff. I want to show you a secret talent of mine.”
The bartender sighed. “Sure.” She placed a half-filled bottle of Smirnoff’s in front of me. “What’s your talent?”
“This,” I said. “Duck.”
I picked up the bottle by its neck, and, as hard as I could, hurled it into the mirror. The mirror and the vodka bottle exploded into a spray of glass shards. Rick and I winced.
“What the fuck was that!” the bartender cried.
I sat there and swayed sickly in my