[This short story is the product of a brief, non-related conversation I had with a bartender down in New Orleans, LA. Nothing in our real conversation had anything to do with the proceeding. It was inspired by her candor, by the way she worked her auduence of drinkers at the bar and her irrepressible joie de vivre. This is only where I imagined the conversation would go given the time.]
“The 3 of Clubs.” she said with equal parts pride and regret, “That pretty much sums me up.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yep. My picture was taken in October of 1982 by a guy from Bakersfield who claimed to be a modeling agent. That picture is now the 3 of clubs on a low-rent deck of nude playing cards.”
“Really?”
“Boy, you better believe it.”
“So how much does a featured model on a nude deck of playing cards get paid? Is it a flat rate or do face cards get paid more?”
Her laugh had a wry, throaty quality I found as intoxicating as the Maker’s Mark she kept pouring me. It was an amalgam of Phyllis Diller, Cathleen Turner and a lifetime of Lucky Strikes on the bayou.
“Jack shit. That’s what they paid me. That guy from Bakersfield, the one I was telling you took those pictures of me, he told me they were just…now what the hell did he call them?”
“Test prints?”
“Yeah, something like that. He told me they was test prints. That they would never see the light of day, and they didn’t, or so I thought,” she paused to take a drag off her More Menthol, “then 11 years later, I’m working as a cocktail waitress out in Las Vegas ‘cause I heard they made good money and I ain’t never had any schoolin’ after high school…so there I am serving drinks to a bunch of guys playing cards at their table when one of them gents looks up from his hand and stares me dead in my face like he knew me and it made me feel a little awkward you know? You know that stare you give a stranger you swear you know?”
“Mm hmm.”
“Well I already done asked these fellas where they were from and they said, ‘Oklahoma,’ and I ain’t never met no one from Oklahoma so they way this guy was looking at me gave me a shiver. I’m gonna be honest with you now, it kind of freaked me out.”
“No, naturally.”
“So I give’em their drinks and do my rounds with my other tables before I go back to this table. Now that guy gave me the creeps but that don’t mean I’m going to give them bad service. No sir. I live off my tips so I’m not gonna jeopardize my financial what have you over some silly, weird look…but I tell you what?”
“Go ahead. Tell me what?”
“I’m telling you what, when I went back to that table to, you know, see if they needed anything all those fellers were looking at me the same way that first guy was.”
“Uh oh”
“You said it.” She yelped laughingly. “Uh oh is right. I didn’t know what to think. My mind was racing a mile a minute. At first I thought they was cops because I had an expired warrant out on me from from when I was bartending in Slidell. Me and this girl got into it and I won’t bore you with the details but I cut her up something bad. Accusing me of watering down drinks, demanding a free round. I always play fair. I ain’t saying I always done right but I always been fair. Anyways, where was I?”
“All those guys were staring at you?”
“Right, right…”
“And you thought they might be cops.”
“Yeah, but theys said they was from Oklahoma and I know I ain’t done nothing there so I figured they weren’t cops so I relaxed a little bit but they still had that look in their eye and I’m standing there in a li’l, ol’ short skirt and revealing white button down blouse like ya wear if you wanna make good tips in a seedy little cocktail bar and I just ask’em, ‘What you all looking at?’”
“And what they say?”
“Well all this I’ve been talking about, me thinking they’re cops and all this, happened in just 2 shakes. You know how the mind works faster than your mouth can talk? Anyway that startled them right quick, me asking them, like they all got snapped right out of a trance and one of them finally spoke up and said, “I apologize sweetheart but is this you here on the 3 of clubs?” Well I about fell over when that guy showed me the other side of that card.”
“I can imagine.”
“Honey I thought I was gonna die right there. My face was redder than the Bloody Mary’s I was serving them. One of those gentleman was kind enough to let me sit down and poured me a glass of water but by the time he handed it to me I had already done drank one of them Bloddy Mary’s I just set down at the table. That’s probably the most embarrassed I’d ever been…well there is that one time one of my girlfriends caught me giving head to some crippled guy in a wheelchair. She never let me live it down, so I just had to stop hanging out with her. It was Memorial Day and I was drunk. I thought it was a pretty nice thing to do. You know, blow a vet on Memorial Day.”
“If I were a vet I’d appreciate it.”
“Wouldn’t ya? But anyways what was I talking ‘bout? Oh yeah, those guys turned out to be real nice about the whole thing. They had just figured I knew. Well I told them, ‘Had I known, I would have at least picked up a deck for my kids to show’em what their momma did when she was young and beautiful.’ They laughed and told me that they hadn’t but just done picked up the deck at a souvenir shop just 2 blocks from where I was cocktail waitressing. Can you believe that? Turns out of all the titty decks sold in Las Vegas, my 23 year old body is on one third of the 3 of clubs…naked as a jay bird.”
“I hope it was at least tasteful.”
“It was classy. I thought it was, like the typical centerfold Penthouse used to shoot before they allowed penetration and golden showers.”
“I didn’t know Penthouse was into pee.”
“Honey, Penthouse stopped tryin’ to compete with Playboy in the late ‘80’s, now they are just trying to catch up with Hustler, albeit in the opposite direction. But it’s easier to get a Basset Hound’s ears dirty than it is to get them clean. At least that’s what my daddy always used to say although I don’t ever remember him hunting with nothing but a Coon Hound. But that’s beside the point. The point is, back in ’82 the centerfold girls still had an air of class to them. That’s what I tried to do in my test shots. Back then my tits had a lot more lift to them not like they are now.”
“With all due respect they still look pretty good. Not that I’ve been looking.”
“You’re sweet honey but this,” she says spiritedly grabbing the sides of her breasts and thrusting them up and in so they’re almost touching her chin and then abruptly dropping them with an undulate thud, “is all hardware. If I take off this bra and corset the ‘girls’ are gonna sag something fierce.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Sug, you’re much too young for me to try an impress. I’m just telling you that when the clothes come off they’re hangin’ down almost to my ‘giner.’ Looks like two, big, old white possums hangin’ from a tree with a moldy old know of a sap gash in between’em.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything like that before.”
“I may not have had any schoolin’ past high school but I ain’t dumb.”
“I never meant to imply that. Just the imagery of your breasts as possums and the other part I’m trying to altogether forget.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“No, it was a perfectly cogent simile in as much as it was unarousing.”
“Sorry, I sometimes get defensive when I ain’t got laid in a while…and when you drink like me sometimes you just don’t know what’s gonna come out of the old word hole. What was I talking about?”
“Your pose on the playing card. Apparently it was classy?”
“I should clarify. It was classy in the sense of a Penthouse centerfold girl, or classy in the hopes of catching the eye of a modeling agency. It might not have been classy for a 5 dollar deck of nudie playing cards…appropriate, but not classy. I thought it was. Even though I didn’t get paid for it. That’s not classy. God knows how many people have seen my pussy and I ain’t made a dime on it. It’s one thing when you’re getting paid, it’s another thing to just be parading your cooter out to any and all passersby. That’s what whores do honey and I am not a whore. Momma didn’t raise no trash. Now I could name a more than a few things I’d done that I ain’t proud of but there was always a good reason to do them like when I was drunk or high on crystal meth, but giving sex and pussy slips away for free was not one of them. No sir, my momma done raised me right.”
“But it’s not your fault. That guy lied to you.”
“And how, I tell you, by 1984, almost 2 years after I took those photos I all but plum forgot about them. Then, 7 years later, 11 years after I took those pictures here I am in Vegas staring at myself on the back of a playing card and a 3 of Clubs at that. Now here I am 24 years later talking about it. Some things the good Lord just don’t let you let go of.”
“Maybe that’s his way of reminding you not to repeat the same mistakes.”
“Maybe, but if that were the case I wish he’d had done it for the 1st time I got the clap. Cause I done repeat that mistake 3 more times. Once in my throat.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t the crippled vet.”
“God, I hope not, like his legs his dick didn’t have no feeling. Or maybe he did and I’m just not very good at giving head…though I never got any complaints from guys who could walk so I’m pretty sure it was because he was paralyzed.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Right about what?”
“Right in your assumption that the guy was probably paralyzed entirely from the waist down. I’m sure you give great head.”
“Thank you so much, sug. You just got yourself a free round.”
“You’re much too kind, thank you?”
“Listen to me yammering on about bad choices I made in the past.”
“Everybody makes bad choices.”
“I suppose, but how many choices have you made became the jack off material for God knows how many degenerate poker players?”
“No more than 4 if I ventured a guess.”
“Darling,” she chuckled in her laugh I’d long since fell in love with, “You’re alright.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” She smiles warmly at this, “Okay, just one more than I have to be on my way.”
“So soon? I haven’t even shown you the card yet.”
“Oh, you’ve got one here?”
“Honey, after the shock wore off in Vegas all them years ago I finished my shift and went out to that very same gift shop those gentleman from Oklahoma I was waiting on told me they bought their deck and I bought as many as I could but I’ll be damned if I can find a deck when I want to.”
“Well you have intrigued me as to your pose, but you never really told me what it was other than ‘early ‘80’s Penthouse classy’.”
“I didn’t? Well it was classy, or at least classy for the time and as classy as one can get posing nude in this guy from Bakersfield’s hotel room. But I tried, believe you me, at the time I thought this was going to be my big break so I did a little more than I thought I’d ever be able to do, at least with a guy who wasn’t a crippled vet on Memorial Day. Did I tell you about that? I did? Okay. Well, I was already wearing next to nothing, just my little ol’ string bikini so full nude wasn’t a huge step, but I wanted to sell myself. I wanted to be a centerfold so I stripped to my bare ass and propped my back up against the head of the bed and threw my hair down so it draped across my shoulders and cleavage, I had my right arm hugging my torso just beneath my tits, not that I needed it back then but I wanted to make sure my girls were staring straight at the camera, then I spread my legs like in a diamond…”
“A diamond? What do you mean?”
“You know, thighs spread, knees facing out, but feet together, so your legs are making the shape of a diamond.”
“Okay gotcha. I love that by the way.”
“I know, right? So did the photographer at the time. I thought I had that guy eating out of the palm of my hand so I decided to go in for the kill. So I tilt my head down and to the left and looked up but only with my eyes. Then I slid my hand right down between my legs and with my forefinger and middle finger spread my lips apart just to let them know there was some honey in the pot and there was too. I ain’t gonna lie to ya, it turned me on. I was a little misty down there.”
“A little dew on the moor?”
“A little dew on the what?”
“Moor. A open area of land full of heath and bogs.”
“Oh like on the morning grass.”
“Yeah, I was inferring that you were glistening.”
“You better believe I was. I was a young girl in my early 20’s and back then I was proud of my pussy. A lot of girls are ashamed of it…they think it’s ugly. Nothing more than a run-over swamp rat but not me. I loved mine and was confident about it but that was then. After 24 years of fuckin’ dirt track drivers, rig jockeys and sailors that work offshore in the Gulf my muffin’s lost some of its luster.”
“No, you’re just being hard on yourself.”
“No, now I ain’t gonna lie to ya. I’m too old to be making up stories no more. It still works, sweet as ever, but it ain’t the perfect pink flower it used to be…it’s more like an old sandwich that got too much bologna in it…you know what I’m saying?”
“I have an idea.”
“Like meat curtains but with…”
“I get it, I get it.” I said interrupting her before she could provide any more detail.
“So anywho that was the pose, innocent with a little bit of pink.”
“Sounds very sexy, subtle yet erotic.”
“I think I like the way you said it better…Oh and lo and behold wouldn’t ya know here it is. I forgot I always keep one behind the register.”
“You look like an angel.” I paused to choose my words correctly and to properly phrase what she wanted to hear, “and as far as spread labia shots go, that’s the best I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh c’mon now honey you don’t need to exaggerate.”
“I’m not. I’m being sincere. It’s hot as hell no doubt, but there’s an innocence and tastefulness to it as well.”
“You see that’s what I tried to tell my momma but she still kicked me out of the house for 2 and a half years, so I stole the Trans-Am got drunk and wrecked it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Oh my momma never saw the picture till a few years back. She was just pissed at the time because I didn’t get no money for it.”
“Well parents do worry about their children.”
“You got that right. If my little girl ever gets approached like I did when I was out with my girlfriends in Panama City beach I told her to stand her ground and demand she get paid for any work she does in advance.”
“Sage advice.” She nodded concurring as if I were the one who made the point. I continued, “Well, I do have to get up tomorrow. I’m shipping out early. Thank you so much for the bourbon and the story. You’ve had quite an exciting life. I’m glad you shared it with me.”
“Well you’re a good listener. I don’t know I just love shootin’ the shit and I guess I like telling that story. And I love showing that card to guys to show’em how pretty I was.”
“You still are.” I shook her hand and moved towards the exit. She grabbed my hand tighter as it began to slip away.
“You know you’re my only customer. Maybe you wouldn’t mind staying for just one more?”
“You’re much too kind but I’ve already had enough.”
“Sugar it’s nothing really. Me being much too kind is me asking you if you’d like me to show you the backroom of this bar.”
“OH! Wow, thank you, but no. To be honest, that bologna sandwich comparison really didn’t do it for me.”
“Me and my mouth…well the offer’s there…you know?”
“What?”
“I never did get my confidence back after blowing that cripple. Maybe you’d let me practice…on you?”
“Tempting but didn’t you have gonorrhea in your throat?”
“Honey, that was years ago. I was at a Jackal/Steelheart concert and I only did it because the guy said he was a roadie and could get me backstage. Turns out it was just some guy with the clap, but that was in ’91. C’mon, Sug, give an old woman a thrill.”
“Sure what the hell.”
She escorted me by the hand she never let go of into the backroom where there was an old couch and a desk where very little deskwork was done. She laid me back on the couch and her last words were…
“You just sit back an relax Sug, and when you’re ready you just go ahead an shoot it wherever you like.”
Mine were, “You’re gonna swallow it sweetie or I’m gonna cave your skull in with a billiard ball.”
And oh how we both did laugh.
