Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge      
        
     When fall comes, it feels the time to make a cool change. Rowena’s ladder out of this tar pit is to get a bartending license. So instead of rolling joints at the medical marijuana clinic, she juices her patrons up. Though the contact high from the weed is pleasant she feels it is time to come down from the high. Feeding this vice is much more to her taste.    
     At their apartment and before John’s very eyes, Rowena strips out of her lily-white as first communion dress into her black as Wicca lipstick on the eve of Samhain, lingerie.
     Ro says, “There is the law of averages. Though some deny it I’ve seen it at work in my daily life. I’ve put myself in harm’s way for those I cared about. I didn’t do this out of a sense of duty but rather the love of an army nurse who sees a wounded soldier with a ticking grenade and throws it with all her strength to save a man who was trying to commit suicide because she believes his life is worth saving even though he doesn’t. And the soldier dies of his injuries because even a seasoned nurse like me couldn’t stitch him up enough to stop his bleeding. Then there are the times I ran for my life away from the minefield between me and the certain death I faced if I tried to treat the wounded warriors of my life. But they healed without me being their angel. On the baseball diamond of life, God is the umpire and he has the last word.”    
     John replies, “Yes but the commissioner tore down Yankee Stadium. Even God has a boss.”  
     “Yes but the umpire is right there on the field and his decisions determine who wins or loses.”  
     “Maybe the umpire is an angel sent by God to arbitrate disputes among players and keep brawls from breaking out,” John says.  
     “My, aren’t we argumentative tonight. You have foiled my baseball metaphor. Do you refute me in the name of truth or do you just enjoy polemics for the sake of winning the argument? Just remember the CEO of heaven incorporated is a lady. Speaking of the many professions for enterprising young ladies I may moonlight as a dancer to keep us afloat because we aren’t making ends meet.”  
     “Don’t even consider strutting your stuff for money. If push comes to shove I’ll get a job as a mortician at the funeral parlor.”  
     “That sounds so ghoulish. The reek of formaldehyde on your hands would give me the creeps like Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Only it would be worse because Dracula is only a movie whereas your scent would be from real human taxidermy.”  
     “Well, then I’ll be a gravedigger.”  
     “Are you in a gloomy mood tonight, sweetheart. You just take a swig and schnapps and cuddle up with Mrs. Kitty.”  
     When she is back on the clock, an old derelict sets his course to her like a galleon. He reeks of alcohol. He says, “So strange but beautiful you are, like a pink dolphin.”  
     “My, I’d love to frolic among the waves under the stars,” she says.  
     “People like you and me don’t belong on the land. We were meant to be sea creatures.”  
     “To be pink with flippers instead of hands and feet would suit me just fine. I’d be a nymph of the sea.”  
     “The ocean would welcome you my darling.”    
     “That would be the perfect metamorphosis for me. This is the stuff of my dreams. Thank you, kind sir, for showing me my true nature to swim the blue” she exclaims.  
     “Oh, I’m just an old drunk. Take my words with a grain of salt. You don’t belong in this performing marine life pool. There is a vast ocean out there. You will make it there one day.”  
    “Oh, kind gentleman that I could hope so. You get a drink on the house.”  
     “I’ll take that drink raise you one. You already are free of the pool. The madness in your eyes is telling. Your brain isn’t of the homo-sapiens species. You are stardust. Your smile is a rainbow. There are others out there like you. Find them and join with them. You are never alone.”  
     “I will! But you are drunk my dear one. Yet your mind is crystal clear. You are wiser than even a sober person.”  
     “Well, give me your hand milady. Let me kiss it. To feel your skin on my lips is better than that drink.”  
     “When you put it that way of course you may. Here it is my knight. I am honored.”  
     “You see there is nobility in drunks like me. Remember that my Lass.”  
     “Oh, I’ll never forget you.”  
     Ruth tells Rowena, “Get your prissy self to serving drinks. You know the boss don’t like you popping Benzedrine on break time. Sure you look like a 40s starlet in that red dress with all the frills but if you get jazzed on those pills you might start spiking their cocktails with crazy medicine. We might have the men giving the women a pat-down like in airport security when the camera isn’t looking. The ladies would stop patronizing us. Then the men would vanish like the wooly mammoths and Sweet Jesus it would just be us, waitresses, to drink up all the suds.”  
     While Rowena wipes his table, a man with salt and pepper hair says to her, “You look as sweet as honey straight from the hive.”  
     “You look as sly as a fox in the henhouse.”  
     “Take a load off your feet. Let me buy you a drink.”  
     “Oh, you probably say that to all the girls.”  
     “Actually I’m shy. Had you not crossed into my personal space, I wouldn’t have said a word to you.”  
     “I love shy guys. You dudes are a challenge.”  
     “I am a man of many words most of which I write into stories.”  
     “So what do you do for a living?”  
     “I’m working on my Ph.D. in primatology.”  
     “So what are you writing your dissertation on?”
     “The mating habits of bonobo Chimpanzees.”  
     “Sounds kinky, care to share some of your findings?”  
    “Well, the dominant males clasp the testicles of their rivals to express their dominance.”  
     “Really, I did that with a guy I dated but he always seemed to be the one in charge.”  
     The dragon lady, sprawled on the couch, summons Rowena with her husky voice like she is channeling Garbo in a séance, “Gimme me a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.”    
     “Your Anna Christie imitation made my heart flutter. You get a drink on the house for that.”
     Rowena watches her sip her drink with the coyness of a virgin but her fiery mane cascades in waves of ecstasy to dangle on the edge of forever. Her bare midriff tells the tale of her dragon heart with a tattoo that rises like a harbinger of unearthly pleasures with the promise of what lies beneath where paradise beckons in luscious splendor.  
      A plump lady with short black hair sits at the bar. But what is most conspicuous about her is the huge green boa wrapped around her neck. The Boa sips brandy from a glass. The lady says, “Stop that Arthur. You know you can’t hold your liquor.” She tenderly strokes the snake whose head sways while gazing at the lava lamp on the wall. Arthur seems hypnotized by the corpuscular shapes as they evolve before his very eyes. The snake sips some more brandy and the lady brushes him away from the glass.
     Rowena looks surprised when the snake looks at her. Quickly it slips from the lady’s neck and slithers under Rowena only to climb under her dress and up her leg where the bulge in her panties makes her gasp. The lady tells Rowena, “Stay still, he is a constrictor and you don’t want to spook him because he might wrap around you, and then who knows what.”  
     Rowena says, “My God, he’s licking me!” She looks creeped out at first but says, “He’s making me ticklish” and giggles. She says, “This isn’t what it looks like. I’m laughing to keep from screaming.” What started out as a shock turns into laughter to be put in such a position. Arthur pokes around down there where he seems to have found a burrow warmer and cozier than any hole in the ground. Arthur slides down her leg leaving a moist trail.
     Rowena tells Ruth, “Sorry but I didn’t want to provoke him. Please forgive me.” Ruth shakes her head. Rowena says, “When I was a kid my brother Joey stuffed a garter snake down the seat of my pants. That was icky. But this was a hoot like when
Joey stuck a garden hose in my jeans.”  
     “Rowena lay off the bennies just for tonight.”  
     “The speed is the saccharin in my diet soda but there is no substitute for sugar in this soft drink called life.”  
     Over on the sofa, the dragon lady slumps into a glassy-eyed angel hipster blitzed out on life where she lies like a Pre-Raphaelite vision whose jade eyes sparkle with sensual fury in midnight paroxysms of supernal delight. Rowena smiles at her and she winks back at her like she’s had enough to drink and wants Rowena to take her home to sober up, get her life together, and get a job. The long lines at the unemployment office will give them plenty of time to get to know each other. But when this girl hits the sauce and Rowena is hopping like a Mexican jumping bean from the amphetamines it could turn into a three-ring circus fast.  
     At closing time Rowena asks the dragon lady to accompany her to the changing area which is behind the bead curtains off to the side. Rowena’s new friend sits on the bench watching her. Rowena slips out of her lingerie and sponge baths at the sink. The lady asks, “Wouldn’t taking a shower at home be preferable?”  
     Ro says, “I like to feel fresh on the way home especially at the end of my witching hour shift. I need to wash the slime of that snake off me. He touched me where only a woman’s lover should.”    
     Rowena says, “I Would love to wash your beautiful hair in the sink. But you should take off your blouse first to keep it from getting wet.”  
     She says, “I love getting my hair washed at the beauty parlor. There is something about having a stylist rub my scalp which is altogether wonderful.”  
     Rowena says, “Would you feel uncomfortable about me seeing you in your bra?”  
     The girl replies, “Not at all, when I wear my jogging suit my top is a bra not to mention that when I wear my bikini at the pool my exposure is the same as when in my lingerie. Besides, it is just us girls.”  
     Rowena says, “Women come and go in this room, but pay them no mind. This space is for ladies to feel comfortable in their own bodies because women come in all shapes and sizes. I hope you will visit me here again because I am fond of you.”  
     She replies, “I come here on Tuesday nights. Let’s do this each time I visit.”  
     “Did you see that Boa head straight up my dress like he knew what he was looking for? If so, do you think he has a crush on me?”  
     “Do snakes get crushes? If they do then it certainly appears you have attracted some unwanted affection. There is nothing worse than a drunk slobbering all over you of whatever species.”
     Back home, Rowena tells John, “One of my secret admirers came out of the closet, a boa.”  
     “You must mean the feather boa you left on the hanger all these years. Good for you for finally dusting it off. You always had fun wearing it, like a flapper with me your Gatsby.”
     “Oh silly, he has such a tragic ending. I want to tell you about my fun with a real live boa as in snake.”  
     “What did he do?”  
     “He snuck up my skirt and licked me.”  
     “I don’t know whether to be jealous or horrified.”  
     Ro segues, “My bartender profession, which was once exclusively male, exposes me to many patrons, mostly men, who seem to prefer my feminine charms to the masculine element in my business. I deny the nightly come-ons but gifts of Columbian Gold have proven to be an irresistible job perk.”
     “Just so long as you don’t Bogart the grass.”
     “When I was on the job as a joint roller at the medical cannabis clinic I always made one for myself. The guilt was awful. I’ve done enough penance for an army of stoners.”  
     “Since the church frowns on pot confessing to your priest about your petty larceny must have been embarrassing.”  
     “It is a sin to hold back but I was mortified.”    
     “What did he assign you as penance?”    
     “His cure was whenever I pilfered the clinic cabinet to use my personal stash as fertilizer for my flower garden.”  
     “Your roses must be doing well.”  
     With the urge of sunbeams, they rise from their mattress with Rowena’s witness to him. “I have found a kind of fragrance all my own with you, my man. Each time you pound into me the crack in my China doll spreads with my widening legs until it is almost from head to toe so that if it grows further it will break me in two.”
     He says, “You pour your voice into the act.”    
      Rowena replies, “It is no act. But it comes from being penetrated oh so close to my center. Trust me, my love, not once did another touch my core. Yea though you walk through the valley of the shadow my others let not jealousy hold sway for only you can feel that breakage where light and darkness meet within me.”
     “Like in that Jules Verne novel, ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth.’”
     “Even better because my book isn’t fictional.”