Josh Stallings - Beautiful, Naked and Dead

“Keep this shit up, and in three seconds you are over my shoulder and out of here.” I whispered. “That how you want it?” I kissed her neck and stepped back, continuing to smile at her. Sasha’s eyes flared then dropped to a low burn, and like a good little girl she started to walk away. But then Dreadlocks had to open his mouth.

“Mon dat bitch is crazy,” he slurred. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sasha flying at him. Catching her around the waist I lifted her off the floor and I let her momentum spin us both around. Dreadlocks jumped up, knocking his chair over. Now the whole club was looking at us. Dreadlocks was angry now, his hand reached up into his jacket. I set Sasha down shoving her into Piper’s waiting arms.

“Take her in back,” I said. Sasha was struggling, but Piper was a gym rat and had no problem marching the smaller girl out of the room. Even the girls on stage had stopped to watch. I could see that Dreadlocks felt his manhood was on the line. His hand was still up under his jacket. I moved in close, speaking softly, forcing him to lean in to hear me. “I don’t even want to know what’s in your jacket. But the last thing you want to do is pull it out. Trust me on that pal.” Blood rushed thumping in my ears. It took real strength to keep myself from clocking the stupid ass muncher.

“Dat bitch stole my money.”

“Right now, at this moment, all you are out is maybe some cash. But you push it, and one of two things will happen. Either you’ll be fast enough to pull whatever is in your jacket, in which case you might kill me and spend the rest of your days in the pen. Or, and it’s a big or so pay attention, you won’t be fast enough and then brother, your ass is mine. I will bitch slap you down in front of all these fine ladies. Honest, odds are I bet you kill me. I also bet you’re smart enough not to want to spend your life in the can over eighty bucks.” I knew I had talked long enough for his pulse to slow and a bit of reason to settle into his booze soaked brain. Slowly his hand dropped out from his jacket.

“You tink I’m ghetto poor?” he said. From his pocket, he took a wad of singles and tossed them at the stage. Lupita looked stunned as the bills fluttered down at her feet. “Mon, I could buy and sell your white trash ass like dat.” He snapped his finger in my face. I shot him a quick smile. “You tink dat funny?”

“No, I think it’s true.”

“Dat’s right,” he said puffing up his chest. “I don’t need this place with all its crazy bitches.” He said for the room to hear and walked out. As the door slammed behind him, I nodded up to Lupita. She moved back into action, pressing her breasts together and swaying her full Aztec hips to the beat of the pulsing Cee Lo Green tune. The men all turned back to the stage, as if the moment had never happened. I thanked God for tits and their amazing power to make men forget.

“Always a party.” Piper said as we leaned back against the bar.

“Got that right.” I said downing a quick shot. I almost never drank on the job, but strange times called for strange ways. Turaj raised an eyebrow as I reached over the bar filling my shot glass again, but I withered him with a cold glare. We hadn’t spoken two words since he sold me out to the cops. I found I could almost stomach the son of a bitch when I didn’t have to talk to him.

“Do you know what we should do?” Piper asked.

“Get drunk, get naked and forget this whole sad mess?”

“Freak. No, about Kelly, we should have a send off for her, here at the club. That’s it, that’s what we’ll do. Sundays are dead anyway, Uncle Manny will close the place if I ask real nice. Toast a glass, kick some ass and say goodbye. You in? Would that make you feel better?”

“Yeah, sure.” I lied again. Nothing would make me feel better. But she was right; the moment did deserve to be marked. If a tattoo and a bunch of strippers in black was the best we had to offer, it would have to do. Kell would have gotten a kick out of it, the idea of all her backstabbing co-workers coming together to mourn her.

I woke Friday with a head full of dread. Even Angel and Bruiser’s game of battle bots couldn’t make me smile. At noon after three beers and a couple of Tommy burgers that against my better intentions I shared with Angel, I rode down to the county morgue to retrieve my friend. It was hard to believe that all that was Kelly fit in a small plain brown cardboard box. Lowrie had been true to his word, they let me take her ashes without question.

Back at the house I poured myself a little more Scottish anti depressant. I set the box on the kitchen table and cranked up U2. Bono was singing again about that girl packing a bag to a place we’d never been, a place that had to be believed to be seen. “Come on Kell, what do you want me to do?” I asked the box, but no answer came. One thing I was sure of, a cardboard box with a county morgue form on the side wasn’t going to cut it. From a cupboard over the sink I found an old cookie jar in the shape of Marilyn Monroe, one of the club girls had given it to me for Christmas a few years back. It had a screw top and sealed with a fat red rubber gasket, meant to keep cookies fresh, it would serve to keep Kelly’s ashes safe until I could sort out what to do with them. It seemed like a fitting container, Norma Jean and Kelly Lovelace had both been small-town girls caught up in a life they didn’t understand. Both had been ogled by men. Men too blinded by their beauty to see that the real magic was inside. And in the end, they both died alone. I cleaned the cookie jar out and poured Kelly into it. Then I took Angel down to the panaderia and bought some pan dulce from an ancient Mexican woman. Her granddaughter wanted to play with Angel, so I let her off her leash. Giggling and yapping they ran around the bakery. The old lady and I smiled at each other. We didn’t speak the same language, but we both understood that watching a little girl play with a puppy made a hard life better, if only for the moment.

Piper was the oldest woman in the club, the girls who didn’t look up to her at least respected her. So when she told them to show up for Kelly’s memorial, they did. All dressed in black, most of them tarted up in evening wear, with long slits up the legs and plunging necklines. Uncle Manny and Turaj both showed up in dark suits. I was touched, even Billy the D.J. put on a black tee-shirt. Manny brought a beautiful flower arrangement, we placed it on the center stage next to my Marilyn cookie jar. Billy lit it with a single spotlight, and he played a mix of Kelly’s favorite songs. Upbeat happy music, Beach House, Florence amp; the Machine, and U2, the band Kelly and I had shared a love of. Uncle Manny brought out a magnum of good champagne. He poured a glass for each of the girls, then stepped up to the stage. He was a short, round, balding man of sixty, his skin olive tan from working in his garden. Raising his glass he spoke in his high squeaky voice, a voice that never matched the gravity of his body, “Kelly was a good girl, always on time, never gave me any grief.” That was it. That was his eulogy. A couple of the girls got up to speak, Sasha liked the fact Kelly had never stolen any of her cigarettes, unlike others she wouldn’t mention.

“I remember I came in one night, I had had a fight with my girlfriend and I was a wreck, and I had forgotten my make-up at home,” China said. “And Kelly handed me her purse and told me to take what I needed… she was always so giving.”

“She watched Jessie for me one day, when my mom was in the hospital,” Lupita said, her dark eyes hid any emotion behind their pot-fueled glaze.

“I’m afraid to even go home alone anymore,” Madison said through her tears. “This could have been me. There is still so much I want to do with my life, I still haven’t gotten my headshots done. I want to get an agent, and this happens. It could have been me.” A number of them mumbled agreement to this last statement.