William Bernhardt - Primary Justice

“Don’t worry, Ben. I’ll play chaperone and protect your virtue. I’ll call you when it’s arranged. Will you be home tonight?”

“No. I’m going on a recruiting function with Tom Melton.”

Christina gave him a long, questioning look. “Well, I’ll expect a full report in the morning. Don’t spare me the details.”

She departed, leaving Ben to wonder what that was supposed to mean.

The neon sign pulsed with irritating regularity in garish red: THE BARE FAX. The lights in the second A and X had almost entirely burned out, however, and from a distance the sign read THE BARE F. The windowless building was a small, flat rectangle, made of sloppy stucco and painted a dirty brown color. It looked as if it hadn’t been repainted in ten years, but then, Ben mused, there was no reason why it should be. It was not the aesthetics or architecture that drew in the customers.

The Bare Fax was conveniently located just outside the Tulsa city limits, about a twenty-minute drive from the plush downtown seafood restaurant where the group had eaten dinner. What a deal for a new recruit. A three-hundred-dollar dinner and a strip-joint chaser. How could the guy say no?

The guy—one Dewey Stockton—was at the front of the R T & T assemblage with Tom Melton. Stockton was tall, blond, reasonably attractive, well spoken, and intelligent. Ben had to admit that he seemed like a promising attorney. He had the courage to decline wine with dinner even after Tom selected a bottle and ordered glasses all around. Ben admired Stockton for that. Besides, it was a lousy vintage.

Close behind Donald and Tom were Greg, the grizzled party veteran, and Alvin, the celibate sensation. Ben had witnessed enough winking and jabbing between those two to fill a lifetime. Unlike Dewey Stockton, Alvin had opted to drink wine with dinner. Too much, near as Ben could tell. He suspected Alvin was not accustomed to heavy drinking. Or even light drinking, probably.

Tom did a little negotiation regarding cover charges with the beefy humanoid guarding the front door. A Ben Franklin passed hands, and the man waved the whole group inside. “Treat these fellas extra special, ladies,” he shouted behind them.

The room was smoky, smelly, congested, very noisy, and none of it mattered. When there are eight waitresses running through the room wearing nothing above their waists, Ben realized, one tends not to focus on the ambience. Along the east wall, an old-fashioned wooden bar was situated, with a large single-plate mirror behind it. A young, bearded bartender was working furiously, filling pitchers of beer and sliding them down to the bare-bosomed babes.

In the opposite corner, along the same wall as the entrance, was a small wooden dance floor with a guardrail separating the dance floor from the peanut gallery. A long iron bar in the middle of the dance area ran from ceiling to floor. And coiled around the iron bar, Ben spotted a leggy blonde twisting and gyrating in a pair of leopard-skin panties. And nothing else.

Tom motioned everyone around a vacant table directly in front of the dance floor. The woman currently onstage was not exactly pretty, Ben noted, although pretty generally refers to a woman’s face, a feature barely noticeable with regard to the body in question. She seemed as if she were dancing through a dream, as if she had forgotten, or was trying to forget, that the hooting and howling audience existed. Occasionally, a patron would catch her eye and she would bare her teeth and release an animalistic growl, thereby completing the leopard theme of her presentation.

“So what can I get you, darlin’?”

Ben turned his head. The waitress’s breasts were dangling about an inch from his nose.

“So answer the woman, Kincaid,” Greg said. He gave Ben a shove on the shoulder, which propelled his face even further forward.

She was a redhead, with freckles that seemed to cover her entire body, or at least as much of it as Ben could see, which was quite a bit. She was older than most of the Bare Fax babes—mid-thirties, probably. Her skin drooped a bit in places, as if worn down by constant scrutiny. Thick, caked makeup couldn’t hide the wide half moons under her eyes.

“Uh … what do you have?”

“Beer,” she answered.

“Oh.” Ben leaned back for air. “What kind?”

“Beer,” she repeated.

“Oh. Well, I’ll have some of that.”

“Two pitchers,” Tom shouted over Ben’s shoulder. He slapped Alvin on the shoulder. “We need to get you loosened up, pal.”

The waitress vibrated a bit, pivoted on her gold lamé high heels, and walked back to the bar.

“Third round,” the redhead said cheerily. As before, she insisted on thrusting herself in Ben’s face as she unloaded her refreshments. Ben trained his eyes on the pitchers of beer.

The floor show continued as the waitresses donned costumes and took turns dancing. The leopard woman had been replaced by the fairy princess, the Egyptian cat-woman (played by their waitress, stage-named Delilah), and the schoolmarm. The schoolmarm (Jezebel) had removed her thick eyeglasses and the bobby pins constraining her hair and was currently demonstrating the creative use of a chalkboard pointer.

Suddenly, Alvin, urged on by Tom and many, too many, beers, stood in front of his chair and shouted, “Baby, baby, you’re killin’ me! I’m ready for ya, babe! Come and get me!” A chorus of grunts and cheers echoed Alvin’s sentiment.

Ben stared at him, horrified. “Alvin! Sit down!” he hissed. He yanked Alvin down by his arm.

Tom leaned close to Alvin’s ear. “Loosen up, pal.” He thrust a glass in Alvin’s hand. “Here, drink another beer.”

Ben snatched the glass away, splashing beer on his arm and lap. “ No. Definitely no more beer. I think he’s loose enough.”

Greg slapped Alvin on the shoulder. “Don’t get yourself arrested, Al. You still have to take the bar exam come October. The bar examiners tend to frown on lawyers with a criminal record.”

Delilah bent over, cupped her hand around Ben’s ear, and whispered, “Isn’t this silly? I think so. I’m just trying to get enough money so I can go to college and dedicate my life to Christ.” Her freckles bounced before his nose for a moment, and then she disappeared.

What was that all about? Ben wondered. Had she singled out the only guys in the place that were better dressed than the usual jeans and cowboy boot crowd? Dangerous place for suckers.

Ben turned to face his companions. Tom and Dewey were deep in what appeared to be a very serious conversation, although they had to take turns shouting into one another’s ears to be heard over the din. Ben marveled. How can you talk about insurance benefits and profit-sharing plans while you’re staring at a schoolmarm’s G-string?

Alvin was on his feet again. “Baby, baby ,” he shouted, stretching his arms out to Jezebel. “Teach me a lesson. Give me some homework.” He grinned a goofy, toothy grin and let loose a high-pitched drunken squeal.

The dancing woman studiously ignored Alvin. She had progressed to working with her clinging, diaphanous shawl. Evidently what she was preparing to unveil was not enormous, so she was making a great show of the unveiling itself.

“Sit down, Alvin.” Ben yanked again at his arm, but Alvin would not obey.

“I said homework , woman! C’mon … do your pedagogical duty.” His tone was becoming abusive. Again, Ben told him to sit down and again, Alvin ignored him.

And then Alvin stepped up onto the guardrail, balancing himself by placing one arm against the wall. He wobbled uncertainly. Instantly, the schoolmarm stopped her undulations and cowered back into the corner of the dance floor. Two muscle-bound toughs emerged from nowhere and barreled toward the dance floor, along with the bouncer from the front door.