Crazy Little Thing (8 page)

Jailhouse Rock

When Claire woke up she had no idea where she was.
The last thing she remembered was drinking a margarita and… she had the
weirdest dream. In the dream, she had picked a fight with Ollie out by the
hotel pool and there were giant stuffed animals everywhere and the Child
Catcher from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
had scooped her up and thrown her
into his wagon and carted her off to Vulgaria. “Where am I?” she muttered. “Is
this the dungeon in Vulgaria?”

Claire almost jumped out of her skin when she heard
a woman’s voice say, “Where you think you be? You in the pokey, Sugar.”

Claire sat straight up. Oh no, she shouldn’t have
done that. All the blood in her head immediately drained to her belly. She
didn’t know what to do first, faint or puke. She saw a woman’s face appear in
front of her. It was a narrow black face with long teeth and Day-Glo make-up.
The face was topped with a hot pink wig that draped sausage curls down over her
bony shoulders.

“What’s a pokey?” Claire asked.

The face laughed. The too-red lips parted and said,
“Jail. You sure is white, ain’t you?”

Claire rubbed her eyes and looked again. This time
she saw three more faces staring at her. Now there were a total of two black
faces and two white faces. They all wore various kinds of Day-Glo make-up and
brightly colored wigs. Their boobs burst out of their bras and their butts were
bursting out of their mini-skirts. She assumed they were prostitutes, but they
didn’t look a thing like Julia Roberts in
Pretty
Woman.

“Did you say jail?” Claire looked around. She was
sitting on a metal bench bolted to the wall. To her horror, there was a toilet
right out in the open. The four women lounged or sat on double bunk beds on the
other side of the cell.

Cell? Oh my God, did she really just think cell?
Yup, sure enough, there were bars. Big, thick metal bars.

“Scarlet!” Claire gasped. “I have to call Scarlet.”

“Who’s Scarlet?” one of the white women asked. She
chomped on her gum, blew a big bubble and popped it. “Scarlet the name of your
pimp?”

“Pimp?” Claire asked breathlessly. “You think I’m a
prostitute?”

The four women laughed. Finally, the first black
woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Joyce Carol Oates said, “I’m
Wilma.” She pointed to the other black woman and said, “That’s Wanda.” Claire
politely nodded hello. Wilma gestured to the two white women and said “Them
there’s Dixie and Trixie. We Li’l Prince’s girls.”

Claire flashed a tight smile. She couldn’t believe
she was in jail and consorting with prostitutes. What had Ollie gotten her into
now? “I need to leave,” Claire whispered. “I don’t belong here.”

“You’ll be out soon,” Wilma said. “They never keeps
us too awful long. Soon as your pimp posts bail, they cut you loose.”

“Pimp? Bail?” Claire said.

“I was wrong,” Wilma said. “She ain’t white. She’s
green.”

They all laughed.

*

Ollie held the phone next to her ear and dialed. She
was back in the hotel suite, pacing nervously as the phone rang on the other
end. G-Ray watched her closely, his helmet cam blinking its red light. Ollie
stopped pacing just long enough to hold a paper bag over her mouth and nose and
breathe in and out.

“Hello?” Scarlet’s voice answered.

Ollie dropped the paper bag. “Hi, um, Scarlet? This
is Ollie. I’m calling about Claire.”

“Oh my God,” Scarlet said. “What happened? What did
you do to her?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story…” Ollie said. “Are
you sitting down?”

*

Back in the jail cell, Claire sat between Wilma and
Wanda on the lower bunk. Dixie and Trixie sat cross-legged on the floor in
front of her. Claire resembled Mother Goose telling a bedtime story to her charges.

Claire said, “Facebook is considered social media.”
She made air-quotes with her fingers around the words social media. “But
mostly, it’s used to promote whatever it is you have to sell. Facebook has
gotten a bad reputation among people for being
Fake
book. But really, if
done correctly, you can get friends to promote and sell your work for you. And
you already have the four of you together. That means you can cross-promote.
Wilma you can talk up Dixie, and Wanda you can promote Trixie. Back and forth. See
how that works?”

Wilma spoke up, “I understand how that could work if
we was sellin’ books or even sellin’ shoes. But we be sellin’ pussy.”

“Yeah,” Dixie said. “How are we ‘sposed to peddle
pussy on the internet?”

Claire shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if you’re
selling intellectual property or the property between your legs. Selling is
selling. This is selling smarter. Aren’t you tired of standing on the street in
those high heels in the rain and the cold and the extreme heat?”

All the girls nodded.

“So do your selling on the internet from the comfort
of your own homes. You don’t have to call it pussy either. That’s such an
unsavory word. Call it something else.”

Wilma knitted her eyebrows. “Like what?”

Claire snapped her fingers. “I know! Call it romance.
Romance practically sells itself.”

Wilma looked puzzled. Claire explained, “It’s all in
how you package it. For instance, which would you rather buy? Street pussy for
one hour or a romantic interlude for the evening?”

The four women smiled and high-fived each other. It
looked as if they were going into the romance-selling biz.

*

Ollie held the phone an arms-length away from her
ear. She stuck a finger in her ear as Scarlet let loose with a scream that
could shatter glass.

*

Back in the jail cell, Claire had moved on to
another topic that was near and dear to her heart. “I’ve been a stockbroker for
over twenty years, ladies, and I’ve seen it all. The market moves up and down
and sometimes people make a lot of money and sometimes they lose money. But the
one thing that never changes is that over the long haul, you will make money in
the stock market. Don’t take it out, just leave it, and watch it grow. Don’t
panic when it goes down. In fact, if it does go down, buy more. Buy low, sell
high. That’s all you need to remember to let the market make you rich. If you
can buy low and sell high, you will have enough to retire on by the time you’re
too old for your chosen profession.”

“That all sounds good, but there’s only one
problem,” Wilma said.

“What’s that?” Claire asked.

“Our pimp daddy ain’t gonna let us invest no money.
Hell, Li’l Prince takes most of it anyways,” Wanda said.

Claire tapped her chin with her fingertip and closed
one eye. “That is a sticky situation.” She thought for a while then said, “Aha!
I have one word for you that will solve all your problems.”

The four women leaned forward expectantly.

“Unionize!” Claire said.

The women looked at each other then back to Claire.
Wilma spoke, “You want us make a union?”

“Why not?” Claire asked. “You want health care?
Dental insurance? Daycare for your children? Standardized wages?”

The women nodded. “You bet your white ass we do,”
Wanda said.

“Then you have to get everyone together and form a
union,” Claire said. “You ever hear of Lysistrata?”

They shook their heads.

“She was Greek. And when her husband made her mad,
she closed her legs. And she got all her girlfriends to close theirs, too. So
the husbands learned the hard way that if they wanted any lovin’ they had to do
what their women said. You girls can do the same thing. You have to stick
together, though. Form a union.”

“You want our pussies to go on strike?” Wanda asked.

“You bet,” Claire said. “Go Norma Rae all over their
asses.”

*

Ollie hung up the phone and turned to G-Ray. “Claire
should be released this morning. Scarlet’s ex-girlfriend’s plastic surgeon’s
lawyer’s cousin lives here in Tulsa and owes Scarlet a favor for representing
her during her malpractice suit when her surgery backfired. I guess she went in
and the surgeon Michael Jackson-ed her.”

“What’s a Michael Jackson?” G-Ray asked.

“I’m not totally sure, but from what I gathered the
surgeon goofed and cut off the tip of her nose.”

“Wow. I knew a Jewish guy that happened to once.”

“The tip of his nose got cut off?” Ollie asked.

“No. It happened during a circumcision.”

*

Claire had so generously shared her knowledge with
the prostitutes that they wanted to return the favor. Claire sat on the bottom
bunk while the women buzzed around her. Wanda worked on Claire’s hair, Wilma
applied her contraband make-up – she’d smuggled it in in her hair
– on Claire, and team Trixie and Dixie worked on her
clothes.

When Ollie was escorted to the cell all she saw was
four women huddled around Claire’s unmoving body. Her first thought was that
they had killed her. Her second thought was that they were raping her. It
didn’t even cross her mind that they were giving her a makeover.

“What’re you doing?” Ollie screamed. “Leave her
alone!”

The four women parted, revealing a woman Ollie
didn’t recognize. The face she saw reminded her of the giant doll’s head she
had been given one year for her birthday. The doll’s head came with make-up and
hair accessories. Usually young girls spent hours making up the face and doing
the hair. All the girls except Ollie, that is. Ollie took the dog clippers and
gave the doll a flattop hair-do. Then she drew on the face with magic markers.

The woman looking at her had brown hair teased high,
eyelids covered in blue and gold, black eyeliner that made Cleopatra’s look
tame, boobs pushed so high she could rest her chin on them, and lips that were
outlined in black and filled in with blood red lipstick.

Her clothes were another matter. Or what was left of
her clothes anyway. Claire’s jeans had been cut into shorts Daisy Mae style
with the bottoms of her butt cheeks showing. Her shirt was cut so high that the
bottom of her bra was showing. She was bursting out of both ends.

Claire beamed at Ollie and struck a pose with one
hand on her hip and the other hand behind her head. “How do I look?” she asked.

Ollie hated to admit it, but Claire looked sexy. She
smiled and said, “Great. You ready to go?”

“Oh, okay,” Claire said. “I guess so.”

Ollie was amazed. She had fully expected Claire to
be having a full-blown hissy fit. Instead, Claire seemed to be having the time
of her life. She watched, shell-shocked, as Claire turned to all the women and
said, “Hug time. C’mon, everybody, bring it in for a group hug.”

All four women grabbed Claire and squeezed. Claire
was the first to let go. She walked to the open cell door and turned back
around. Ollie wasn’t sure, but she thought maybe Claire had tears in her eyes.

“Now, remember,” Claire said, “I’m on Facebook.
Friend me anytime. I’ll re-tweet you if you want to hook up to Twitter. Don’t
underestimate the power of Pinterest and Linkedin. And if you’re down Houston
way, look me up!”

“Bye, girl,” Wilma said. “We’ll keep in touch.”

Claire blew them a kiss then pranced down the hall.
Ollie watched incredulously as the four prostitutes dabbed at their eyes and waved
goodbye.

The Earl of Sandwich

G-Ray took over the driving. Ollie was still too
shell-shocked from Scarlet’s tirade to be trusted behind the wheel. They’d
stopped at a Love’s truck stop where Claire changed her clothes, washed her
face, brushed out her hair.  She rode shotgun. Ollie sat at the table and a
still-sleeping EZ was spread out on the floor like a bear rug.

Everything was quiet until the outskirts of Tulsa.
That was when Ollie asked, “So, Claire, what do you want first? The bad news or
the good news?”

Claire sighed. She popped a hard candy into her
mouth and sucked on it for a moment. Finally, she said, “Bad news, I guess.
Let’s get it over with.”

“The bad news is that we got kicked out of the hotel
after your pool fiasco. They have a wanted poster of our faces in every Hard
Rock Hotel across America. It says: If you see these people, do not engage.
Call security immediately. Considered crazy and dangerous. So, congratulations,
Claire, you are now officially crazier than a grown man wearing a giant weenie
dog costume.”

Claire laughed. “I’ve never been kicked out of
anywhere. And that was my first time in jail, too. This is turning out to be
quite the adventure.”

That certainly wasn’t the reaction Ollie expected.
She was flabbergasted at Claire’s obvious delight.

“What’s the good news?” Claire asked.

“Um… Scarlet is mad as hell. She pulled some strings
to get you out of jail. You’re supposed to call her ASAP.”

“That’s good news?”

“I lied.  There isn’t any good news,” Ollie said.

“We also missed the Wild Potato buffet,” G-Ray
added. “That was a total bummer.”

Claire looked at him.

G-Ray shrugged. “I love potatoes, man. They’re like
nature’s superfood. And to combine that with a buffet. A potato buffet is,
like, my idea of heaven. All the potatoes you can eat any way you can imagine.
With sour cream. Butter. Bacon bits. Ranch dressing. Vinegar. Cheese. Man, just
the cheese alone is enough to make a grown man cry. Then there’s the weird
stuff. Like olives and onions and broccoli and…”

“She gets the picture, G-Ray,” Ollie said. “You love
potatoes.”

“Yeah, man, total bummer,” he said.

Claire said, “Did you know that the buffet is an
Oklahoma invention? People talk about Henry Ford being the creator of the
assembly line, but the history books never mention Everett P. Bolger. He took
the idea of the assembly line and applied it to food. The very first buffet was
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

“Really?” G-Ray said.

Claire laughed. “No. I just made that up. Pretty
good, though, huh?”

G-Ray laughed. “Yeah, man, you really had me going.
Did you know sandwiches were named after the Earl of Sandwich?”

“I thought they were first made in the town of
Sandwich, Maine,” Claire said.

“Nope. The Earl invented them. He was playing cards
and didn’t want sticky fingers when he snacked. So he took two pieces of bread
and put his ham in between and Voila! No mess on the cards and the sandwich was
created.”

“Hmmm… that’s a good story. Do you know how the ice
cream cone was invented?” Claire didn’t wait for a reply, “At the Chicago
World’s Fair. The ice cream man ran out of paper cups to dip the ice cream
into. So he got together with the guy selling waffles. They rolled up the
waffles in a cone, stuck in the ice cream, and the rest is history.”

Ollie couldn’t stand the food chitchat any longer.
“Do you two mind? We were discussing some serious stuff before you all went off
on the food tangent.”

Claire popped another hard candy into her mouth.
“Candy?” she asked, offering one to Ollie. “They’re quite tasty.”

“No,” Ollie said, waving it away.

“Sorry, Ollie,” G-Ray said, peering at her in the
rear view mirror. “Go ahead and discuss the serious stuff.”

Ollie said, “Claire, you need to call Scarlet. She’s
madder than a wet hen.”

“All this food talk has made me hungry,” Claire
said, ignoring Ollie.

“Me, too,” G-Ray agreed.

Claire pointed to a building on the right side of
the road. “Look, a Waffle House! Let’s stop there!”

“Good call,” G-Ray said. He turned on the blinker.

“We can’t stop now,” Ollie said. “We’ve only just
begun.”

“Hey, isn’t that a Karen Carpenter song?” Claire
said, giggling. Then she sang a few bars to test it out.

“We are not stopping!” Ollie exploded.

Claire turned in her seat and smiled at Ollie. “We
have to stop, Ollie. It’s like divine intervention. I was talking about
waffles, then there’s a Waffle House.”

“Yeah, it’s like our destiny, man,” G-Ray said.

Ollie knew when she was outnumbered. And to tell the
truth, she was a little hungry herself. “Will you at least call Scarlet back
before she skins me alive?”

“Of course,” Claire said so sweetly that Ollie knew
she was lying.

Ollie didn’t know what the hell was happening to
Claire, but she wasn’t sure she liked it. “Far be it from me to interfere with
destiny. Let’s go to the Waffle House.”

“Yay!” Claire shouted, bouncing up and down in her
seat and clapping her hands like a kid.