Helluva Luxe (3 page)

Rorke was sitting at the back bar, watching ATHF on the ancient overhead television with her slender fingers wrapped around the fattest BLT I’d ever seen. There was a blob of sauce on the outside of her wrist. She looked over at me as I came down the stairs and licked it off. Without releasing her prey, she popped up on the rings of her barstool, leaned completely over the bar, and pulled something from beneath the other side. Her dreadlocks hung loose down her back. Her little leather ass was in the air. I hid my smile with my hand. She sat down, slid a Styrofoam container my way, looked back up at the screen, and continued to chew.

I sat down next to her and lifted the lid. Light beamed from the open container, and a holy trinity wafted right up my nose. There, nestled on a grease-spotted doily, was one substantial sandwich, identical to hers. So impressive, in fact, that it required load-bearing pink plastic swords. There were fries, too. Homestyle ones, heavily seasoned with the skins still attached. I could smell the heat coming off them, and I’m not talking temperature. And there was a pickle. It was wrapped in thick wax paper, tucked next to a generous cup of ketchup that could only be fancy. I could smell fancy ketchup from fifty paces.

“Want a beer?” she asked.

I was unequivocally arrowed in the ass.

“Help yourself.” She nodded toward the seven-foot cooler fixed with Halloween-style coffin doors and a dragon’s head knocker.

It took every ounce of my presence not to bend her over the bar and have my way. But I wanted more than just the bartender. I wanted in. I wanted one more hit of my old life one more time before I was too old to pull it off again, and I realized this fact with frightening clarity. Over a sandwich.

I got two Guiness and glided one down the bar.

She caught it and looked up at me.

The deal was sealed.

A commercial came on, and she silenced it with her mighty remote. “How’d you sleep?”

“Is that what it was?”

She popped a fry in her mouth.

“Karma coma. It was delicious,” I said. “So is this. Thanks, Rorke.” Her name tasted hotter than the cheese.

“You have to order the BLT with pepper jack.” She poked at the bread with her short black nail. “That’s the secret. And if you break a sweat, we’re through.” She winked.

I peered under my bread. Sure enough. Pepper jack. “I thought it was sauce.”

She shook her head and took another tug on her beer.

“Nope. Chipotle mayo.”

I grunted my approval, mouth full of heaven, and the cartoons returned.

She finished her food and swiped crumbs into the Styrofoam container. Then she ducked under the bar, keys rattling, and dropped her trash. I tried to focus on the television as she lit a smoke and clomped back down to my end of the bar, but it was tricky. Then she hopped the opposite counter by the register and sat down, facing me. I could feel her eyes moving over my body. I didn’t want to have to choose between her and the sandwich, so I handed her an ashtray and her beer and took another bite.

“You like the gray room?” she said.

I nodded, swallowed crispy pig, and took a swig of beer. I didn’t know what she’d heard from the DJ or the door girl about the rest of my night, and I wasn’t about to say a damn word. I knew I’d get more information in that crazy place by keeping my mouth shut. That much was already clear.

“Thanks for putting me up,” I said. “I was supposed to meet someone here last night to get a key to a friend’s place. Didn’t quite work out.”

“Sure it did.” Her lip twitched into the slickest smile I have ever seen, and there was an audible beat of silence as the room shifted under my barstool.

I bit the inside of my lip and nodded toward her smokes. She hopped down, plucked a new box from the Camel display, and tossed it over to me. I packed it, ripped the top and lit one up. Then I looked around me with new eyes and exhaled.

“Well, sonofabitch, bartender.”

She raised her beer to me. “Cheers to that.” She clinked my bottle. “Welcome Home, Salem.”

So last night was a setup.” I didn’t really want to hear her answer.

“Not entirely,” she said. “Some of it was luck.”

“Paige didn’t tell me—”

“Paige didn’t tell you shit. That much is clear.”

We watched one another for a beat too long, and something got trapped between us.

I could’ve said a few colorful phrases about Paige at that particular moment, but I was too stoked to be pissed. And I wanted to avoid the topic and the actual girl for as long as possible. The idea of Rorke and Paige in the same room was freakier than anything I’d seen so far.

“Paige didn’t tell you she works in a Goth bar. And she didn’t give you my name, either. Clever girl.” Rorke turned away from me to pitch her empty bottle in the trash. “Doesn’t surprise me. She’s always going on about chance. You want another?”

“Beer? Or chance?”

Our eyes locked.

“I think I might need something stronger,” I said.

She leaned on the bar, and her lips twitched into a smile. “Aw, come on, Nick. I know you’re not mad.”

“Do you?”

She grabbed two more beers and two shot glasses. “From what I understand, you guys have traded lives. For better or for worse.”

I nodded.

“So Paige is shacking up at your pad and working your job. At a pub, right?”

“The Air Square,” I said.

“Well, this gig’s a little different. She works the door here most nights.”

I nearly spit beer down the bar. I couldn’t help it. Everyone has their limits. Mine have a lot to do with riding a register, pinned under the eye of a leather-clad Meatbone with nothing between us but a slim counter and a tip coffin.

“Do I get to wear a corset?” I said, straight-faced. “Will I get to stamp little ankhs on hands of many a club kid?”

“Not that I wouldn’t mind seeing you in spikes and batwings, Salem, but lucky for you, I struck you a deal. Evilyn’s working the door. You’ll be back here with me. I hear you used to be a real badass.”

She took a long tug on her beer.

“Speaking of,” I said. “She jailed me in your office.”

“Come again?”

“The dormouse. Evil Lyn. She tossed me in the clink.”

Her pause was just a little too long. “No shit?”

“None whatsoever.”

She watched me, waiting for me to say more. Finally, I did. “The gray room is Paige’s, isn’t it?”

“What tipped you off?”

“Not a fucking thing,” I said. She started grinning again, and I lit another smoke. “Fess up, bartender. You’ve gotta gimme the dish, or I won’t last another night in this funhouse, and you know it.”

She leaned forward, got so close to me I could almost taste her. “That I do,” she said. She was staring at my mouth.

Then she took my cigarette. She pushed back and poured two more shots with it dangling from her lip, hopped the bar, and sat down beside me. I had a feeling I was going to be ripped to the tits just in time for my first night behind a bar (again).

“It’s nice in here, isn’t it?” she said. “Before we open, I mean.”

I looked around. She was right. It was cold and dark, and the place still smelled like bacon. The AC had been pumping all night, minus several hundred bodies, and the only light came from the candle nooks and Rorke’s coffin cooler. The DJ booth and the dance floor were in total darkness. Portishead was thumping so low I could feel it more than hear it.

“I just noticed there are no neon beer signs.”

“Nope. No pinball machines, either.”

“Disco ball?”

“Bite your tongue,” she said. “The only disco ball is in Ash’s bathroom, and it’s got horns.”

I had absolutely no response to that.

“It’s all right, Salem. I don’t think it can get down.” Rorke sighed and kicked back in her chair. “So you wanna hear the story, huh?”

I nodded.

“How much time you got?”

“I don’t know, boss. You tell me. Does it exist here?”

Ages ago, before I cut my own piece of the pie, I was just another regular. This was the first place that ever felt like a home to me, so I started hanging out here all the time. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, or anything else to do. Eventually, I got to know all the employees and most of the other regulars. After spending a rainy Thanksgiving night alone with the owner, I knew I had to find my way into the family. Somehow.

Back then, the bar was owned by another woman. The papers called her Mommy Fearest. Mofet, if you were her friend. She had this killer smile that made you feel like you were the only one in the room. She liked to wear kimonos over silk pajamas. Black, black and more black, with heels. And she spoke fluent French, especially when she got pissed off. She was always up to the best kinds of no good. But what I loved about her most… She could create time. She was never too busy for anybody. Even when she was.

The gossip about her was a kick. I heard she was a witch, a devil, a saint. Some people even said she used to be a man, because she owned so many chokers. None of it was true, of course. She was just a good catch that couldn’t be caught. And like any unattainable woman, that’s what made her so magnetic. She was having a mad affair with the greatest love of her life—the bar. And it made everyone want to be near her.

Somewhere down the road she saw a mirror in me.

And she was right. I did want more than a job from her. Something in me needed to be in this bar, or I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It scared the shit out of me, but what scared me more was walking away.

So yeah. Try putting that on a job application.

I’d never been a bartender or a DJ, the obvious gigs, so those options were out. Plan B for me was to do whatever needed doing, free of charge and without being asked. So I scrubbed sidewalks, bar mats, piss off the bathroom floor. I fetched ice, fetched food, fetched drugs, whatever. If an employee needed something, I found a way to take care of it. Soon they started to rely on me, and I got training in return.

However, after a couple years went by with no full-time offer from Mofet, my patience was zapped. I became resentful, showed up less and less. Then I started tasting other bars, trying the wrong kinds of things with the wrong kinds of people. It makes you feel dirty, straying from home when it’s not what you really want. It sucked. Psychoanalyze me all you want.

So Thanksgiving rolled around again, three years after the first one I spent with Mofet. It was raining out, just like before, and I knew she’d be doing the same thing she did every holiday—cooking up a scandalous feast for everyone in her world who didn’t have a home or didn’t want to go to the home they had. I could feel the bar in my bones. Warm and dark, like a cocoon. I could smell the air. I could taste the food. I thought I was punishing her by staying away, but I was really only punishing myself. I still don’t know how she found me that night.

A guy I barely knew let me crash on his couch while he took off to see his folks. So there I was. An orange cat on my right, a bottle of Kamchatka on my left, and a Dark Shadows marathon before me. I was hellbent on avoiding downtown and continuing my campaign to pout like a jilted lover.

Then there was a knock at the door. I almost didn’t get up. When I opened it, I heard a flutter of wings, and there was a bunch of lilies and a black envelope on the doormat. Inside the envelope I found some cash, a sprig of sage, and a note that said a cab was on the way. So I cleaned up, and I showed up. Then just like that, over dark chocolate pie and a glass of Framboise, Mofet offered me a new life.

She taught me everything I know. I found out that once you’re taken into the fold, the rules of the game are yours for the making. I learned everybody’s secrets, regulars and employees alike, and started landing private passes to all the best gigs. I had my finger in the panty of every party in town. But I paid hell’s dues three-fold before I got the back bar to myself, and then I paid them all over again to win my own regulars. I loved every minute of it. Still do.

That’s the trick, Nick. The Luxe treats you pretty damn good when you decide you gotta have her, no matter what.

Still, nobody ever slips through the backdoor of this place. Nobody gets a ride that’s entirely free. It doesn’t matter what it looks like from the outside, don’t make assumptions. We’ve all done our time somehow.

Even Ash. I’ll never forget the night she showed up.

The goddamn AC unit crashed in the middle of August. It was the weekend before school started, so the place was packed. People that don’t go out all year long go out that weekend. We had these huge cannon fans jammed into every corner, and the whole building was humming like an airport runway. When we ran out of ice, Mofet went to the bar up the road to borrow some from one of her buddies. She came back with a girl.

And oh, what a girl.

Ash looked like she rode without a helmet straight up from Satan’s Sidebar. In leather that’d seen Judgment Day, no less. Her hair was a masterpiece, truly an entity all its own. Robert Smith would’ve written her a song. Every edge she had was frayed. That girl came with more strings attached than the Swamp Thing. I wanted to push her out back, hose her off, and pour some whiskey down her neck.

Okay, fine. Maybe that’s not all I wanted to do, but Mofet had designs on her, too.

You know what a blood doll is, don’t you, Nick?

Rorke watched me lazily, her finger running the rim of a shot glass that I hadn’t noticed her fill.

I swallowed the heat crawling up the back of my neck.

Yeah, I knew all about blood dolls.

A blood doll was somebody with a sixth sense for drawing people in. A blood doll made a social butterfly look like a pariah. A blood doll could pack a club, no matter the night, no matter the format. If you had a blood doll, you had a reason for customers to come to your bar other than the music and the booze. I was looking at one of the bartender variety.

I nodded slowly, and she handed me the shot.

Mofet could spot them through walls. But, as you know, they come along about as often as unicorns. You have to lure them in quietly when they’re not expecting it, before they figure out what they’re really worth.

Most dance clubs have a revolving door for mediocre jocks, these people that are completely disposable because nobody ever told them they gotta take chances. Just one forgettable face after another. And way too much Depeche Mode.

Mofet wanted more for the Luxe.

There were rules about hierarchy within the family. She said they came with the building when she bought it. I was always under the impression she had a right to scrap the rules if it was in the best interest of the bar, but my opinion was only one of four. And I was the baby, meaning I was the newest, so what the hell did I know. Lily and Zayzl were Mofet’s right and left hand. They’d been around since they were kids, just like me, but they signed on at a younger age than I did.

Lily was a siren on the dance floor. And I’m not talking about Goth dance, either. She didn’t screw the light bulb, lose her keys, or keep the orb off the ground. None of that shit. She was just a damn good dancer. And she knew everybody downtown. She was always coming through the door with fresh meat. At any given time, you could walk up to a customer and ask how they first heard about the place, and three out of four would mention Lily. People wanted to be near her. They didn’t seem to mind how unattainable she was. Sound familiar?

Lily had a skill you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but none that were traditionally employable, so Mofet created a position just for her. Ambiance Artist. Professional Butterfly.

Fuckin’ cheers to that, right?

I know you want to roll your eyes, Nick, but think about it. Getting paid to look pretty and hang string lights? Come on now. I’d say that’s some serious business to the girl who scores it. Nobody ever called Lily a joke, if that’s what you’re wondering. We needed her. She cast a wicked spell when she stepped out under those lights. Dance, baby, dance.

Mofet wanted Lily playing tag with Ash. She got wet over the kind of pull the bar would have with double dolls in the booth, and it had nothing to do with money. Lily knew the music inside out, but she wasn’t interested in being a DJ. She just wanted to tear up the dance floor and let somebody else play the music. She didn’t even like to go up in the booth, said it made her feet tingle. Foreshadowing, I suppose. But more on that later.

That night in August when Mofet came home with more than just ice, Zayzl was the jock on deck. He was spinning some underground New-wave, Retro-clash noise that did nothing but piss off my regulars. Typically, he was a half-ass bar back. But he was an even worse DJ, god complex fully intact. He was trying so hard to impress the crowd with his obscure music knowledge that he didn’t seem to notice they hated it. It was so bad that particular night even Lily vanished into the walls, and the dance floor was a ghost town. We were selling lots of liquor, sure, but the spirits were restless.

Mofet knew exactly what she was doing.

When she came back, she walked straight from the front door to the booth without saying a word to anybody. She faded out the song Zayzl was playing right after he’d started it, which got everybody’s attention on her. Then she popped in something flashy to jumpstart the crowd and sent Zayzl back down to the bar. He was too proud to get angry, especially in front of an audience, so he fetched her a couple drinks and disappeared.

The mystery girl remained a mystery. She was up in the booth alone with Mofet all night. They acted like old friends, bent over the books of music, talking and drinking while Mofet ran the board. Nobody asked any questions. Nothing was out of sorts.

Well, almost nothing.