It was dark and dingy. The bar was to the left, and before it ten semi clad women sat on stools. Rock and roll music thundered out of the jukebox, and a naked black girl danced on a raised stage at the right, while toward the back a naked white girl danced on a pool table. Two big white guys sat at tables near the door, and the fat man figured they were the bouncers. Let them try and bounce him.
Approaching the bar, the fat man realized there were no men sitting there, only the whores eyeing him lasciviously. He faltered because he didn’t want to sit next to anybody just yet; he’d just wanted to look around a little. He didn’t realize he’d be the only customer in the joint.
He had no choice but to sit at the closest stool. He was too nervous and shy to look at the whores on either side of him. Behind the bar a blonde floozie with bucked teeth came toward him. There was no bar mirror and no bottles stacked around like in regular bars.
“What’ll you have?” asked the blonde.
“Gimme a beer.”
“A beer is three dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“Must be great beer.”
“You want one?”
“Yeah.”
She turned around, took a can of beer from the cooler, and set it in front of him with a glass he hoped wouldn’t give him a disease. He’d never seen the brand on the can before. Must be real shit water. Taking out a five dollar bill, he placed it on the bar. She plucked it away, rang it up, and returned with his dollar and a quarter change.
She held up the quarter in her fingers. “Mind if I keep this?”
“Go ahead.”
She said thanks without much sincerity and walked down the bar to talk with one of the whores. The fat man filled the glass with beer and took a swig. It tasted all right. Something rustled to his right.
“Hello,” said a woman’s voice.
He turned and looked at her. She had straight black hair, bangs, pouches under her eyes, and was around forty. Her dress was transparent gauze and wide open so that he could see her sagging tits and laundry bag belly.
“Hi,” he replied.
“What’s your name?” she asked in a foreign accent.
“Harry.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York. How about you?”
“Montreal.”
“No kidding?”
“I’m not kidding.” She made a long statement in French, then said, “You see?”
“Gee, you really are from Montreal, huh?”
“I told you. Are you a sailor?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“This and that.”
She rubbed her leg against his and smiled alluringly. “Buy me a drink?”
“What are you drinking?”
“Well, I don’t drink beer.”
“I didn’t think so.”
She pursed her lips. “How’s about a little bottle of champagne?”
“How much will it cost?”
“Thirty dollars.”
“Thirty dollars!”
“Uh huh.”
“Thirty dollars.”
“That’s not so much.”
“It is so too much.”
“You can’t afford thirty dollars?”
“Hell no.”
“How about twenty dollars? And we can take the bottle back there and be alone.” She pointed toward the rear of the bar room, and he saw a narrow corridor lined with doors, just like the massage parlor.
Now he knew what the score was. This was a whorehouse just like the massage parlor, only here they pretended to be a bar. “Twenty dollars is too much. I just came in for a drink and to look around.”
“Well, at least you’re honest. I like that.”
“I always try to be honest.”
“How about ten dollars.”
“Let me think about it.”
“For only ten dollars you’ve got to think about it?”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head as if his response was beyond comprehension, and turned away. He sipped some beer and looked at the naked white girl dancing on top of the pool table. Her legs were thick and too short for her body. Somebody grabbed his cock. He turned toward his left and saw a young, pretty black girl totally naked. Her breasts were round as grapefruits.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“What’s your name?”
“Harry.”
“I’m Sally.”
“What do you say, Sally.”
She caressed his cock, and instead of making him horny it turned him off just like at the massage parlor. “Buy me a drink, baby.”
“I can’t afford these thirty-dollar drinks.”
She gazed soulfully into his eyes. “Oh come on.”
“I just came in to have a beer, that’s all.”
“How come you’re so cheap?”
“I ain’t cheap. I just don’t believe in buying thirty-dollar drinks.”
Sally took her hand off his cock and looked at the buck-toothed blonde behind the bar. “This guy won’t go for a spit,” she complained.
The blonde turned up a corner of her mouth. “What’s wrong with you, man? Got short arms and long pockets?”
“I just want to drink my beer in peace,” the fat man replied, taking another sip.
The barmaid walked away, and the black whore turned to her other side. These lousy whores always try to embarrass you into spending money, the fat man thought. That’s the way women operate. They’re disgusting bitches and they all should be put into prisons. If a man wanted one he could check one out, and if she misbehaved, back she’d go. It made no sense to treat women like equals when they had less honor than dogs.
The woman from Montreal poked her breast into his arm. “Still mad at me?”
“I was never mad at you.”
“But you don’t like me.”
“Who said I don’t like you?”
“If you liked me you’d buy me a drink.”
The fat man squinted at the makeup that looked like washing machine grease around her eyes. This old whore probably has been giving gonorrhea to guys for twenty-five years.
“You said I could buy you a ten-dollar drink?” he asked.
She smiled. “That’s right.”
“And then we go back to one of those little rooms and have a talk?”
“Uh huh.”
He stood, reached into his pocket, and threw a ten-dollar bill on the bar. The woman from Montreal waved to the bucked-tooth blonde.
“A ten-dollar bottle of champagne,” said the woman from Montreal.
The blonde picked the money off the bar and looked at the fat man. “You think you can afford it?”
“Yeah,” he replied, an edge on his voice.
The blonde bent over the cooler and took out a small bottle of domestic champagne, putting it on the bar along with a champagne glass. The woman from Montreal took the bottle and glass in one hand, the fat man’s hand in her other, and led him toward the rooms in back. He carried his beer can and glass, and as they passed the girl dancing on the pool table, she winked at him. They entered the corridor, the whore opened one of the doors, and they entered a small room. A cot was against the wall, its mattress covered by a sheet.
“Have a seat,” she said.
He sat on the cot and she sat beside him, crossing her veiny legs.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“No.”
“It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to pretend.”
“I said I’m not nervous.”
She shrugged. “What do you want me to do for you?”