Daren Dean

Mercury in Retrograde 50

Ruby

When they arrived just outside Baton Rouge, Ruby told Jesse and Cyrus to stop at a low-roofed joint with a long row of bikes parked out front. Before Cyrus could get in the front door a man came out in a leather jacket and motorcycle boots to tell them to leave. They asked about Glenn’s and Crowhurst, the man said he went by the appellation Crazy and that Glenn’s was not even in Baton Rouge. He gave them directions and when they tried to thank him, he made one of his eyes go toward his nose while the other stared fixedly ahead.

“There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,” Crazy said.

The first place they came to using the biker’s directions was a joint that was a closed down massage parlor. It was not Glenn’s. They were almost out of gas when they came to a Tavern that had just opened and got directions to a gas station from a sleepy-eyed black woman who Jesse observed would have not gotten excited about the second coming.

Cyrus was beginning worn out from the trip. When he was tired he talked incessantly about government plots to control him. Ever since the Army and Vietnam he was convinced the government was watching him. He could spend hours in one of these moods going into great detail about how the government operated: listening to his conversations through car radios, sending out agents to keep tabs on him, he claimed at one point they were trying to poison him but this was before a psychiatrist decided he was manic-depressive. Cyrus claimed he had bought weed from a black guy down at the projects in Fairmont that was a government agent. Now he was smoking little cigarillos and sweating profusely. Jesse even looked more on edge than normal, but Ruby wrote it off to the excitement of being so close to finding Jaelyn.

When they found Glenn’s they waited in the car parked across the street for darkness to fall. The neon beer signs lit up in the afternoon. Later they went to a gas station and bought some donuts and coffee and parked in front. The sign that said GLENN’S flickered on illuminating a strip of large letters in popping movie lights as they made themselves into an arrow pointing to the building. They were parked in front of a convenience store with chain-link fence covering the front. A young black man with an afro and a plastic pick stuck into the bush with a black fist stared at them. A block away a grossly overweight woman stood on the corner with one hip jutting out in a properly lascivious attitude. Jesse and Cyrus agreed one would have to be particularly hard-up to go by a piece of that. Ruby punched Jesse in the arm. Cyrus talked about the prostitute being FBI or CIA. The man with the pick in his hair tried to sell them a quarter bag of pot for what Cyrus believed to be a jacked-up price. Cyrus jammed the tip of a pistol against the man’s nose and told him to get lost.

Ruby watched as mostly men pulled up front and went into the joint. It dawned on her after awhile that the girls who worked in the joint probably went in through the back. They would have to go in. They moved the car and parked around the corner in front of a place that billed itself as a soul-food restaurant (now closed) and walked back to Glenn’s. As they were walking back to the front they saw a couple of girls decked out in slinky outfits go in through the back but he didn’t see Jaelyn. Jesse was afraid they might not recognize her even if they saw her. Ruby had no doubt she would recognize her own flesh and blood.

Jesse and Cyrus were loaded for bear. Even Ruby had a .38 in her purse in case things got ugly as Cyrus put it. Men were going in and out of the club. Ruby was surprised by the clientele who seemed particularly well dressed for what looked like a dive. A few men even had women with them. Jesse and Cyrus made Ruby walk in front of them. Each was grimfaced, almost comical, in their stoical Ozark demeanor. Ruby walked clutching her purse in front of her bosom like an amulet or offering to a god. Her men walked stiff-legged with their elbows out like bantam cocks spoiling for a fight. They took in the bouncer, a large and very rotund man, with great dangling breasts visible under his t-shirt, and a shaved bullet head. They paid the cover charge reluctantly and Cyrus mumbled about getting rooked.

Ruby led them to a table in the back. When the cocktail waitress came by they ordered bottles of Budweiser. There was a two drink minimum so they ordered six beers all at once.

“They don’t give you no selection in the matter,” Jesse said to Cyrus.

There were a number of men in the joint, but it was far from full. It was still early.

Southern fried rock was playing loud, conversation was impractical. Two girls came out on the stage and were grinding on each other, showing a lot of flesh. The air was blue with cigarette smoke and stank of sweat, urine, and beer in the floorboards. Ruby was surprised that some of the girls were pretty who could easily have found husbands to look after them, or at least done something more dignified with their lives. She wondered how they had sunk so low until she remembered they were here to get her own daughter.

“If I lose my daughter,” Ruby murmured to herself. “If I lose my daughter . . .” but that was all she would allow herself to say. She could go no further with her utterance or thought. She had not eaten since eleven when she had the doughnuts, none of them had. The beers went to her head although she was used to drinking. She clutched her purse by its looping handles in front of her on the table. She scrutinized each girl that came out to dance intensely, seeing through the layers of makeup.

A girl in a skimpy outfit came dancing out onto stage dressed like an Indian. Fringe from her costume winked like an eyeball inviting you to see, take what there was of the outfit and the girl in. It was her. Jaelyn. Ruby nudged Jesse and Cyrus was already up and moving toward the stage before she could say anything. She started to follow Cyrus, but Jesse grasped her by the forearm and shook his head no. Their table was in a section with a slightly raised platform that allowed them to see over most of the heads. Cyrus was pushing his way through the bodies of dancing, sitting, and swaying men and women. When he made it to the stage they could see him with one hand in the air as if he were making a speech. Struggling to be heard he pounded the stage with his fist, but Jaelyn continued to dance unaware of him. She is probably used to that, Ruby thought. She could see her daughter had a nice body, nice breasts and legs, and the realization surprised her. She had never thought of her daughter in that way before, as a woman men would be interested in.

A drunken cowboy put his hand on Cyrus arm and spun him around, but Ruby could see Cyrus push him away hard. Then the gigantic doorman was working his way toward the stage. A bulky man in a Glenn’s t-shirt towered over Cyrus and was plainly pointing to the exit. Cyrus was looking up at the man and saying something in what passed for calm considering how quick-tempered he was. He managed to sidestep the bouncer, jump on stage, and grab Jaelyn by the wrist. She was pulling away from him and he was yanking at her arm. The bouncer leapt onto the stage in a lithe movement that was shocking for a man so tall and now Jesse was pulling at Ruby’s arm. He was pulling her toward an exit, rather than stage. Ruby watched as her beer bottle fell from the table she was sitting at fell slowly, doing a 180 in mid-air it was frozen in time, and then it exploded on the hard concrete floor like a white flower explosion. She looked up to see Cyrus punch the man in the chin, but the man did not go down, he seemed to absorb the force of the punch as he pulled back his hair flinging dark with sweat like the deft movement of a boxer. Cyrus was surrounded by men who worked for Glenn’s and disappeared under their assault.

Ruby was ready to let the tears falls. It was the first time she had seen Jaelyn in months and that was just gyrating for a bunch of sex maniacs. She wanted to cry and sing at the same time. My baby, she sobbed as Jesse continued to pull on her arm like it was made of hemp. In constant motion, Jesse shoved both men and women hard out of their path. There was no longer any door man or Glenn’s employee anywhere near the entrance. The mayhem had yet to reach a panic. Most of the patrons were used to old drunks going up, it happened half a dozen times on a busy weekend night, and trying to touch one of the girls. Usually they slurred something like “Give me a hug” to the girl until one of the bouncers hit them over the head with a hard billy and drug them outside. This wild country man did not look like a drunk, and he was holding his own against three bouncers. Ruby could see better now that they were closer to the front stage. Jaelyn disappeared off the stage and through a pink beaded doorway.

May 7, 2010