Authors: Liz Newman
A group of giggling women strutted into the bar, wearing matching pink shirts and fluffy hats.
The bride-to-be wore a tiara adorned with fake gems and lace. They sat down and called out their drink orders to a waitress. "Raspberry Cosmo!" "Cuba Libre!" "Sex on the beach!" They reminded me of better days, those drinks. The bridal party girls turned to the two men and smiled, laughing and flirting.
“Take your shirt off!
Take your shirt off!” they chanted, becoming louder and louder until finally the man who reminded me of Kevin of years past lifted up his T-shirt and rippled the muscles on his stomach. The girls screamed and brought the bride forward, who placed her hand on his washboard abdomen. She ran her fingers down his smooth, waxy skin, closed her eyes for a second, and pulled away, shrieking and laughing. The girls ordered the men a round of drinks, and after a few minutes they all left together.
The bar was quiet again, except for the musical sounds of the slot machines.
I lowered my head, sipping the last of my margarita as the bartender glared at me. Rifling through my purse, I searched for my cigarettes and came up with an empty pack. My fingers pulled open my wallet. An empty billfold stared back at me. I cleared my throat and put my personal belongings away as I gathered my bag to leave.
“Your hair sta
nds out in this world of tacky colors,” said a man sitting next to me. I turned sharply, unaware of his presence only a moment ago.
"I'm sorry?” I stared at him.
“I meant, you have very beautiful hair.
Didn’t mean to scare you. My name is Patrick.”
“What bring you to Vegas, Patrick?”
I smiled coyly at him, picking up my empty glass and putting my mouth seductively around the straw, gazing up at him beneath heavily painted lashes.
“Fun, fun, fun.
What else? Actually, I work here. I’m a craps dealer. This uniform makes a dull Halloween costume.”
My eyes crinkled as a lilting laugh escaped my red lips.
“I think my uniform is far more exciting.”
“I really like your uniform,” he said.
“May I admire it?”
“Look all you want,” I said.
"Looking is free."
"I suppose that answers my next question."
He looked me up and down, from the lace choker to my breasts cascading over a velvet scoop neckline, down to my skin-tight pants with a low-slung silver belt, and five-inch heels.
“Nice,” he smiled. "And your name is?"
"Eden Sayers."
"Stage name?"
"That's my stage name. And my real name. I gave up on using a stage name a long time ago."
"Pretty, pretty Eden Sayers. The belle of the Mardi Gras bar."
I batted my eyelashes at him. I could play his little fantasy game. "To what do I owe this honor?" I said, accentuating my Southern accent. Honor came out as
honah
.
"What honor?"
"The honor of a fine gentleman like yourself speaking to a little old gal like me? Well, not that old."
"About as old as me." He surveyed me with a sensual gaze and my heart jumped a little. I inhaled deeply as a feeling of nervousness overtook me. "Maybe a couple of years younger." He scraped a match across the surface of the bar and watched the flame dance before shaking it out. I laughed at this meaningless action. "You in need of a smoke?" I asked. "Not that I can give you one since I'm out. I think you can buy a pack from the bartender."
"I don't smoke. Smoking's no good for you."
"Guess that means you're not going to buy me a pack, huh?"
"Nope. I don't want you to ruin your lungs. That tobacco will get into your bloodstream, too. Bad stuff. Causes cancer."
"Wow, the surgeon general over here. You just like carrying matches in your pocket?"
"I like fire. And the need for it. Without fire, we earthly creatures, both human and inhuman, would never be able to think of new ways to torture each other. We'd be shivering in a cage somewhere, huddled together singing woebegone songs."
"Maybe we'd be better off that way," I said as smiled.
"I think so. One thing I've always liked about you is your smile. Your eyes crinkle together in the corners. If I watched you from far away, which I have, you look for a second like you're about to cry. There's something about your smile that's very pretty to me. Something sweet."
"I'll smile for you any day," I gushed, trying to pour on the charm even though my face was flushed and my heart pounded with fear at his stalker-scary words. Handsome men never talked to me and here was Patrick, a vision of buttoned-down charm with a good-natured smile.
He probably has a morbidly obese friend in a hotel room upstairs, waiting to slap a choke collar around my neck and order me to bray like a donkey
. A similar situation had already happened to me last month, which was gravely humiliating but did enable me to pay the rent.
We fell into silence. A heavyset walrus of a man at the high
-limit poker table stood up and cheered, his thick arms jiggling like baby pigs wriggling away from the slaughterer's clutches. The dealer pushed a pile of pink and black chips toward him. The fat walrus man spied me at the bar, then glanced at Patrick and sat down to play another hand. He kept his eyes on me and lifted up his red five-dollar chips, letting them drop back into a stack slowly. I knew he was waiting for Patrick to leave. I smiled at him, just in case this deal fell through, and turned back toward the mirror behind the bar, feeling the walrus man’s eyes on my behind.
"So what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Patrick asked with a wry smile.
"Slumming. What else? You have a dealer's uniform on. Aren't you supposed to be working right now?"
"Nope.
Off for the night. Making myself a part of the decor here at the old Mardi Gras Saloon."
"Aren't there rules here in the old Mardi Gras Saloon for employees?"
"Rules like what, Eden?"
"Rules about talking to hook-...women like me."
"I'm a good enough dealer so I don't always have to follow the rules. I come to work on time, keep the customers happy with a little East Coast charm. I like the way you wore you hair today. It looks really nice down."
"Thanks. Shouldn't a handsome guy like you have some sweet little kindergarten teacher of a wife to go home to?"
"I spent so much time away from home, she didn't want me at home anymore. Hence, the move to Vegas. Where there's no home to go home to."
"Aw. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. My own fault. Thought I was slick and good-looking, like James Bond. Only the attitude got lost on the tables along with the money for the rent check, and then I had nothing. No money, no looks, not even a good woman who loved me. People change, though. Right?"
""I think you're still handsome." I rested my chin upon my hand and stared at myself in the mirror. My wrinkled self whose facade told the tale of late nights, cigarettes, financial worries, and excessive consumption of alcohol. "Some people change a lot. So are you going to hire me or what? Hate to be rude but if you're just here to talk, I've got to go hustle."
He looked around and tapped his fist on the bar. "I just wanted to talk. Figured you didn't have anything else going on right now."
I
glanced at my watch, and then over at the walrus man in the casino area with a stack of chips. I knew the walrus man at the poker table would be a sure bet. But I’d been with enough fat, sweaty, and rough middle-aged men to know that tonight I couldn’t survive the cruelty of it all. Kevin had a virus and soiled himself over and over all day long, both of us crying because I had to change him and I couldn’t get him to the bathroom in time. I needed to get down to business fast.
"I can't with you around, can I? I already have my sight set on quite a big fish."
Patrick turned and glanced at the fat man. "He's a real looker. Have fun with that." Patrick struck another match against the bar and held it before his lips. He blew it out with a gust of air.
Poof.
"A gal's got to set her sights higher. Especially a working gal."
"Beggars have lower standards," he replied. "He's got money but he's a dirty pig. But for you, it's all about the money. What you will do for it, what it will do for you, while you keep your mind on the next sweet taste in your mouth, your next buzz, your next meal, your next thrill. That's what you tell yourself to think."
"Maybe you're not so handsome. Maybe you're a real jerk." I moved to slip off my barstool.
"Maybe I'm just truthful. Don't go. I'll be worth your while. I promise." He placed a hand on my upper arm. I shrugged him off to show him I was no pushover, but I stayed seated, staring at our reflections in the bar mirror. "I could put you out of your misery," he said. I frowned at him.
"Simply by being kind," he went on. "Not a lot of people are kind to you, are they?"
"Not really." I shot him a sidelong glance and his eyes seemed to widen into gentle pools of safety. I glanced around me at the raucous crowds and the slimy-looking men whose eyes darted about the casino as they clutched their chips, searching for ladies of the night available for hire. I settled myself back into the seat, ignoring the nagging feeling that Kevin would slap at my ankles and calves with his wooden cane if I came back with a purse devoid of cash. I said a silent prayer that a job would come up later tonight, perhaps in the wee hours of the morning when a lone member of a bachelor party stumbled around on the Strip in search of some company.
"
So what's your story, Eden?"
"I'm ju
st another gal trying to keep body and soul together. Gets a little lonely sometimes. You ever get lonely, Paddy?"
"Not lately.
Please don't call me Paddy. I prefer Patrick, okay? Last time I was called Paddy...well, suffice it to say I was never the same again."
“
Maybe you can help a gal out,” I purred, stirring the straw in a slow, circular motion. "A gal for hire."
“B
et you’re usually very busy,” he smiled.
“I’ve seen better days,” I said.
I realized being honest wasn’t going to help me sell, so I switched tactics. “I’m free now. Well, not exactly. But reasonable.” I raised my tweezed brows and bit down on my straw.
“That’s good.
Because reasonable is what I’m looking for.” He pulled a black one-hundred-dollar chip from his pocket and placed it in the palm of my hand.
“You have my attention.
For now. I’m going to need a little more. For insurance purposes.” I giggled at my own private joke as I thought of the stack of Kevin's health insurance bills waiting for me at home. Patrick was cute and seemed nice but not in the clandestine manner of closet sadists. Everything about him was genuine, from his craps dealer uniform and nametag to his soft blue eyes.
“
’Twas a good night at the tables. Eleven hundred,” he offered. “Including the chip in your hand.”
“Done deal.
Where to, honey?” Perhaps he was a sadist, but for eleven hundred dollars I could take a bit of a beating. So long as the bruises didn't show.
We slid off the barstools and onto a floor carpeted with swirling gold stars.
I tried to contain my excitement. I could go right home and skip the rest of the week. Tomorrow, I’d take myself out to sushi at the mall, maybe pick Kevin up a pair of those new Terroso jeans he liked. They were designed with a button fly, which was easier to cut out than a zipper. I would sew in Velcro to make it easier for me to dress him.
Patrick walked casually beside me as we headed
toward the casino exit. I tried not to meet anyone’s eyes as the security guards and casino goers all gaped at me with interest, some prurient, most scornful. Patrick led me out into the brightly lit streets of Old Town Vegas. The sidewalks felt hot underneath our feet as the remnants from the desert heat seemed to be baked into the concrete.
We walked
past glittering hotels and crowds of drunks clutching drinks in cups longer than their upper bodies, branded with names such as Green Dream
and Vegas Lightning
.
We walked for blocks until only sparse crowds of people, or one or two degenerates deep into their own drunken conversation, trickled by. Two hotels that had long since gone out of business shared an alley bordered by a chain-link fence. The foreboding alley yawned with darkness, although the sky above it was brightly lit with the millions of lights of Las Vegas reflecting off the haze of the midnight sky. Patrick gently caressed my elbow as he steered me into the alley. The alleyway was long and dark, with a large rectangular object that looked like a dumpster at the very end.
“Wait,” I said nervously.
“Can’t we get a hotel room or something?”
Taking my hand, he folded a pink thousand
-dollar chip in it and simply gestured deeper into the alleyway. “It’s all right,” he said. He took my hand and walked me in further.
“I’ll pay for it, if you don’t mind somewhere cheap.
I know a clean motel that rents by the hour,” I insisted.