Bluestone's Blog

Bryce drove the Lincoln directly to the freeway. Did not pass Go, did not collect two hundred dollars.

The four occupants were collectively joyful to leave the neighborhood in the rearview. Parker and Richards were especially ebullient and talkative, the speed and the aftermath of the adrenaline combining to loosen their tongues, voices thick with relief.

Armchair heroes is what Frank called guys like that. Stay on the sidelines but still take credit for the victory. A year from now Larry and Bryce could be telling people how they heroically rescued their friend from a vicious, hateful, Negro mob. At the moment, though, they were looking for a bar as far removed from the hood as possible.

Something mainstream and clean and bright.

Not dangerous.

We’re looking for a clean, well-lighted place, Frank thought.

Larry directed Bryce to a stripper bar in Tempe.

It wasn’t clean.

Or at all well lighted.

But it did have good-looking women taking off their clothes on a raised platform in the middle of a huge oval bar, and a live rock band providing the tunes so the ladies could gyrate.

And over-priced alcoholic beverages.

So it was mainstream, anyway.

Frank had never seen a live band in a stripper bar. Always a sound system at the places he’d been to. This place had a rough feel to it, but the band, three skinny, long-haired white guys and a heavy-set Hispanic lead guitar player, were pretty damn good.

The group was currently grinding out a hard-edged rendition of that old Donovan-sixties-classic “Season of the Witch,” as a twenty-something bottle blond peeler moved half-heartedly on the platform.

Rabbits running in the ditch, indeed.

A sizable bartender in a dark blue button-down shirt came over to take their orders. Frank requested a Budweiser, having abandoned his quest for Dos Equis. Larry asked for a double Jack on the rocks and went off to find the payphone. The youngsters both ordered double shots of Johnny Walker Black.

“All that excitement really got me horny,” Clayton Cook said, eyes on the dancer.

“And you weren’t before?” Bryce Parker asked, his voice rising. “Dragging us all into the heart of darkie town for a one-legged whore is not horny beyond reason?”

“Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, Bryce. I’m telling you, man, you’ve never really been fucked until you’ve had the stump banging against your thigh.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Frank was already halfway through his beer when Larry came back wearing a proud-of-himself grin. Frank overheard him tell Parker that he’d located some coke. The man would meet them at a bar in Scottsdale, some ritzy club Larry said he’d been to once before.

Frank polished off the beer and shrugged internally. At least they’d be heading in the general direction of Rancho Deluxe.

As he walked out of the stripper bar Frank heard the band start up with another souped-up, fuzz-toned oldie, this one from way, way back. He smiled as the old familiar lyrics hit his ears.

Roll me over in the clover; do it again; do it again.

Roll me over in the clover; do it again.

Those guys were good.

(End of Chapter 24)

PAPERBACK + EBOOK AVAILABLE

Summer Reading Ebook Special $1.99 (June – August)

Bookshop.org:  https://bit.ly/3XG682t

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DEFkYz

https://books2read.com/u/mlEM1B 

SEE ALL T.K. O’NEILL’S BOOKS HERE: https://bluestonesblog.com/

To contact Bluestone Press or T.K. O’Neill, email bluestonepress@outlook.com or call 218.724.5806