With a name like the Neon Cactus, Frank figured the club had to have a country band. Or did they call them Western bands out here? The whole country-western deal could be confusing at times.
Larry had said they played the classic hits at the Neon Cactus. “Totally upscale club,” he insisted.
Whatever kind of music the club featured, they were drawing the crowds, closest parking space a block and a half away.
Walking from the Lincoln to the club in the still-uncomfortably- warm-for-a-Minnesota-boy nighttime air, another old song was going around in Frank’s head.
Hot town, summer in the city… back of my neck getting dirty and gritty.
Further along in the song there’s a line about something being hotter than a match head. Which seemed appropriate at the moment. But Frank wasn’t sure about the lyrics. People were always singing the wrong lyrics to pop songs. Like that tune “Blinded by the Light,” where everyone thinks the line goes Wrapped up like a douche in the middle of the night, and they sing it that way.
The actual line is: Wrapped up like a deuce in the middle of the night.
Whatever the hell that means.
Crowd at the Metropole used to get a kick out of singing douche.
Cheap thrills.
First look at the Neon Cactus brought a Las Vegas casino to mind. Big flashing sign featuring a neon cactus on the second story of a building that definitely fit the description of upscale. The bar’s impressive facade was glistening in the glow of four spotlights pointing up from the pavement.
Definitely a few steps up from the Metropole, Frank was thinking as he followed the three stooges inside.
Inside was just as fancy as the outside. Air conditioning blowing cool and hard. Hundreds of drunken revelers dancing and shouting pickup lines above the bombast of a live band blasting out a cover of The First Edition’s “What Condition My Condition Was In.”
Song was at least ten years old but still invoked plenty of sing-alongs during the chorus.
The Four Horsemen of Rancho Deluxe, which Frank had decided was an appropriate name for the foursome, had to stand among the throng that was lingering near the main floor bar, because all the barstools were taken.
Frank surveyed the room.
Fancy jewelry twinkling in the flashes of a mirror ball spinning slowly overhead on the expansive dance floor.
Lots of attractive women with expensive clothes, perfect hair and suntanned skin.
Frank’s lack of interest in meeting any of these chicks took him by surprise. His recent past was coming back at him and messing him up. That stripper bar had got him thinking about Nikki again, and his mood had gone downhill from there.
This whole scene put a large rock inside his head.
Just beyond the dance floor, Frank could see a set of carpeted stairs leading up to a second level. There was a big video screen up there on the back wall, the picture shifting between various images of bar patrons dancing, drinking and staring blankly.
Bookended by two smaller service bars, the upper-level dance floor was currently filled to the max with twisting, bouncing young people.
Young people, Frank thought. You know you’re getting up in years when you start calling twenty-five-year olds young people.
But shit, they were so far removed from his reality.
Reminded him of the crowds they used to get in the heyday of the Underground Lounge in Zenith, the meat market bar underneath the Metropole. Betty’s pet project, and the scene of Frank’s going away party.
Betty should get a look at this place, Frank thought, as he turned around to see Richards and Parker shuffling up to the front of the bar and joining Cook at four now miraculously vacant barstools.
Frank stepped around some patrons and filled the last available stool, next to Cook. “Okay, how’d you manage this, Clayton? You have these reserved?”
Clayton grinned a confident grin.
Approaching arrogant, Frank thought.
Clayton said, “Nah, I gave these four college dicks a hundred dollar bill in exchange for the chairs. Money talks, Frank.”
And it’s speaking loud and clear, Frank thought to himself.
This was not his scene. He felt trapped. Imprisoned by the attitudes and the addiction to everything “upscale” and “name-brand” and “top-of-the-line.”
The shit that had the three stooges playing the one-upmanship game at dinner.
You went to Florida? I went to the Caribbean. You bought a Cadillac? I got a Benz. You caught a nice trout in Colorado? I caught sailfish off the coast of Costa Rica.
Ad fucking nauseum.
Beefeater’s. Johnny Walker. Lincoln Continental. Courvoisier. Gucci. Rolex…
You name it.
This growing absorption with consumption and status seemed to be taking over the country.
Blue-collar values appeared lost and gone forever.
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
As he reflexively ordered a Bud and declined Clayton’s offer of a shot of Cuervo, Frank felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. All of a sudden he was bone tired and just wanted to get back to his car and escape this shithole they called the Valley of the Sun.
But Clayton had been generous—paying for damn near everything—and so far, it really had been an adventure worthy of Kerouac. So Frank figured he owed it to the boys to remain a participant in the night’s escapades. At least until Cook—and of course the gracious host, Parker—had their fill of what this particular American night was providing.
(To be continued)
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