Bronx by Ross Hargreaves
“Coke rock is big this summer”
Fiction by Ross Hargreaves
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Bronx is crying when I go down to the dressing room, bringing the French dip she ordered. I stop, and au jus sloshes out of the Styrofoam cup, soaking her fries. They’re cold anyway. She ordered this mess like an hour ago. I thought she was giving a private dance but then Ecstasy’s Queen set became Ivy’s Tech-9 set. This is me being nice, bringing it down to her. Her tears are my reward. I can’t say I’m surprised. Her boyfriend was making out with her mother the other night.
Bronx has been drinking less and working more since I heard it was make money or she and her kids get thrown out of her motel room. She is dressed for show. A sky-blue bra covered in glitter. A paper mache dress, also sky-blue and see through, covering a purple thong. Purple hair extensions hang down her mostly bare back. Even dolled up and beautiful she can’t help make me think how shitty the world really is.
All the lights are on down here. I can’t smell body spray, only cigarette smoke. Lamborghini is upstairs dancing to “Lips of an Angel,” by Hinder. Coke rock is big this summer. All the bling-encrusted wannabe’s really dig it.
“Your French dip,” I say when Bronx won’t look at me.
Her sob is a scream. I stand there holding her food, look at the vending machine where the girls get outfits or tampons to avoid Bronx’s misery and think, I don’t want to fucking work here anymore.
Here being the Spearmint Rhino. A gentleman’s club. I, being a bar back/cook who makes a mean hot ham and cheese. Bronx being a dancer. She could get called up any minute and I’m sure a million glasses need to be cleaned, plus who knows how many orders of finger steaks.
I wait till the sobbing stops then place her meal next to her ashtray. Her make up is all run to shit. No way they let her dance like this. She calls herself Bronx, real name Nicky. Bronx might seem a strong and sexy name to her, but it reminds me of the Gargoyles character. Plus she came from Spokompton, not New York.
“Tad is fucking my mother,” she says. “Ivy told me they were in here on Sunday making out.”
Her boyfriend. I stole this job from him when he went to jail for domestic abuse. He lets me know this every time he stops by for lunch and a lap dance. They’re not supposed to have contact, but live together in the motel room with her two kids.
“Shit,” I say, like I didn’t see the whole thing.
Bronx had gone home after a day shift and Tad and the mom stayed to partake of two dollar Long Island Iced Teas, the Sunday night special. He’s a bigger guy with a look of self-satisfied stupidity stamped on his face. The mom lacks a chin, and coughs with every word she says. Her tramp stamp is like ancient parchment. They started going at it until Tad began sucking on her exposed nipple and Johnny the bouncer kicked them out. We had a good laugh about it, drinking free beer in the DJ booth after work.
“Right now I bet my kids are drowning in the pool and he’s in her ass. My mother. I should call the fucking police. Send his ass back. That’s what I should fucking do.” She holds her cell phone up in my direction. When I don’t say anything the abandoned look she has goes and the rabies look she gets returns. “Fuck you. You don’t know shit. Leave me the fuck alone.”
I wait. See if Nicky will open up, or if Bronx will shut it down.
“Hey retard,” she says, “You make a shitty French dip.”
She should have tried the hot ham and cheese. I take the stairs two at a time back into neon darkness. Josh the bartender says nothing, holds up an empty bottle of Jager. My tip out will suffer for such an outrage. I wash glasses. Someone orders nachos. I dry glasses. People scream drink orders I can’t make. My hands go moldy in dish water. Ecstasy dances to a set of AC/DC. I hate this so much it feels like relief.
When I go downstairs to drop the bar keys in the office, Bronx is gone.
I hear later that Bronx did indeed call the cops. Tad goes away for probation violation and I don’t have to make his lunch anymore. Bronx is fired for abandoning her shift and for leaving a suitcase full of drugs in the club. Rumor has it that when they finally arrest her, the cops find meth in her asshole. The mother, her daughter and lover in jail, goes back to Spokane. With or without the kids, I don’t know.
Her French dip sits on the dressing room counter collecting cigarette butts for two more nights before someone finally throws it out.
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Ross Hargreaves's work has appeared in The Victoria Rose and Crack the Spine. He lives and writes in Boise, Idaho.