Page 9 of Pilgrims


  top of her head, and without a lot of performance, she took off

  her bra and started bobbing lightly on her toes, as if warming up

  for a jog.

  “We can’t compete with all this tit,” Ellen said.

  “Sure we can.”

  “This is such dumb stuff. Why should anyone cross the street

  for this stuff?”

  “They won’t,” Al said.

  “But if it’s just plain old tit they want, we can’t compete with

  that.”

  “Polly takes her shirt off sometimes,” Al said.

  “Yeah, but only when she’s really drunk. Then she cries and

  everyone feels bad. It’s not the same thing as this. Plus, Polly

  only works on Monday nights.”

  “You’re right.”

  “What if Walter tries to hire my bartenders to dance here?”

  “They won’t.”

  “If someone could get Polly to take off her shirt and look like

  she was enjoying it . . . that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

  “A guy would pay for that,” Al said.

  Ellen waved to a huge man as he walked in, and he came over

  and sat beside her.

  “Wide Dennis,” she said. “Good to see you.”

  Wide Dennis kissed Ellen and ordered a beer for himself and

  a Scotch for her. She patted his head and smiled. Wide Dennis

  had a head thick and faded as an old buoy. He had far-apart

  eyes that tended to lean randomly and outward, as if he were

  watching every corner at every time. He smelled like baby

  powder and spit, but he was smart enough to do something

  with computers that perhaps only two other people in the world

  could do, and he was paid well for this.

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  “Did you know this was Walter’s place now?” Ellen asked

  him.

  “Just found out.”

  “I always thought he was Amish,” Ellen said.

  “I always thought he had a friend in Jesus,” Wide Dennis

  said.

  Ellen laughed. “Remember Willy? Walter’s brother?”

  Wide Dennis rolled his eyes.

  Ellen said, “Willy could put his whole fist in his mouth,

  remember?”

  “He put his whole damn near fist in my mouth a few times.”

  “I don’t know that guy,” Al said.

  “You’d know him if you saw him,” Wide Dennis said. “He’ll

  be the guy banging someone’s head against a Dumpster. Talking

  real loud.”

  “He was a hell of a talker,” Ellen said. “Listening to Willy tell

  a story was like getting stuck behind the school bus. If anyone

  was going to open a damn strip joint in that family, it would be

  that bastard Willy, not Walter.”

  Wide Dennis took a dollar bill from his pile of change

  and went up to the stage. He handed the dollar to the red-

  headed dancer. He said something to her as she took it, and she

  laughed. Ellen ordered two more beers, and when Rose brought

  the bottles over, Ellen asked, “What do they say to those girls,

  usually, when they give them money like that?”

  Rose shrugged and walked away.

  “Can’t shut that girl up,” Ellen said. “Just like her Uncle

  Willy.”

  “Usually they tell her she’s beautiful,” Al said. “They tell her

  she’s a great dancer or something.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “You used to strip. You remember how it is.”

  “Not in a place like this,” Ellen said. “Not professionally. Just

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  in the beginning, at Tall Folks. Just to get people in there.” Ellen

  drank her Scotch. “It worked; that’s the truth. Some of those

  people still haven’t left. Actually, some of those people are in

  here right now. Can’t remember anyone ever handing me any

  money for it, though.”

  “How’s my boy Tommy been doing?” someone behind Al

  asked. Ellen looked around her nephew and smiled.

  “Hello, James.”

  “Hello, Ellie.”

  “Where’ve you been, James? We miss you.”

  James waved at the stage. There was another dancer up there

  now, a tall black girl who was swaying, with her eyes shut. They

  all watched her for a while. She swayed and swayed, slowly, as if

  she’d forgotten where she was, as if she thought maybe she was

  alone. They watched her for some time and she didn’t do any-

  thing more than sway, but nobody was in any hurry to look at

  anything else. The redheaded girl gathered up her things and

  crossed the stage behind the swayer.

  “Oh, my,” James said. “Will you look at that?”

  “Which one?” Al asked.

  “All of them! Everywhere!” James smiled. He had a front

  tooth missing, from where Tommy had fallen down on him one

  night and James had hit the floor with his mouth.

  “Do they let you sing here?” Ellen asked.

  James shook his head. He used to come to the Tall Folks

  Tavern and stand under the light by the cigarette machine to

  sing. Ellen would turn down the jukebox and threaten the circus

  into some kind of silence, and they would all listen to James. He

  used to dress for it, too, in a found suit, dress socks, and sandals.

  He looked like Nat King Cole but sang better. The light above

  the cigarette machine shadowed his face just right. People used

  to cry. Even sober people used to cry.

  “How’s my Tommy doing?” James asked again.

  “He’s so fat now you wouldn’t believe it.”

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  “Always was a big man.”

  “Now he looks like a monk. Drinks like a fish, still.”

  “Like a monkfish,” Al said, and James laughed and hugged

  him. James was wearing a leatherish coat that looked as if it had

  been made out of pieces of car seats. Patches of brown and gray

  and darker brown.

  “I do miss Tommy,” James said.

  “And we miss you,” Ellen said. “Stop over. Make the time.”

  James nodded toward the swayer on the stage.

  “We’ve still got girls across the street, honey,” Ellen said.

  James did not even nod this time, and Ellen whispered into

  Al’s ear, “I want my people back.” He squeezed her hand.

  Ellen got up and went to the bathroom, which looked the

  same as it always had. Above the urinal, it still said, “I fucked

  your mother,” and in a different pen below it said, “Go home,

  Dad. You’re drunk.”

  Ellen put on lipstick and washed her hands without soap or

  paper towels, which she was used to. Under the mirror was the

  oldest piece of graffiti in the place, a decade-long joke. “Top

  Three Things We Like Most About Tommy,” it said. “#1) He’s

  not here.” There were no listings under numbers two and three.

  “Ha,” Ellen said out loud.

  She stayed in the bathroom a long time, ignoring a few quiet

  knocks and one quick pounding at the door. When she finally

  came out, the dark-haired girl with the serious center part was

  standing there. They smiled at each other.

  “Rose,” Ellen said.

  “I’m Sandy. Rose is my sister.”

  ??
?You look like sisters.”

  “We all work here.”

  “I heard that. It’s like a cottage industry. It’s like a bodega,”

  Ellen said, and when Sandy did not answer, she added, “I’m

  Ellen.”

  “I know.”

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  The two women looked at each other. Sandy was wearing a

  bathing suit like Rose’s, but she had shorts on.

  “How’s business?”

  “Great,” Sandy said. “And you?”

  “Great,” Ellen lied.

  “Good.” Sandy smiled. “That’s real good.”

  “Are you waiting for the bathroom?”

  “I’m just sort of standing here.”

  “Do you know my nephew Al?” Ellen pointed down the bar.

  “He’s the cutest boy here.”

  “He sure is,” Sandy said.

  “He told me the other day that he’s been in love with me

  since I used to push him around in his baby carriage.”

  “Wow.”

  “Do people fall in love with the girls in this bar?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “I don’t think they do,” Ellen said. “I think they just like to

  watch.”

  “I don’t guess it matters,” Sandy said.

  “Your dad doesn’t even like girls. Excuse me for saying it.”

  “He likes us.”

  “You and your sisters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he like Amber the junkie?”

  Sandy laughed.

  “Don’t laugh at Amber. She’s a sweetheart. She’s from Flor-

  ida, poor kid . . . It’s hard to say,” Ellen said. “I used to have this bartender, Catherine, who had this walk. People used to come

  to my bar on her shifts just to watch her walk back and forth.

  Not your father. He never liked my bar.”

  “Do you like his bar?” Sandy asked, and she smiled as she

  asked this.

  “See, Sandy. It’s like this,” Ellen said. “Not really. You know?”

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  “Sure,” Sandy said. “I think I’ll go in there now.” She pointed

  to the bathroom, and Ellen moved out of her way.

  “Sure,” Ellen said.

  Ellen made her way back to Al and ordered more Scotch for

  both of them. Wide Dennis was still there, and James in his

  car-seat coat was there, too, talking to Amber the junkie.

  “I don’t like this place,” Ellen said to Al. “Who’s going to

  come to a place like this?”

  “Me, neither,” Amber said. She was eating a sandwich out of

  one of those small coolers people use for carrying around six-

  packs or organs fresh for transplants. She was drinking what

  could have been a rum and Coke. “This place is the worst.”

  “Nobody loves anyone here,” Ellen said, and Al took her

  hand and squeezed it. She kissed his neck.

  “He’s the sweetest boy,” Amber said.

  “Remember that bartender you used to have over there? Vic-

  toria?” James asked Ellen. “She was a sassy thing, that girl.”

  “She worked Wednesday nights,” Al said.

  “She worked Tuesday nights, baby,” James said. “Trust me

  please on this one.”

  “You’re right.” Al nodded. “It was Tuesday.”

  “My God, I do miss that girl.”

  “She was a good bartender,” Ellen said.

  “Those were good, good times. We used to call that the

  Victorian Era, didn’t we? When Victoria was still working.”

  “That’s right, James.”

  “Get that girl back again. That’s what we all need.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Tall Folks was holy back then. We used to drink out of that

  damn girl’s hands.”

  “She has kids in grammar school now,” Ellen said.

  “They don’t make girls like that anymore. That’s the truth.”

  “They’re always making girls like that,” Ellen said. “They just

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  keep on making them, and there’s one of them across the street

  at my bar right now, if you’re craving a great girl.”

  “Who?” Al asked. “Maddy? Not Maddy. Hardly.”

  “I don’t drink like this all the time,” Amber the junkie said

  suddenly. “You know that? Some days I don’t drink for two

  weeks.”

  Then they were all quiet, looking at Amber.

  “Okay, sweetie,” Ellen said. “That’s great. Good girl.”

  “Sure,” Amber said. “No problem.”

  Behind the bar, Walter was changing the cassette again, and a

  new dancer stepped up onto the stage.

  “Wow,” Al said.

  “I know, baby,” James said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  She was blond but not a born blond, with dark eyebrows and

  short hair, combed down straight against a round, round face.

  She wore fishnet stockings and garters, big clunky 1940s high

  heels, and a short antique pink dressing gown that tied in the

  front. She was chewing gum, and as the music started, she

  looked down at Al and blew a bubble.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  “That girl is a pin-up,” Wide Dennis said.

  She danced for a while with her robe on, then slid it off and

  coyly folded it at her feet. She stood up to face the bar with

  naked breasts, and her nipples were perfect and tiny, like some

  kind of cake decoration.

  “She’s beautiful,” Ellen whispered to Al.

  “Ellen,” he said, “I would eat that girl up with a spoon. I

  really would.”

  “She’s a steamed dumpling, isn’t she?” Ellen said.

  The dumpling had an actual act. She worked the bubble gum

  and the stockings and her flushed little arms. She worked the

  big clunky shoes and the belly and thighs. She held every avail-

  able attention.

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  “You know what I feel like?” Ellen asked Al. “I feel like I’m

  looking at a pastry, you know? In a bakery window?”

  “Yum,” Al said gravely. “Yum.”

  “You could melt cheese on that girl.”

  “You know those tubes of biscuit dough you can buy in the

  dairy case?” Al asked. “You know how you smack them on the

  counter and they go pop and all the dough pops out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She came out of one of those tubes.”

  The dumpling was dancing in front of the mirror, looking at

  herself. She put her hands against the reflection of her own

  hands and kissed the reflection of her own mouth.

  “That’s what strip joints are all about,” Wide Dennis said.

  “Greasy mirrors.”

  “You know what she’s leaving on that mirror?” Al said.

  “Butter.”

  “That’s not lipstick she has on,” Ellen said. “That’s frosting.”

  Al laughed and pulled Ellen tight, and she put her arm

  around his shoulders.

  “You should give her some money,” he said.

  “No way.”

  “It’ll be cute. I’ll go with you. She’ll like it. She’ll think we’re

  a married couple and our therapist told us to come here so we

  could have better sex.”

  “She’ll wonder how I tricked a twenty-year-old into marry-

  ing
me.”

  Ellen put her face against Al’s neck, which was warm and

  salty. Wide Dennis went up to the stage and leaned his huge self

  against the rail, as if he were on a veranda or a cruise ship, as if

  the scenery were delightful and vast, as if he were a man of great

  leisure. He pulled dollar bills out of his pocket one at a time and

  held them up suavely between his second and third fingers. The

  dumpling accepted the money somehow within her choreogra-

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  phy, and managed to tuck each dollar bill into her garter as

  though it were a slip of paper with a phone number on it that

  she thoroughly intended to call later. Against Wide Dennis, she

  looked slightly miniaturized, a perfect scale model of herself.

  “He’ll stand there as long as he has money, won’t he?” Ellen

  asked.

  “She’s the sweetest girl,” Amber the junkie said. “I love her.”

  The dumpling leaned down and took Wide Dennis’s huge

  head in her hands. She kissed him once over each eyebrow.

  “I love that girl,” James said.

  “Me, too,” Al said.

  “I love her,” Ellen said. “I love her, too.”

  Ellen drank the last of her Scotch and said, “This is bad news

  for me. This place is really bad news, isn’t it?” She smiled at Al,

  and he kissed her with his boozy, pretty mouth. It was more of a

  kiss than aunts usually get. He kissed her as if he had been

  planning the kiss for some time, and Ellen called up all of the

  lessons of her considerable history to accept and return it with

  grace. She let him hold the back of her head in one reassuring

  hand, as if she were a weak-necked baby, feeding. To Ellen, his

  mouth tasted like her own fine Scotch, nicely warmed.

  When Ellen and Al finally crossed back over to the Tall Folks

  Tavern, it was closing time, and Maddy the mean bartender was

  kicking out her last drunks.

  “Go home!” she was yelling. “Go home and apologize to your

  wives!”

  Ellen did not ask Maddy how the night had been and she did

  not greet any of her customers, but walked behind the bar and

  picked up the lost-and-found box. Then she and Al went to-

  gether to the back room. Ellen spread the lost-and-found coats

  over the pool table. Al turned off the low overhead light, and

  the two of them climbed up onto the pool table, with its thin

  mattress of other people’s clothes. Ellen stretched out on her

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  back with a damp jacket pillow and Al settled his head on her