Black Eyed Susan Page 4

  SIX

  I found one last twenty-dollar bill hiding in my back pocket and headed out of the casino to spend it on something that had the word “double” in it. After walking a few blocks, I came to a sign that read “Presidential Spirits.”

  From the looks of the building and clientele, it seemed like a bar I could afford. I walked in, sat down on a bar stool, and noticed several items, all with presidential flair: A ten-foot tall Declaration of Independence hung behind the bar, and each menu featured a former president drinking from a Presidential Spirits custom beer mug.

  It took me a moment to realize the bartender was Bill Clinton, or rather a Bill Clinton impersonator. He was younger and more attractive in a conventional sense, but everything else about him showed a remarkable resemblance. In fact, everyone who worked there was posing as a different political figure. A voluptuous Monica Lewinsky, wearing not much more than a beret, delivered drinks and sported a pouty smile, while Jesse Jackson entertained a corner booth of six by delivering an impassioned speech about the inequities of the food and drink industry.

  Bill placed a small square napkin in front of me. His voice was part Oxford, part Arkansas, as he said, “Wow, it’s my lucky day.” This should’ve come out as an embarrassing pick-up line, but his charming smile was unnerving. “And what does the pretty lady want?” he said, giving me a slight nod.

  I grinned back and raised my eyebrows. “Aw, gee, Mr. President—”

  “Please,” he interrupted with presidential flair, “call me Bill.”

  I giggled, and when Monica and her cocktail tray returned to the bar, she gave me a bitchy he’s mine look.

  “She’s good. Does she ever break character?” I asked him.

  He sighed. “No, unfortunately.”

  Just then, Monica glared at him and mouthed, “We’ll talk about this later, Mark.”

  When Monica stomped into the kitchen, Mark, posing as Bill, lowered his head and explained, “Boss doesn’t like his employees dating, so we have to keep it on the down-low.”

  “I see,” I said, glancing at the drink menu. “What’s your specialty, Bill?”

  “I’ve led the free world, darlin’. Everything’s my specialty.”

  “Looks like your replacement’s having a good time,” I said, looking over at a sloppy-drunk George W. Bush using a pool cue as a makeshift rifle and saying inappropriate things to Jesse Jackson.

  “Funny thing is, he doesn’t even work here. Shows up every Friday night and makes an ass out of himself.”

  I ordered a double shot of Stoli’s and threw it back before Bill had a chance to say anything. Feeling relaxed now, I ordered another shot with my last ten bucks.

  “So what brings you to Vegas . . ?”

  “Susan.”

  “What brings you to Vegas, Susan?”

  I placed my empty shot glass on the bar counter. “Bill, in light of some recent news, I’m focusing on keeping it real, you know. Living in the moment.”

  “Hey, there’s your chance to live in the moment—Del’s here!” he said, pointing to a suited man in a wheelchair. Del wheeled himself over to the corner of a small stage, placed a sign on an easel that said “FDR’s Karaoke Klub,” and set up the microphone stand.

  Bill made a motion for me to sign up.

  I shook my head.

  “Come on, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” he said.

  Or a house, I thought.

  “Always been this gutless?”

  Yep.

  Just then, several men began eye-lusting after a woman who sat down next to me at the bar.

  “Susan,” Bill said, “this is Cal.”

  I wondered if she was playing the part of White House Call Girl—it smelled as if she’d bathed in drugstore perfume. She wore a fitted gingham shirt tied at the waist, and short-shorts that left nothing to the imagination. But somehow her beautiful, unmade-up face didn’t match her trashy-bumpkin getup and uncovered flesh. Her large eyes looked like they held a secret, and her long dark hair, pulled into low pigtails, was China-doll silk. Her smart and stylish glasses, juxtaposed with her country-girl outfit, made her look like the lead actress in a porno film about a librarian milkmaid.

  I reached out my hand. “Susan Spector. You work here, too?”

  She laughed when she shook my hand. Even in the dim bar lights, her glitter lotion sparkled on her toned arms. “Hi, I’m Calliope. No, I don’t work here. Just lurk here. I have a much more respectable job.” She winked at me and whispered, “Answer?” She paused to give me a warm smile. “Dancer … but as it turns out, to avoid burnout, I quit my job fifteen minutes ago.”

  So far, of the five lines she’d spoken, three were rhymes. It seemed out of character for someone who looked like her, and she didn’t even seem to be trying.

  With that, Bill gave her a high-five and said, “Good for you, Cal. It’s about time. What are you gonna do now?”

  Calliope didn’t answer, but glanced up at the television mounted on the wall. The newscaster described a scene that was all too familiar to me. “They’re calling it a hit and run. The assailant’s reckless driving damaged a house-in-transport, and at the same time severely injured one of this year’s World Series of Poker finalists, who was innocently crossing the street to participate in the competition of her career.”

  “Jesus, she’s fine!” I yelled. “A few scratches on her hands. Big deal!” Everyone stared at me with raised eyebrows. “Um,” I added, “I mean, it looks like she’ll be fine.”

  And then I had to blink to believe my eyes. When I looked back at Calliope, she was … different. There was a misty, celestial light surrounding her face, like a spotlight streaming down from the heavens. She raised the karaoke song booklet up in the air, kissed it, and then placed it in front of me like it was the Holy Bible. When she spoke, I heard none of the other bar noises, no other talking, no slot machines, just a saintly voice speaking in rhythmic cadence:

  “You’re running out of time and low on choice,

  So take the chance and choose your truest voice.”

  I had never told anyone about the song I’d heard in my dreams beginning as a little girl, but the more I looked into her eyes, the stronger her hold was over me. “My voice? What exactly are you offering?”

  “Life streams on by, and all you do is coast.

  The chance to live for once is what I host.”

  I looked to Bill, who had also witnessed Calliope’s poetic performance, in the hope that he’d give me some sort of explanation, but he simply threw up his hands and said, “This is what she does.”

  What she’d done was conjure up a force unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Others heard her, but for some reason, I felt her. She pulled me closer to her, prompting me to confess, and I whispered my theme song in her ear.

  She gave me a bright smile of approval, then extended her hand, inviting me toward the stage.

  For a moment, I sat motionless, with no intention to react—it wasn’t in my nature. But there was something about the way the light flickered in her eyes that made me want to fulfill her request to really live. Call it a trance, call it a dancer-induced brainwashing, but whatever it was overwhelmed me, and at that moment, I felt nothing would be more right, more perfect, than singing my super-secret theme song to a roomful of strangers.

  When I took the stage and asked Del for my song, he said, “Groovy. Nobody’s ever done that one before.”

  As I took the microphone, George W. yelled “Freebird” and everyone else gave me an indifferent stare. After the guitar intro, I began. I didn’t need to look at the lyrics on the screen because I knew them by heart. “Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what’s on the other side?” I got a little behind, but followed with, “Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide.”

  Someone hollered a rude, “Where’s Kermit?” and threw a handful of peanuts at me, but I was determined to finish.

  When I did, I got a standing ova
tion from Bill as he hollered, “Live in the moment, girl!” from behind the bar.

  Calliope, back to her old self, patted me on the back when I sat back down beside her. “You’re a karaoke maniac, Susan. ‘Rainbow Connection,’” she nodded. “Very cool.”

  A slumped-over patron on my right piped in with drunken slurs. “Yeah, man, Oz is where it’s at. Little munchkins, man.” He let out a huge belch. “And flying chimps. Scariest fucking things I ever seen.”

  Calliope shook her pretty head. “Wrong rainbow song.”

  The smelling, drooling, barfly guy lifted his head in an angry twitch and exploded, “And you’re a stupid whore!”

  This made the president mad, so he gave him the presidential boot. “That’s it, get out,” he said as he grabbed him by his shirt collar.

  Calliope took it in stride. “It’s okay, Mark,” she said. Then she whispered something in the drunk guy’s ear as he stumbled out.

  I don’t know what she told him, but she was right about “The Rainbow Connection” and “Over the Rainbow.” The songs were very different. No offense to Dorothy Gayle, but she wasn’t the realist that Kermit was. Sure, they were both dreamers, but Dorothy was lazy. She wanted to click her heels, wish upon a star, and make her dreams come true. Kermit, on the other hand, knew that hard work was the only means of achieving his dreams. It’s not enough to wish upon a star. You have to reach for it. You have to become the rainbow connection. “Whatcha drinkin’, Susan Spector?” Calliope said, taking out the biggest wad of one-dollar bills I’d ever seen. I then realized what kind of dancer she was, and she saw right through me.

  “They call it ‘exotic dancing,’ but there’s nothing exotic about it,” she said, lifting her glass. “But today’s the end of all that, because today I received some good news. Some really good news, and I’m starting a new life, so help me celebrate.”

  “I’ll take a Screwdriver,” I told her. I hated to be a freeloader, but I was officially broke and she was the kind of girl who looked like she’d be fun to get drunk with.

  Bill handed me my drink, then was summoned away by a very irritated and suspicious Monica Lewinsky. Calliope and I clinked our glasses together.

  “Thanks for the drink,” I said, “and congratulations on your good news, whatever it is.”

  She looked at me for a long time, staring at one of my eyes, and then the other. “You’re welcome,” she said, and became as contemplative as an inebriated exotic dancer can. “Tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of my life.”

  “Good for you.” Then to my tipsy self, I said, “Be the rainbow.”

  I didn’t think she heard me, but then she said, “That’s awesome. I’m stealing that. Be the rainbow,” she proclaimed, puffing up her already buxom, semi-exposed chest. There’s something really beautiful about a newly liberated stripper shaking her breasts—real breasts, I might add—and not doing it for money.

  She looked good. She looked full of life. I was jealous and unsure of what to say, so I said, “What would the other muses think?” I patted her bare shoulder.

  “Very good,” she nodded, squinting at the same time. “Okay, smarty-pants, which muse am I?”

  I knew Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, the eldest of the nine muses, so I gave her a playful look. “You’re eloquent, but you’re old.”

  She folded her arms over her heaving chest and smiled. “What else?”

  I didn’t know anything else. “Are you gonna start charging me for your expert inspiration, dear Calliope?” I checked my pocket. “I’m down to about twelve cents.”

  Getting drunker, she closed one of her eyes and spoke in a slow, deliberate tone. “My boyfriend Dale …” She paused. “I mean, my ex-boyfriend Dale, who never appreciated me, always said that nothing good was ever free, but I say, if you’re good enough, you can decide your own worth.” She nodded her head with a resolve I envied. “So as of tonight, Calliope is all about love. Free of charge.”

  I must have looked uncomfortable.

  “Sorry,” she added. “Not hitting on ya or anything. Contrary to popular myth, plenty of girls in my line of work are straight. The girl-on-girl thing is just for show.” And then, seeing an opportunity to embarrass me and make things interesting, she went on. “I mean, I guess if I had a few days left on Earth or something …” She flashed me a flirty look. “I’d try anything. Everything.”

  In light of my current predicament, I probed further. Maybe I could steal some of her ideas. “So what would you do … if your time was limited?”

  Calliope rubbed her hands together. “Oooh, I love games like this.” She took a pen from her purse, placed it in front of me along with a napkin to write on, and said, “Okay, pretend you’re dying. Make your to-do list.”

  “Why do I have to write mine down and you don’t?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s all right here,” she said, tapping her head with her index finger. Then, without hesitation, she started rattling off items from a to-do list that was bouncing around in her drunk mind. “One: Learn how to make lobster bisque. Two: Find the perfect-fitting jean. Three: Have a lesbian affair—”

  “Stop it! You’re teasing.”

  “And you’re stalling,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Be the rainbow, remember?” she whispered, smirking. She closed her eyes and hovered her manicured hands above her now empty glass, using it as a makeshift crystal ball. “Hmmmm, the muse in me is sensing that you lack direction. You long to find meaning in your life, but you have a hard time putting things into action.”

  “Fine,” I said, and began to write without thinking:

  THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE

  1. Find my birth mother.

  2. Learn French

  Calliope couldn’t see what I was writing, but her instinct prompted her to remind me, “Think, unsettled business. Think, fears. Think, regrets. Think, dreams, fantasies.”

  So I stepped it up a notch.

  3. Have sex with a stranger.

  4. Go to a prom.

  5. Go to the circus.

  6. Visit a nudist resort.

  7. Swim with sharks.

  8. Write a novel.

  When I wrote number nine, I lowered my head and thought about the answers waiting for me in the Minnesota soil. If I had only a few months left, I wasn’t going to spend them here.

  9. Go home.

  When she saw how distant I’d become, Calliope looked sad. “Are you not having fun anymore? Should we take a break from the game?”

  “No,” I said. “Just thinking of somewhere I need to go.”

  “Just say the word, I’ll make it happen,” she said, referring to her makeshift crystal ball. “Where do you want to go?”

  “It’s east of here.”

  A happy and surprised Calliope smiled. “Hey, I’m headed east, too.”

  Smiling, I picked up my pen and scribbled an invitation.

  10. Take a road trip with a stripper.

  Then I felt guilty, crossed out “stripper,” and replaced it with “exotic dancer.”

  Calliope raised her glass for a toast. “It’s empty. Maybe we’ve had enough.”

  I concentrated on looking sober, and looked up at my new personal muse. “Yeah, we’ve probably had enough.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Another round?”

  SEVEN

  My head throbbed and the room spun from a monster hangover, but I knew I was in George W.’s apartment because it had “loser” written all over it. It reeked of Stetson cologne and three-week-old bologna.

  Most of the night was a blur, but I did remember Bill, Monica, Calliope, and this jerk. As I sat up in bed, I saw a picture on the wall of the pretend George W. shaking the hand of the Real George W., and several Guns & Ammo magazines on the nightstand.

  “Calliope?” I said as I shook her.

  Eyes still shut, she pulled the ugly, striped bachelor-comforter up around her naked body and mumbled, “Hush.”

  I shook her again. “Look, I don’t
how we got here, but it’s time to leave. He’s probably in the kitchen right now making coffee, fantasizing about what we’re going to …”

  As I looked at the nude siren lying asleep next to me, I wondered if I was a tad too late. What had we done? She did look tired. And I was desperate. I wanted to believe we’d been drugged, or somehow held against our will, but as I looked around the room, I saw no sign of improper play. In fact, when I saw a familiar set of keys on the floor by my clothes, the sordid tale of the night started coming back to me. The keychain read, “I love liberals—they taste like chicken!” and I recognized it because I’d stolen it from George W. in my drunken stupor.

  My memory kicked in with additional important details—an unintelligible political discussion at the bar with George W., and lots of late-night giggling and running. Then I remembered particular numbers. Four. Thirteen. Twenty-one. Blackjack.

  Blackjack.

  “Calliope! Get up!” Next to my jeans on the floor was Calliope’s over-the-shoulder tote, and I now recalled what was in it. I grabbed the bag, bulging with bundles of hundred-dollar bills. I couldn’t remember who exactly won it, but it was money. And money—anybody’s money—smells really good.

  Calliope sat up, scratched her bed head, and asked a question that came out more like a statement. “Oh, my gosh, we won that last night, huh?”

  “Yeah” came out in a snotty tone as I dragged her out of bed and tossed her clothes over her. Even piled up, they looked like they would barely cover a large hamster. She slipped them on, all the while mumbling about her headache.