MuniPsychos

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A Girl's Night Out

Nancy walks through the swinging saloon doors into the back of the restaurant. The air over the concrete floor is cooler than it was in the kitchen. She pulls her time card from one of the metal slots, slides it into the time clock so that the red line centered on Out Tuesday, and pushes until the clicks and klunks stamp a blue block letter 8:30 PM onto the manilla paper.

It is time to leave. Time to head to the Funky Rabbit. First a quick shower, a change of clothes. a yogurt and a salad. Then time to drink.

Nancy waves and smiles at Joey the cook as she pushes open the side door into the employees parking lot. Her red 1989 Impala is always at the far end of Isle C. The early shift gets the best parking spots. Ricki Lee Jones blairs through the speakers like a cat in a tin can. As the engine jumps to life, it sends a lone puff of blue smoke streaming into the building. Nancy eases the down the window as she eases from the parking lot into traffic heading north on 20th Street. She feels relaxed tonight, sort of free. It shows in all her movements.

Nancy's studio apartment is on Fifth Street, on the corner of 20th. It's half of the middle floor of a great 1920s Victorian style house. The house stands on the corner and fronts both streets. It has lots of beautifully carved, light stained woods, the kind that cause a constant maintenance nightmare for somebody. The entrance to Nancy's studio apartment opens onto 20th Street, but she can see Fifth Street across the porch from her door. There's almost never a car on Fifth Street, while 20th Street produces a lightly broken but otherwise constant stream of vehicular traffic.

Inside the apartment, 3 locks to get in and 3 locks to keep others out later, Nancy's lithe legs are bared for showering, shaving and skirting. The promised light dinner has materialized and provided both its aesthetic and sustanance value. Oral hygeiene and a spray of perfume complete the ritual. Roll out the red carpet leading back to the red Impala.

It is a 10 minute ride to the Funky Rabbit. Nancy wonders if she'll be there too early, look overly committed, dependent. She pulls a home rolled something and green plastic butane lighter from the glove compartment, puts the fire from one to the other, and slides the Impala into reverse, seemingly in a single movement. Who cares how she looks. Nancy owns Nancy right now.

Nancy's thoughts roll along like the waves on the front side of a hurricane, continuous, unpredictable, one always crashing into the one before. The new girl at work and that skirt. What's that girl's name, Sandy, Sally, Cindy. She decided it was Cindy, definitely not Sandy. What a great skirt. Blue like the deep sea, with lace like the foam on a breaker. Cindy should lose weight, but she did pick a great skirt. Gotta see those over at Bloomingdales. As she rode on contemplating first this thought then that, splashing behind each wave was the trough of the thought that swelled to become the next.

The Funky Rabbit is a club just off 20th Street on Main. The front side of the Funky Rabbit is protected from traffic by the pedestrian only status of Main Street, but there is a parking lot off the alley. There are never too many people there on weeknights, although it's always hopping on the weekends. The large gravel parking lot behind it probably holds 50 cars. The parking lot includes the space behind the neighboring dollar store, which is always closed when the Rabbit is open. The dollar store is a 3 story brick building like they used to build in downtowns in the 1940s and '50s. The Funky Rabbit is a converted upscale restaurant, converted both in terms of its purpose and the status of its clientele.

Tuesdays special is fifty cent Jaeger Meisters with a large draught beer, which only costs $1.50. Nancy and her three best girl friends from high school, Teresa, Mandy and Susan, meet here every Tuesday. Usually, it is just the four of them. Periodically they run into one of their old boyfriends, and they play the friendly hosts for the evening. Often they play a game of Revenge on a male guest. Revenge consists of one or two of the friends who were not an ex-girlfriend trying to get picked up by the ex-boyfriend. The contest among the girls is to see how much excitement they can generate. They never leave with or date the guy; that is a rule of the game. Sometimes the guy calls for weeks. Infrequently, the guy catches on. The girls rate the game on the following Tuesday. No one has ever scored a ten. Susan has the only nine, but everyone has scored one at least a seven.

The Funky Rabbit has three rooms, spread out like wings with an island bar in the center. The dance floor is one wing. The restrooms are at the far end of the dance floor, with booths lining two sides of the room, and the island bar in the center of the building. A second wing is filled with wooden boothes and tables for for food, hors devours, drinks and conversation if you can shout over the band or the disc jockey. The third wing is quieter because it is separated by a wall from the music. It is comfortably lit. It is mostly where the regulars hangout at tables with comfortable chairs. It is also the smoking section, but the ventilation is very good, and non smokers get along well here.

Tonight is special in part because they are meeting some guys, friends of Mandy from college. Mandy graduated last year. She has visited these friends twice since graduation, but they've never been to here, or met the other girls. There are supposed to be four of them. Nancy becomes slightly nervous just for an instant as she crosses the parking lot. No games of Revenge tonight. Mandy studied physical therapy in college. That's her profession now. Makes good money. Dates doctors. Her life is comfortable.

She sees Susan's car, a late model Honda Accord. Tereas always rides with Susan because they are roommates and Tereasa's car is a actually a 1989 Nissan pickup. Teresa works construction, and is very handy. Her truck is a rolling wreck. She almost never drives her own car, though she sometimes drives Susan's if Susan is drinking. Susan tends to drink. Susan sells real estate, mostly mid-scale homes in professional neighborhoods. She does all right.

Nancy doesn't see Mandy's car, but she does see an unfamiliar Green Ford Explorer with out of state plates. It probably belongs to Mandy's friends. She is anxious for another moment now. The dry gravel crunches under her shoes. She hasn't gone home with anyone for a long time. Certainly not since the kiss last week. What was that kiss? Nancy had never kissed a girl before. It wasn't like she got kissed, either. She was the perpetrator. It was more than a simple peck on the cheek, much more. It subsided almost as quickly as it happened. Would Sandra be waiting tables tonight? The thought of not going home alone swirled in her head. It bounced back and forth between the bumpers of sensuality and distress. Was she sweating? No, it's all good. Why did she both want to talk with Sandra, and want to avoid her? She has no aversion to girls, but nor has she had an attraction to one before now.

Inside the door, the abrupt darkening cools and slows her thoughts. She surveys the dance floor with a passing glance. No one is dancing. It is too early. Sam is tending bar. He looks up as the door closes behind her, smiles and nods, and washes and stacks another glass. Sam is a good looking man, about 40 years old. He's married, and this is his moonlighting job. Many woman try to take him home, but he never goes. He has two kids in college, a fishing boat, and a picket fence to keep his space from spilling out onto the street. He keeps his bar spotless. It is covered with brass, and every drink gets a coaster, as many times as it takes. Glasses hang upside down overhead. Rows and rows of bottles have overtaken the space in the center of an island inside his island. There are three bar stations, one on each of the sides and one on the far end. The bar station near the dance floor is used by customers. The other two are reserved for wait staff.

There are four guys in a knot at the far corner of the bar, looking up into an obsured corner of the ceiling. The hazey blue waves rolling across their faces shows they are watching television. They don't even notice Nancy. Nancy glances into the other open space. A few of the tables are occupied by diners. It is still quiet enough for them to dine and converse. That quiet will be burst open about 10 PM when the DJ starts.

She doesn't see her party, so Nancy moves down the left side of the bar, opposite the dance floor, to the door of the third room. She only now notices Sandy coming along the bar with a tray of drinks for the diners. They look up and see each other at almost exactly the same instant, barely one step apart. Sandra smiles and catches Nancy's hand with a soft squeeze while expertly balancing a tray of cocktails with the other. Nancy thought this would be an uncomfortable moment, but it isn't. Nancy smiles back as they pass one another, and continues on her way to the back. This encounter made her feel comfortable and restored the balance challenged by the darkness inside the club.

Nancy pushes through the swinging door into the back room. There are eight tables of various sizes, including two large ones. Susan, Mandy and Teresa are spread out at a table for eight with four men, each of which Nancy thinks is gorgeous, and all of which are in their early 20s. They are the only customers back here right now. Bottles and glasses stand obediently in front of everyone at the table. The guys fiddle with their drinks. The women use their hands to provide social cues, gesture to tell stories, show receptiveness or wave.

Susan sees Nancy first. "Hey, Nance, about time," she half shouts. Two of the guys stand completetly upright. Tommy and Randall. The other two, Rob and Steve, offer polite greetings with a subtle bow, but never really stop attending to the needs or ego of the women beside them. Nancy's round robin greeting hangs on Tommy and Randall with the weighted pause of a thorough assessment. She smiles politely. She pauses. She continues with her greetings.

She's thinking of Tommy. She's afraid she will not look at him. Not looking communicates so much more than looking. She has to look, but only at that most uninterpretable and most incomprehensible time possible, whenever that comes along. Susan is telling a story about a movie and Nancy is thinking about Ginger the dog from the Far Side. Blah blah, blah, blah. She can feel Tommy listening to Susan's movie story. Sometimes he looks at Nancy. She can feel it. She can feel it when he looks toward her. She can feel it when he looks away. The next time he looks she turns to face him, with a trim smile. She then shows a change of expression but not a changed level of interest. Hold the gaze for one more second. Turn back to laugh at Susan's movie story at just the appropriate time. Nancy still owns Nancy tonight. Whether to be alone or not will clearly be for her to decide.