Matt McGee's "Another Foggy Night in the Den of Inequity"

Matt McGee writes in the Los Angeles area. In 2022, his work has appeared in Gypsum Tales, Sweetycat Press and Red Penguin. His story ‘Evolution’ will appear in the upcoming David Bowie tribute in Sybaritic Press. When not typing, he drives around in rented cars and plays goalie in local hockey leagues.

“Thing is, you don’t have to go really far to travel, you know? I mean, damn bro, we’re only going forty miles and this’ll be like a whole other planet! Yeah!” 

Skippy had shouted this at ten minutes past midnight. He’d packed a cooler for the trip, not with snacks and a picnic blanket of course but four fat yellow IPA cans tucked behind Keller’s driver’s seat, like a little secret only they’d share for a night.

He’d cheered and hoisted a fresh beer when Keller reluctantly turned the car toward a gentleman’s club five cities away. With sixty of his dollars in Keller’s bone dry gas tank and a cooler of Lagunitas on ice, they traveled along an empty freeway on a cool, damp Monday. The dimly lit back lot they arrived in smelled of urine and receding summer heat. Skippy set his emptied can on the asphalt and bee-lined for the door. Keller fell behind and called his new girlfriend. 

“Where are you that’s so noisy?”

“Here’s the thing,” he began, “the unknown factor in driving your drunk friend away from Point A is that you just don’t know where Point B is going to be.” He described the lot, the club, the seedy characters on the smoking porch beside the door, some barely-dressed. 

“Can’t you just,” she said as he walked, “I don’t know, stay outside?”

“That would be rude.”

“To who?”   

“Everyone. Besides, there’s not even a cover.”

The pulse of the DJ’s speakers boomed behind a heavy door. Keller stepped into the building’s man trap, not inside, not out. The security guy patted him down, asked about guns and knives, accepted Keller’s answer and tapped him on the shoulder, free to go.

“Where exactly are you anyway?” 

He read the name off the top of the door. “Venus. Some kind of space theme apparently.”

“And you’ve never been there.”

“Not really a booby show kind of guy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really! Whatever’s on the other side of that door, I like yours better.”

“Ooo. Lookit you, Mr. Got-All-the Right-Answers.”

“We don’t have places like this in our little suburb. It’s like a whole other culture. Besides, Skippy’ll probably just want me to walk in with him so he doesn’t look like a total Sad Sack.”

“A what?”

Keller remembered that she’s ten years younger and might not have grown up with newspaper comic strips. “Once he’s in the door I can disappear to wherever. Gotta be other things to do in this town.” 

“I don’t know that area.”

‘That area?’ She’s probably already Googled the place. “Me neither, but…” he described the outdoor smoking patio, a few well-lit tables and chairs. There was a mural on the wall of a spaceship crash-landed on a cratered planet.

“Don’t go sitting outside just because of me. You’re there, you might as well see naked girls.”

“It’d be rude if I didn’t.”

“When we talked about traveling last night this isn’t what I meant.”

“Maybe for the next trip - Italy.”

“Now you’re talking. Fine, go see naked women. Just leave them where they are.”

Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number One: collect no souvenirs. “Not my style. You know me.”

“Actually I barely do. This doesn’t look good.”

“Hazard of having alcoholic friends. Sometimes you end up in places where girls jiggle their stuff.”

“You wanna see someone jiggle their stuff you know the way home.”

“Now you’re talking!” 

They hung up. He went to his car to collect all the ones and fives he had. Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number Two: support local business.

On the car stereo, Jack FM played Don Henley’s ‘Boys of Summer.’ No matter what city he’s been in, somehow that song has been a bonding tune for guys. At karaoke one night in Stockholm, he listened as a guy sang the song in German; all around the room men paid rapt attention as if, even in another language, he was killing them softly with their song. Keller wasn’t going to figure it out tonight but between the song being melancholy as a foggy night and the implication to sports, he knew that somehow, it just hit guys in a place they couldn’t reach.

He tucked the bills in his pocket, locked the car and returned to the building. The two-story exterior was light-absorbing black, with twinkling lights for stars. A rooftop sign made its announcement into the fog; a model of Saturn and its rings hung off the side like a drunken friend.

“Welcome to paradise!” 

A guy with long hair and coffee complexion had watched Keller approach, leaned with a fresh cigarette over the railing of the smoking patio. Keller waved a thanks, like the acknowledgment he’d given New York doormen. The security guy patted him down to be sure he hadn’t just gone back to the car for a Glock, while someone on the other side of the door announced they were going to another club. It wasn’t a taunt or complaint, just the routine of someone making the rounds.

He pulled the door and entered a micro-culture he never would’ve known had he just stayed home like every other Monday.

Venus’ interior is intentionally dark as outer space. The lone bar in the center has only one customer - Skippy, who’s leaned over a fresh draft. The bartender’s gym-and-youth-fabulous body was wrapped in an alien green spandex suit. Two worn pool tables graced a room of wall-to-wall mirrors. Then, as if having been added as an after-thought, a six-foot stage stood on either side of the room for the girls to perform.

And despite slowly peeling away Barbarella-inspired costumes, they weren’t drawing much attention or dollar bills. Earth guys apparently had the end-of-the month, no-credit blues. He sat at stage right. Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number Three: absorb local culture.

A thin dancer materialized. After a spin around the pole she knelt on all fours and whipped her hair, exposing a xylophone of ribs. The guy beside Keller paid no attention to that particular instrument but registered his vote by folding bills in her G-string with a snap. Keller ducked into the Men’s room. 

Walls were painted black with high-painted glow-in-the-dark stars and planets, set off by a blacklight bulb. A rainbow of gum wads decorated the urinal drain. He wondered whose job it was to pluck them out and how long they’d been collecting. 

Back in the main room a hot pool game had broken out. Crumpled twenties lined the rail. As the girls gyrated, players studied potential shots, angles, outcomes. Keller slid in beside Skippy.

“Not the kind of travel I’m used to.” He nodded at the pool table, the girls gyrating unnoticed behind the game. “You believe those guys?”

Skippy’s verbal skills laid deep below a barley sea. “Uuh?”

When Keller nodded at the pool game again, Skippy got off his stool and approached the empty chairs lining the stage.

“Good idea,” Keller said. Before he could reach for his own roll Skippy shoved a neat stack of ones in his friend’s hand, every bill right side up and perfectly aligned. Skippy’s a waiter; Keller assumes he’s got stashes like this all over his house, maybe a dresser drawer lined with bricks of neatly stacked ones.

The woman who came on stage was about thirty, copper complexion, with a pleasingly curvy post-childbirth figure. Her bikini was what someone might’ve imagined after bong-ripping their way through Logan’s Run and she smiled a genuinely friendly smile. Every few minutes a click and a hiss would sound over her head and a burst of fake fog would descend.

“We don’t get this kind of ambiance back in town!” Keller said, and Skippy smiled numbly. The dancer leaned against the mirrored wall, giving the illusion of two dancers at once. She whipped her long brown hair like a propeller. Skippy’s head drooped to one side, but perked up when she stepped toward his edge of the stage.

“This is my friend Skippy,” Keller pointed, “he’s a little shy.”

Skippy whipped a cloud of neatly-arranged bills into the air. The dancer knelt on the ledge in front of him. His head tilted back to one side.

“Your friend’s pretty drunk,” she said.

“It’s just a stroke; he has them all the time.” 

She laughed like it was the funniest thing she’d heard on a Monday night. “Maybe take him to Taco Bell, get him a chalupa.”

    “Chalupa!” Skippy shouted, eyes closed.

         “Chalupas! I like the one on Sherman,” she pointed. 

Keller’s Rule of Travel Number Four: wherever you go, someone is a local just like you are back home.

The DJ’s beat changed. She collected Skippy’s carpet of bills. “I’m going on smoke break.”

“Want some company?” 

“Definitely. But don’t tell my boss.”

“Don’t tell my girlfriend.”

“Deal.”

On the smoking porch she lit a Marlboro and offered it over. Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number Five: smoke whatever the local tribe offers. “I’m Monique,” she extended a small hand for shaking. “Rhymes with unique.” 

“What do you do in the real world? And don’t say ‘working my way through college.’”

She accepted the smoke back. “I work in a medical back office.”

A vaguely hazy night hung over the parking lot. “Well in that case, thank you.”

“For this?” she held up the smoke.

Keller shook his head. “For not letting an ass like that go to waste in a medical office.”

She smiled, set her hand on his arm and said “It won’t so long as I keep working Mondays!” She hit the smoke again. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

“Bee-Bee.”

“Bee-Bee. Is that short for something?”

“I’m too new to know. And no, she wasn’t happy about me being here, even if it is just to prop Skippy up.”

“Is his name really Skippy?”

“It is. You know, you’re pretty brave getting up there. If it were the other way around, and it was Ladies Night, I couldn’t do it.”

She nodded. “Wanna hear something weird?”

“Of course.”

“To get the job, we have to take a TB test.”

“Not so weird.”

“I work in a medical office. You don’t need four vials of blood for a TB test.”

“Four vials?”

“Four.”

“Yeah. I’d be afraid of that getting splashed around a murder scene.” They watched the haze float just above the asphalt. “Isn’t a TB test supposed to just be a little prick?”

She smiled as he realized what he’d said. Keller rolled his eyes and waited. She took a drag.

“Not gonna go for the obvious joke?” Keller said.

“Too easy. Besides, after standing out there in barely anything, I’ve kinda started to like people not laughing at me. It’s like a mirror telling me I’m pretty.”

Her smoke blended with the hazy night. Reflected streetlight turned her deep brown eyes to glass. Keller wondered if this is how men fell in love with strippers – unguarded, potentially honest moments. He’d never have met her had Skippy not tucked a cooler behind his seat and swung a drunken pointer finger south. 

Skippy.

“Uh-oh,” Keller said.

She exhaled. “What.”

“I left Skippy alone.”

She put the smoke in a stand-up ashtray shaped like a buoy. “He’s a big boy.”

“Oh,” Keller shook his head, “You don’t know. One night we went to Bossa Nova on Sunset and I lost sight of him for a minute. I look around and there he is, in the kitchen wearing a chef’s hat making his own pizza.”

She laughed. Keller reentered the man trap and grabbed the door handle. 

“I’ll be back onstage in a few,” she announced.

“Meet you there.”

Skippy sat slumped in a chair affront the stage. The security guy appeared.

“Your friend’s pretty hammered.”

“Yeah.”

“Might be a good time to get him up. Closing soon anyway.”

Keller nodded. The DJ piped up.

“Next on the stage, MONIQUE everybody, MONIQUE!” He then cued her song choice: The Atari’s version of ‘The Boys of Summer.’ Keller held up a pointer finger to the security guy. 

“One more dance.”

The guy shrugged and disappeared. Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number Six: embrace irony wherever it arrives. He slid into the white space-age style chair beside his friend.

“Skippy wake up, boobies!”

Skippy rolled his head, as if to adjust his neck, mumbled boobies and launched a stack of ones from his left hand. 

“Where do you keep getting those?”

“Either way,” Monique shouted on stage, “he’s making my car payment!”

“Car payment!” Skippy shouted.

Monique shimmied on the edge of the stage to The Atari’s beat. Keller pulled the wad from his pocket and held it out. Monique laid her palm flat and accepted the bills. She leaned forward. 

“Tell your girlfriend I’m glad you didn’t stay home like everyone else tonight.”

“Me too. On that note,” he backhanded Skippy’s bicep, “time to go, roll back like the tide.”

Skippy shifted in his seat, a precursor to standing. Monique leaned off the edge of the stage, a kind of metal grating found on the steps of an oil refinery - or a spaceship’s platform.

“By the way, good choice of last songs,” Keller pointed up. A shot of fake fog whooshed out. Mars twinkled and something the color of Jupiter shone like a traffic signal.

“Thanks. It’s my husband’s jam. I play it at the end of the night. Kind of a reminder about who I’m going home to.”

Keller nodded. “Sorry if I sound like a noob, but what’s he think about you working here?”

“My husband’s got an addiction.” 

“Oh. Drugs.”

“Nope. Travel. Barely ever home. Two years ago he said ‘It's my life, I’ll live it wherever I want.’ So hey,” she spun on the pole and did a split, “It's my body! I’ll bring it wherever I want.”

“So this is revenge dancing.” 

“Maybe a little. But if I didn’t venture out, we’d have never met and had a good chat.”

Keller threaded an arm through Skippy’s and lifted him to his feet. “Maybe we’ll see you next Monday. Here in outer space.”

“Bring Bee-Bee!”

“If she’s still talking to me.”

She nodded, fold of cash in hand. “You’ll be fine. Say something to make her feel pretty.”

“She is pretty.”

Monique pointed. “Tell her exactly that.”

“Yeah.”

“Yahhhh!” Skippy launched another flurry of bills. Monique watched them twiddle through the air. 

“How many pockets does he have?”

“He’s gotta be empty by now.”

Skippy laughed deviously.

“C’mon Moneybags, we’ll come back next week.”

Skippy stumbled in step with Keller. The security guard rematerialized, crumpling a Taco Bell wrapper. From the one on Sherman, Keller guessed. 

“Need a hand?”

“I think I do, yes.”

The men loaded Skippy into the backseat, who laid down, head near the cooler. Keller thanked the security guy and pressed a five into his palm. Inside the car a can cracked open.

Monique, now in a sheer kimono, waved from the smoking porch. Keller waved back. She might’ve mouthed next week. He gave a nod, then she smiled and went in. Keller’s Rule of Travel, Number Seven: always acknowledge an invite to come back.

At the end of the parking lot, the long-haired guy who’d been loitering on the porch earlier stood beside the exit. He held up a hand as Keller’s car approached. Keller reluctantly rolled down his window; stopping for a stranger in a dark LA strip club parking lot at closing time just wasn’t on anyone’s travel itinerary. The guy leaned near.

“Are you from here?”

“Jersey.” Originally, Keller thought.

“My name is Manuel, I am from Bolivia, and I just want to tell you, turn right when you go out. Always use your signal turn. At stop signs, stop two seconds complete.”

Keller’s Rule of Travel Number Eight: always accept the kindness of strangers.

“Got it,” he held up a fist to bump then rolled away. In his rearview mirror he watched Manuel lean into the next car.

Skippy mumbled in the backseat. “What did he say?”

“I don’t know, but from here on I’ll be sure and use my signal turns.”

Skippy laughed and slurped at his fresh yellow can. ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ came on Jack-FM. He felt energized by the exchange with Monique, less as a customer and more like a new friend. 

“I’m proud,” Skippy said from the backseat, “I got to show you that place. I TOLD you! I told you it’d be like a whole other dimension!”

“Gotta admit, that wasn’t a usual Monday night.”

There was a pause where it seemed Skippy might’ve fallen asleep. “I’m starving, man.”

“How about Taco Bell? I hear the one on Sherman’s pretty good.”

Skippy cheered. Keller turned the car west. Rule of Travel Number Nine: always take a local’s suggestion; the next time you talk to them you can say ‘you were right, that place is awesome!’ Ten minutes later they dug into their late-night cravings dinner, car aimed up the freeway on-ramp. Keller’s cell rang.

“So,” Bee-Bee said, “Did you get to see all the naked women?”

Keller held the phone in one hand, steered with the other, and smiled at the road ahead. “Still looking forward to seeing my favorite one.”

“Oh yeah? When.”

A light snore came from the backseat. Keller imagined the shredded lettuce and cheese he’d be  vacuuming up tomorrow.

“Right after I drop Skippy off.”

“Hurry up.” She ended the call. Keller had the freeway mostly to himself, a clear shot back to town, its places familiar, and best of all - Bee-Bee’s bed. With a hand on the wheel and the real moon glowing overhead he remembered his final Rule:

Know when to come home. 

© 2022 Matt McGee