You Can Tell A Lot About a Bar by the Women Who Drink There & Some of the Redneck Women Looked Pretty Damn Good…
Part 18: Pat Lit Up the Room With Her Flaming Red Hair and Other Exceptionally Fine Assets...
After the Séance, Moose and I decided it was time to leave South Florida—and not just because of the warning we received from the afterlife by the house's deceased owner. We didn't have jobs, and it was getting tougher to make ends meet. And I was growing tired of Moose. He had proven over and over again that he was just another snake in the grass.
Once we devised an exit strategy and were both on the same page, I started to get excited about leaving South Florida and returning to Massachusetts, where my real friends were.
There was a little bar at the corner of our street and the main road, a three-minute walk from the house. It had the worn look of a neighborhood bar that had been there a while. Every time I asked Moose to go there for a beer, he'd say, "That's a typical redneck bar. As soon as they find out we're northerners from Massachusetts, they'll wanna kick our asses. Stay the fuck out of there..."
One late Friday afternoon, just a week before we left for Massachusetts, I walked to the store to get some smokes for Moose and me and a bunch of Slim Jims. On the way back, I took a detour and decided to walk by that bar one last time.
It had a picture window in the front with the bar's name written in black with gold leaf trim. Inside, halfway up the window, there was a large diameter brass curtain rod with a plain white curtain hanging below it, providing the patrons sitting by it with a certain degree of privacy. I walked over and peered in over the top of it. You can tell a lot about a bar by the women who drink there, and some of the redneck women inside looked pretty damn good...
It had been months since I got a haircut. I was lifting every day and drinking a lot of beer, and I got fuckin' huge. That afternoon, I was wearing a pair of dungaree cutoffs, a plain white tank top, a pair of soft leather tie-shoes with thick rubber soles, no socks, a white puka shell necklace, and a pair of photochromic sunglasses that transitioned from light to dark automatically I rarely took off. I looked like a fuckin' cartoon character...
As I peered through the window, a guy sitting at the bar was watching me in the mirrored wall behind it. He turned and motioned for me to come in. At first, I wasn't sure he was waving me in, so I pointed to myself and mouthed, "Me?" He nodded yes.
I entered the bar carrying the brown paper bag full of Slim Jims under one arm and walked directly over to the guy. He was in his early 40s, wearing a black tee shirt with a pair of mirrored Aviators folded and hanging off the neckline, long dungaree pants, and heavily worn work boots. He had a Florida tan, probably from working outdoors, a thick black mustache with strands of gray, and straight, salt 'n' pepper hair that was a little greasy and pulled straight back into a ponytail.
Once we got past the brief intro and shared a handshake, he asked me where I was from. I didn't hesitate, "Massachusetts." But I told him I was currently living right down the street. He immediately bought me a beer and introduced me to some of his friends, including the bartender.
They wouldn't let me pay for my beer. I offered to buy him and his friends a round, but the best I could do was hand out Slim Jims till the bag was empty...
I spent a couple of hours there, and by the time I left, I was hammered. That's when he and his friends all started looking like Willie Nelson to me, and I fell madly in love with at least three redneck women...
When I finally got home and walked in the door, Moose greeted me with, "Where the fuck have you been? You got my smokes?"
I tossed him his smokes and told him about my experience at the redneck bar. How I drank for free and met lots of locals and some hot redneck women. He just shook his head in disbelief. If he went in, he definitely would've pissed someone off and got his ass kicked...
While I was gone, Moose had found an agency that hired people to drive cars to specific destinations. The owners of the vehicles paid them, and they paid the drivers. There were driving record checks, and you had to be at least 21. I was still 19, but Moose was 24, so he was the driver of record on the application. If everything checked out, we could pick up the car at the agency and Moose would sign the contract.
The agency we were dealing with was Acorn. Their agreement included periodic oil, radiator, and tire pressure checks and a strict no-towing rule. All drivers had to be licensed and at least 21, maintain the posted speed limit, and drive only a maximum number of miles per day. They gave us two and a half days to get the car to Massachusetts. We had absolutely no intention of abiding by the contract.
We wanted to drive 24 hours straight so the stolen U-Haul trailer wouldn't have to be parked somewhere overnight, and the only way that was gonna happen was by doing speed. The girl at the Fotomat sold us a bag of weed for the trip, but she didn't deal in speed. For that, we had to call Tom. We hadn't seen or heard from him in months. For all we knew, he crashed his Kawasaki at high speed and was dead. I called Tom at least a dozen times, and although I remained optimistic because his number was still in service, when he wasn't picking up, I started losing hope. Then, one night, he picked up. He said he had some speed and could take a ride by and drop it off.
Tom arrived on his Kawasaki the following day. He looked better than he did the last time we saw him, but he was still a work in progress. He said he was enrolled in a government program and receiving help for his PTSD.
The application was approved a few days later, and when they said the car was ready, we picked it up, and Moose signed the contract. The car was a newer, light-green Cutlass in perfect condition. But, we still needed a U-Haul trailer hitch, the kind that attached to a chrome bumper like the one on the Cutlass. We drove by a U-Haul dealer in the middle of the night; I jumped out and stole a hitch off the rack most dealers left outside in those days. Because who steals a bumper hitch?
I worked at a Getty station that rented U-Hauls during high school, so I knew how to attach the clip-on wiring for the running lights and turn signals. We picked up the U-Haul trailer at my father's warehouse. It was the first time I'd spoken to him since he laid me and Moose off. I mounted the bumper hitch on the Cutlass and hooked up the wires in the parking lot. We drove back to Miramar and loaded the U-Haul with the two motorcycles, a bench and 500 pounds of weight, a bureau, a ten-speed, and all our worldly possessions. Once everything was loaded, the tongue of the trailer dropped, bringing the ass end of the car with it. Luckily, there was still plenty of tire clearance...
We didn't give notice to our landlord; she had a security deposit, so she was paid in full for our time there. We left before first light, around 4:00 a.m. We decided to split the drive into four six-hour shifts and drive 24 hours straight.
We had beer and weed, and we were revved up on speed. We just had to drive 1,500 miles and avoid being pulled over by the cops...
Did you hear about my baby? She come around
She come round here, her head to the ground
Come round here just about midnight
Make me feel so good, make me feel all right
To be continued…
*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…