Rose
Rose
Damn, I'm gonna miss that girl.
I fell in with her by just a fluke of damn luck. She
was dancing at a piss ant dive strip club just outside of Denver, about twenty
miles out on a piece of blacktop that only people who don’t want to run the
main roads use. Fucking place was a fall-down drunk joint; not in any
city limits, out too many miles on the road to nowhere for the County Deputies
to care to drive out to unless forced by a worthless fight call.
Dudes were passed out on the freaking floor, and it was only
ten o’clock. The parking lot looked like a cheap-ass “junkyard” car lot,
with cash sales only, with no refunds. Every car in the parking lot was
at least fifteen years old, with fenders dented on every corner and some along
the sides. What a junkyard; the clientele had to be a bunch of losers,
druggies that must have been turned loose by their fat old ladies with heads
full of curlers or so dope sick they couldn’t make it down to the dive, or just
paroled looking for a drink and a fight, kicked loose from a seedy trailer park
or the County lock up. About every fifth running wreck was an old but
nice pickup; even with the dents, the kind that screams “Red Neck” right down
to the gun rack in the back window; a couple even sported old, mangy dogs
sitting dead, bored in the bed of the trucks.
I’d just come across the State of Kansas, what a fucking
place. I’d been told it was flat as a pancake, but that was a hell of an
understatement. Four hundred miles on my tired old oil-smoking Plymouth Road
Runner’s speedo; two quarts of oil every fill up, whether she needed it or not;
blue cloud of burnt oil followed us everywhere we went.
After another three hours across some godforsaken state, my
eyes were straining to see the white line. The night sky was lit with
banks of neon lights; they covered every inch of the tarpaper building I could
see up ahead on the two-lane highway. I’d seen those types of joints
before, and they begged: “Come on in, have a couple of beers, there’s titties
to be seen”.
I pulled into the dirt parking lot, leaving a plume of dust
in the air so high and wide that the next four cars wouldn’t be able to see the
neon until they were already passed; I pulled right up to the front door, and
it occurred to me that I’d just driven into the sixties like on an ol’ Twilight
zone TV show. If I were a little smarter, I’d have backed out and kept
going until morning, driving until I found the next Texaco station where I
might just be able to score another six-pack of Bud and a fresh pack of smokes
before they cancel my card.
Good sense was not on the menu, so, parking next to one of
the better-looking wrecks, I jumped out and headed for what I expected to be a
real letdown. At the front door was a bouncer, a fat fuck, crew cut and
over the hill in his early twenties, who looked to be about a decade and a half
ago. Fat fuck said “$10 cover charge” and put up a full ham-sized arm
towards my chest to stop my advance. I kept on going until his hand was
on my chest and pushed him back a full step. Again, he said “$10 cover
charge” in his “I’m so fucking fat and scared shitless someone will call me out
voice”. I looked down at his hand, and he quickly pulled it off my jean jacket,
my favorite jean jacket. I looked him in the eye and said: “I’m with the
band”. “$10 cover charge,” he said softly for the third time. I
looked at him with my “Are you fucking kidding me look” and closed the distance
he made with his retreating step. Face flushing and taking but another
step backward, he wasn’t happy with my aggressive manner and in his face
attitude; I was now inside the joint, and the music was obviously from a cheap
recording and crap speakers that must have come from one of the dollar
stores. “$10 fucking bucks to cover the band fuck face” I growled in his
fat face so close my lips brushed his like a soft kiss. He jerked back,
and I walked around him into the stinking, nasty-assed dive; it was smaller
than it looked from the outside.
There were maybe ten tables spread around the square
building and six rickety stools at the shabby, dirty bar. The place
smelled of old beer and older barf with a twist of body odor thrown in; it made
you breathe short, shallow breaths through your nose so you wouldn’t get any in
your mouth. The floor was uneven; boards warped and cracked with golf
ball-sized holes every foot or so. It came to mind, “I wonder how a
couple of these fat ass losers made it in here without going right through the
floor”. There was a spotlight shining on one giant round ball hanging
from the ceiling, looking like it could drop like a stone and kill someone at
any moment; it must have been four feet across. It was made up of broken
mirror pieces glued on some sort of round, something. It was hanging in the
center of what was supposed to be a dance floor; luckily, they had high
ceilings, or the girls would have to dance around the stupid thing. The
dance floor was a half circle and only about ten feet around. It was
raised three feet above the main floor of the bar; broken linoleum tiles and
some kind of patch material were all twisted and uneven as much as two inches
from one spot to the next. The thought of seeing one of the girls do a
spectacular naked spread eagle fall entered my mind, and I dismissed it with a
quick smile and a shake of the head; I have crazy thoughts sometimes, funny
ones, but crazy.
I took a seat next to the junky dance floor, still thinking
about a spread eagle fall into my arms, when the barmaid, who had to be in her
sixties, asked me what my pleasure was. I smiled my biggest shitty grin
and said “Oh, I think you know” followed by a twisted toothy grin. That
was all it took, and she was all smiles and gushing, friendly, I’d just made
her day. “I’ll just take a Bud; no glass needed.” With a wink, she was
off.
My Bud was back in a flash, and I asked her when the floor
show was going to start. “Bout ten minutes or so” was the answer with a
toothy grin and a slight toss of what had to be the most dyed hair in
America. She bent over the little table, showing every inch of wilted
tits that were so over the hill that the hill couldn’t be seen in the rearview
mirror. I gave her a little nod and dismissed her; her reply was a deep
huff, twisting her wrinkled, lined mouth into what used to work as a pout; she
was off like a rocket.
Ten minutes turned into twenty, and finally the music picked
up a notch or two, and the drunks started to clap and shout; it even woke a
couple up from the floor. Five minutes later, just as I was beginning to
think that no one was going to come out, I almost shit myself sitting right
there in my hard ass seat with my warm and almost empty Bud in one curled fist;
out comes one of the most beautiful women I think I’d ever seen. I damn
near pissed myself right then and there. She was about five-ten, tits
hard as rocks that had to be “C’s” if not bigger, and the thinnest waist under
those big bad girls I’ve seen in years. Thank god no cheap costume was
hiding her stomach, those abs; six-pack going on a short case. Thighs
that a bodybuilder would have been proud of; lines of muscles rippling under
tanned, perfect skin. Toned calves; triceps that had to be gym-built;
biceps that were groomed to perfection, if not a little large for a
medium-sized woman born and raised in heaven. Her hair was nearly white,
it was so blond, free-flowing well past the middle of her back, thick like a
thatched roof. My face ached from the stupid smile on my face. A
hard punch in the shoulder brought me back to the moment; did I want another
Bud? Oh hell yes, yes, yes, yes; another huff was all I noticed as my
eyes were glued on what had just walked into my life.
The goddess on the raised floor above me swayed, twisted,
and spun; high kicks showing flexibility were just one of the many talents she
must possess. Her movements to the shit music straining from dollar store
speakers were probably the best I’d ever seen; smooth, sensuous, perfect.
“Perfection of movement and rhythm” was what my brain was saying. Perfect
smile; teeth so white that the flashing light from the spotlight off the mirror
ball reflected blinding white light from her teeth into my eyes. Eyes an
incredible deep sea blue. Why were my eyes watering so? I was in the
presence of an angel from heaven, and my mind was not thinking pure thoughts,
as the front of my pants would attest to. In an instant, her bit was up,
and she left the floor as quickly as she had appeared. I found myself standing
at the edge of the dilapidated stage, it was all I could do not to jump up on
the stage and follow her like a moth to a flame.
Somehow, another Bud had appeared in my fist and was
almost gone; magic.
I sat there stunned for more than just a few minutes without
noticing that another dancer had taken the stage and was trying to get someone
to realize she was working her ass off, spinning, kicking, grinding it out,
just trying to get noticed. I wasn’t the only hard dicked patron in this
shit hole sitting there with glazed-over eyes, dizzy light-headed from what
we’d just been blessed to see; it sure wasn’t the beer and a half I’d drank or
even the joint that was smoked out on the road.
I left a twenty on the table and started looking for a way
into the back rooms, where I had to find my angel. Off to the right side
of the bar were the doors going to the shitter’s, Men’s, or Women’s; hidden off
to the left of the opening was a single recessed door with peeling paint that
at some point in the last millennium looked to be red. It had an
“Authorized Person’s Only” sign hanging by a bent nail on the upper half of the
door. It was leaning heavily to the left since someone hadn’t even put a
single nail in the center of the sign. My heart was pounding as I twisted
the knob and found it to be unlocked. I stepped through the door into a
dark hallway sporting maybe six doors at random spacing down both sides of the
hall. I silently closed the door on its rusted hinges without a squeak of
protest and put my ear to the first of four doors without hearing a sound
coming from inside. The fifth door on the right, I could hear the faint
movements of a person, and I gently knocked. A sweet woman’s voice called
in response, “Come in.” I opened the door and looked straight into a mirror
against the wall, no more than six feet away. The reflection was that of
my angel from heaven in body powder and nothing else. She was pulling her
blond wig off and didn’t act as though she even knew I was there, staring at
her naked reflection in the mirror. She made no move to cover up, only
turned and said, “Oh…. I saw you in the audience…. Did you like my
performance?” “I loved it,” I croaked; somehow, the sight of her perfect
breasts and body had taken the air from the room. She wasn’t blond, but
strawberry blond, and the rug matched the curtains perfectly. The color
was more strawberry than blond, but not to the point you’d call her a
redhead. She was breathtaking even in the foul, dim single sixty-watt
light bulb over the dressing room mirror.
I realized I was standing in her dressing room where I
wasn’t supposed to be with a raging hard on and she was completely naked; I
noticed the weirdness and said “I’m sorry my name is David and I just wanted to
talk to you after the incredible performance you just did” She waved an arm
dismissing my compliment, making her right breast raise and bounce with the
jester. “Yes, you are David from Chicago…. I’ve been waiting for you.”
With that announcement, her nipples raised to full erection; she didn’t seem to
notice.
“They call me Rose, that is the name that I use here, I have
no other I know”. She made another dismissive wave and turned back to the
mirror again, working on wiping clean the makeup from her gorgeous face.
As the colors came off, her incredible beauty increased. The makeup was
covering and taking away from her natural beauty. I stood transfixed by
the sheer beauty that was before me; she was becoming more breathtaking by the
minute.
“How do you know that I’m from Chicago?” “I just came
into this crap bar less than an hour ago”. Another dismissive wave sent
chills up my back as I again watched her breast make its journey up and back to
the natural position.
“I’ve been waiting for you, David of Chicago.” “I need
a ride to my people, will you take me there, David of Chicago?” What do
you say to the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever laid eyes on, and she asks you
five minutes after meeting her to give her a ride, plus that is the direction
you’re going anyway?
‘Ummmmm……… Of course”…
She had her bag packed; one small suitcase that was no
larger than the standard airline carry-on. She finished cleaning the
paint off her face and tossed all her makeup, which wasn’t much, into the
suitcase. With a click, she shut it and headed out the door.
“Wait; don’t you have to get your check or something from
dancing?” as I raced to catch up. She’d already made it down the dark
hall and was going through the “Authorized Persons Only” door. She spoke
over her shoulder, not slowing down, “Nope, my time here is over, and my debt
is paid.” Across the barroom floor with a wave to the bartender and past
the fat-assed bouncer with no more than a slight wave of her hand.
Standing just outside the shit house door of the tavern slash strip club, she
surveyed the parking lot as though she would know which my ride was.
To my dwindling surprise, she walked to the passenger side
of my Road Runner and waited for me to open the door for her. I wiped the
surprised look off my face and opened the door for her; as she got in, she said,
“We need to go West, David of Chicago.”
I got in the driver’s seat and left a cloud of blue oil
smoke and dust in the air; we headed West through Colorado towards Idaho; she
was asleep within two minutes and lay her head against my shoulder. Her
strawberry blond hair covered her face, but the slow, delicate breaths
told me she was fast asleep.
Two hours later and a hundred and fifty miles later, she
woke and told me she had to be at the meeting place no later than June 21st, the
summer solstice, and fell instantly back to sleep. At dinner our first
night I asked her where we were going and she handed me a satellite photo of
the Middle Sister Mountain in the Cascade Range in Oregon. We had two
full weeks to get there. That was all the information I was going to get;
she changed the subject, gave half answers, and laughed when I asked her for
more details on why she had to be at the Mountain on the summer solstice.
Our time passed in a flash; traveling, eating, sleeping, and
making love every night. I fell completely in love with my Rose.
After the first day, I didn’t ask any more questions; I was so mesmerized by
Rose that anything she asked or said was taken as a fact.
June 21st came to us as we were making love,
wrapped in twisted sheets of the Best Western in Sisters, Oregon. It was
a small resort town with too many gift shops to count. We woke at 8:00 am
the morning of the summer solstice. Rose was wired higher than a kite;
there was no comforting her, and the thought of calming her down was not an
option. She rushed me into the Plymouth and off we went towards the
Mountains. She sat in the passenger seat with her legs crossed up in the
seat. The only thing holding her in the seat was the shoulder
strap. Her eyes were closed, and she directed me left or right as we came
to a crossroads. We left the blacktop and headed higher on gravel and
then dirt roads. Dirt roads turned into logging tracks, which the
Roadrunner just couldn’t make up. This didn’t faze Rose; she just
instructed to back up and go right at the bottom of the road, never opening her
eyes. After several missed turns and logging roads, she suddenly said,
“Stop; this is as close as we can make it.” She leaned across the seat
and gave me a long, hard kiss on the lips. “Goodbye, David of Chicago, I
will see you again, and we will be lovers once again, forever.” She
reached into the back seat, grabbed her small luggage, and jumped out the
door. “I will see you again, David of Chicago; I will send you a message
when I’m coming back.” Without a second look, she was gone into the brush
of the Middle Sister of the Cascade Range.
I’m telling this story now because today in the mail I
received a postcard with a strawberry-colored rose on the front and a message
that read “Tomorrow, David of Chicago, June 21st, the summer solstice,
I will see you then.” Signed “Rose”
I’ve waited forty-seven years for my Rose to return. I
can’t wait to see her.
From the Ramblings
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