Page 22 of The Rebel of Raleigh High
9
ALEX
The bar’s heaving,packed to the rafters, the smell of damp lying heavy in the air. Every time a new customer walks in through the door, a good-natured roar goes up inside the Rock, the patrons already parked at the bar and crowded around the pool tables hurling a shower of peanut shells at the offenders guilty of letting the heat out.
The jukebox has been cycling through White Snake and ACDC all night, sporadically interrupted by the sounds of The Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Behind the altar, the name the Rock’s locals call the huge, sticky slab of mahogany that forms the length of the bar, Angela and Maisy have been busting their asses for the last six hours, working their hardest to make sure everyone has a drink in front of them at all times.
And me? I’ve been clearing tables, running food, watching the drunkest guys for any signs of hostility, and fielding the unwelcome advances of at least three middle-aged women who all seem intent on ‘making me a man.’ This always happens when I’m working at the Rock. Women get it into their heads that, because I’m young, I’m still a retiring wallflower virgin who’s never had his dick touched. Little do they know I could spend the night teasing them into fits of hysteria if I wanted to. They’d forget their own fucking names and lose all motor function if any of them could coax me to slide in between their bedsheets. They won’t, though. Unlike other guys my age, I’m capable of maintaining focus once the subject of potential sex comes up, and besides…I don’t shit where I eat. I have nothing against older women. Older women can be sexy as hell. But I like my job, and I like bringing in a paycheck, and I’m not dumb enough to risk any of that for one night getting my dick sucked.
“Hey, Alex! Alex, Montgomery’s asking for you!” Maia hollers across the bar. She’s in the middle of pouring three different drinks but she still somehow manages to hold up a black, corded handset to show me that the owner of the bar is waiting for me on the other end of the line. I spit out the toothpick I’ve been toying with between my teeth and vault over the altar, accepting the phone from her.
“Hey, man. What’s up?”
“Got a girl out back. Wants to try out,” a gruff voice informs me. “She’s young. Probably too young. Get out there and clock her. Tell me if you know her face.”
Montgomery runs with a club. A dangerous one. On the weekends, it amuses him to have girls strip for his buddies, and sometimes he calls on me to wait with the girls, to make sure none of his boys gets too handsy with them. Every once in a while, he has me head out back to see if I recognize them before he lets them out onto the bar floor to perform. Bad for business, he says, if a chick below the age of eighteen shows up, trying to earn herself a cool grand by artlessly taking her clothes off on a Wednesday night. Doesn’t work out in anyone’s favor, especially if the cops show up and shut the place down. It’s happened before.
“Sure thing.” I hang up the phone and head through the back, stepping over a pile of empty Corona boxes that have been tossed back here by the girls. Past the kitchen, and then past Monty’s office, I hurry down the corridor and boot the back emergency exit open, throwing my shoulder into the door when it sticks.
In the alleyway behind the Rockwell, a startled girl with bright blonde hair nearly jumps out of her skin when the door swings back and hits the wall by the dumpsters. Her dark eyes shine brightly. She’s wearing a coat with a fur trim around the collar and red PVC knee-high boots with a heel that could be used as a fucking prison shank. She nearly shits herself when she sees me.
For once, I do recognize her, and I don’t know what she’s told Montgomery, but she is not eighteen. This girl is in my fucking biology class; her name is… fuck, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. She pales when our eyes meet. “Oh, shit. It’s you.”
“Likewise.” I turn to head back inside. “Look, I can’t lie to the boss. He wants to know if you’re old enough to dance, and you’re not, so…”
“Please. Wait. Alex, right? I need the money, okay. My mom’s blown her entire paycheck at the casino. Again. We can’t be late with the rent this month, or our asshole landlord’s going to kick us out. I can—”
“Stop. You have to be eighteen. There’s nothing I can do.”
Her eyes have grown round. Bright with unshed tears. This is obviously not an act; I’ve borne witness to enough of those before to see this for what it is: sheer desperation. I’m not unsympathetic to her situation. Far from it. I’ve been corralled into some seriously dark corners when I’ve been struggling to make ends meet, too, but lying to Monty is just something that I cannot, will not do. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “Look. I can take you in to see Monty. Maybe there’s some other way for you to earn out tonight, but I’m going to be honest with him. You read me?”
Somehow, I’ve conjured hope into her eyes with this suggestion. I immediately kick myself. Monty’s hardly a bleeding heart. Definitely not one for sob stories. Still, this is all I can do for her, so it is what it is. She follows me into the building, unsteady in her stripper heels. I have to catch hold of her at one point to make sure she doesn’t topple over. She shoots me a grateful smile, but not a single word is passed between us as I lead her back up the corridor toward Monty’s office. I knock once and wait for him to call us in before I push the door open.
Montgomery’s office is not what you might expect. It’s clean, for starters, while everything else at the Rockwell bears a patina of grease and sticky, spilled alcohol. On the wall, landscape paintings depict balmy summer scenes from Tuscany and Provence. Behind Monty’s white marble desk (completely clear, besides a computer screen and a single framed photograph of Montgomery’s dear departed mother, Babs), the man himself sits, wearing a bright red Christmas sweater with Rudolph emblazoned across the front of it.
“S’up, Kid,” Monty mutters. He’s yet to look up at me from his computer screen. His bright hair is long, tied back into a ponytail with a leather thong. Angela always says he reminds her of Brad Pitt from ‘Legend of the Falls.’ For a nearly sixty-year-old guy, he’s in pretty decent shape.
“Well?” he asks.
“Seventeen. Senior at Raleigh,” I tell him.
Montgomery huffs. He finally looks up, his eyebrows forming one, bushy line. He quickly glances at the girl beside me and sighs. “What are you doing here, sweetheart? You’re still a baby. This place ain’t for you.”
The girl takes a deep breath and shrugs. “I don’t have any other choice. This is the end of the road. I either come in here and I make money, or my family is out on the street. End of story.”
“I don’t like when need drives young women to my doorstep. If they don’t want to dance, then they’re not gonna be good at it.”
“I am good at it. And I can fake enthusiasm just like all the other women you’ve ever met, believe me.” Her voice doesn’t shake, which is pretty fucking impressive.
Montgomery leans forward across his desk. “Forgive me for saying so, Sweet Thing, but you don’t look like you got much meat on you.”
“Forgive me for saying so, but you’re wrong.” She unfastens the fur-trimmed coat and lets it drop from her shoulders, revealing a heavily doctored Raleigh High cheerleading outfit. The skirt barely covers the top of her thighs, and the cropped top had been hacked low around the neck, displaying her considerable cleavage. The girl has tits, that’s for sure. Montgomery’s eyes her critically, like he’s assessing a horse before buying it, testing to see if it’s sound.
“All right. Point made,” he concedes. “When’s your birthday?”
“December eleventh,” the girl replies.
“Fine. You can dance here, starting tonight, but you don’t get naked until December twelfth. Understand?”
