Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Friday night and a lot of the workers in this neighborhood had worked up a thirst for beer
in the heat amongst other things.
“Christ, thirty dollars!” Gavin squawked back at me when we were confronted by the
powdery, old lady at the entrance.
“Oh what the hell, just pay and let's go in. What else have we got to do tonight?”
We entered a large, dimly lit, bar lounge with a long catwalk in the center, complete with
slippery, chrome pole and a mirror on the floor all the way down the middle of the walkway.
There were several tables and chairs scattered around the barroom and lining the catwalk,
mostly filled with men of varying ages eagerly anticipating the start of the first stripper.
There were a lot of military men with short haircuts, all young and in the process of getting
as drunk as they could. A lot of loud laughter and nervous giggling was the order of the
night.
We sat at a table fairly near to the stage without being too obvious. Stale cigarette smoke
filled the room as did the smell of the nights before. This was more like Dirty Dan's Den of
Iniquity. We didn't mind; it was fun; we had a thirst for a beer just like the next man, and
the prospect of seeing some naked women was now eagerly anticipated by both of us. A
fairly attractive waitress minced over and asked us what we would like to drink. We each
ordered a Budweiser, seeing as it was the most popular beer by far and settled back to enjoy
the fun.
I saw a young man out of the corner of my eye making his way across to our table. He had
a black patch over one eye.
“Say you guys, aren't you the twins from Africa? I have heard about you. The name is
Harry; I live on a boat at the public dock; mind if I join you?”
“Sure, go ahead; we've just arrived.” I introduced Gavin and myself, and we shook hands.
“Have you ever been here before?” I asked him, having to speak loudly over the music.
“Oh yeah, plenty of times. Town is too far to go without wheels; my car has been out of
action for several weeks. It's better than sitting on the boat all night, and La Mariana's gets
old after a while. Say, I heard about that guy pulling a knife on one of you guys.”
“Yes the bastard, I just went over to say hi to a girl I had just met. They were having dinner,
and he just pulled a knife on me!”
Harry shook his head slowly in disbelief, “Man, you gotta be so careful around here.”
There was a volley of whistles as the first girl made her appearance through the curtains at
the start of the catwalk. She walked slowly over to the center, a cheap, pink, feather boa
