My Mother’s a What?

Posted by LVDIII on October 30th, 2005 filed in Uncategorized

“What happened to your dad?” asked Carrie.

“I don’t know. He just said that he had to go and that was it.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Could I bum a smoke?” Noel asked Carrie.

“Sure, hun.”

I shot Noel a dirty look. We had both promised to give up smoking when we moved out to Los Angeles. Noel looked at me and shrugged as she drew a cigarette out of Carrie’s cigarette case. Noel picked up Carrie’s lighter and drew the cigarette to life.

“Could I bum one too?” I asked, succumbing to the peer pressure.

“Your dad was a lovely fellow,” offered Carrie.

I exhaled the smoke across the table and took a long sip of my drink.

“What kind of guy leaves his family and disappears?” demanded Noel.

“Maybe he had his reasons,” said Carrie.

“None of them good, I’m sure,” said Noel.

“Honey, you’re a young girl. There’s a lot you don’t understand about the ways of the world yet. Sometimes a man has to do what he has to do and there ain’t no way he can explain it to nobody.”

“My dad bartended for you?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject.

“Yep. For the last couple of years the club was open. He was a sweetie.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“He never had much money you see. He gambled, but he had terrible luck. He could make a bet that the Pope was Catholic and it’d turn out the he was actually a Zen Buddhist. That was just Loochie’s luck. That’s why we called him ‘Lucky’ Loochie.”

“Even when he was broke, he’d make sure all the girls had a rose every Friday night, even Frieda the little old seamstress got one. Frankly, I thought Loochie was lifting the till to make ends meet, but his count was never, ever off. He never got into trouble ‘til the end.”

“Trouble,” asserted Noel.

“Oh, it wasn’t real trouble. I didn’t let bartenders date the girls. Bad for business. Now, I knew that Loochie took a shining to one of the girls, but he never did nothing about it. He needed the job too bad”

“After a while she’d be making eyes at him across the room when she was supposed to be working. She wasn’t paying attention to her customers. She’d be lingering at the bar too long and she wasn’t concentrating during her act. She actually kicked a drink over into Dean Martin’s lap.”

“Just after closing time one night, I found Lizzie and Loochie getting a little too friendly in the coat room. I told them that I was sorry, but one of them was gonna have to quit.”

“Did you say ‘Lizzie?’” I asked.

“Yeah. Lizzie Gordon. Why?”

“Lizzie Gordon? There’s no way my mother was a burlesque dancer.”

Noel giggled at the mere thought of my mother dancing to raunchy jazz music with tassels on her breasts.

“Your mama’s a stripper. Your mama’s a stripper,” taunted Noel.

“Burlesque dancer,” chimed in Carnal Carrie.

My mother was way too strait-laced to ever have been a burlesque dancer. In fact, I never knew her to dance at all. Elizabeth Gordon Van Dyke was a church-going, manner-minding, teetotaler.

“There’s no way my mother was a dancer,” I said.

“Oh, she was one of the best, Lucius. Little Miss Lizzy’ll put ya right in a tizzy,” said Carrie. “She loved a good time.”

“My mother?”

“Yessiree, sweetie. She liked those jazz boys.” Carrie leaned in and whispered, “I think she liked a little reefer.”

“Let’s get your mom a bong for Christmas, Lucius!” said Noel.

“Shut up,” I said. “I’m trying to come to grips with being the son of a burlesque dancer.”

“Maybe we can smoke a bowl with her before the midnight Christmas Eve service.”

I gave Noel a quick flip of the bird. She stuck her tongue out at me.

“Where was I?” asked Carrie rhetorically. “Ah, yes. Your father said to me, ‘Miss Carrington,’ (he was always so polite), ‘Miss Carrington, Lizzie and I were married this morning.’ Then Lizzie said, ‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, but I love Loochie.’ Now, I’m a big old softie when it comes to love. Fooling around I wouldn’t tolerate at the club, but how could I forbid love?”

“If they were doing a little hanky panky, I’d made one of them quit on the spot. Since they were in love, I gave them until the end of the week. Can’t have a husband hanging around while a girl’s working, can you?”

“Your daddy quit since Lizzie made far more than he did and he took a job in a filling station. They stayed about a month before taking off. Your daddy picked up Lizzie one night and told me they were heading east. A stack of posters had just come in from the printer so I rolled one of them up and gave it to Loochie to remember me by. That was the last time I saw your father.”