Melanerpes erythrocephalus.Why does a woodpecker peck wood? The redheaded woodpecker uses its strong beak to drill into wood for diverse reasons: to “call” a potential mate by “drumming,” to establish a cave in which to build a nest, and to hunt for insects. An unattached male will drum on anything, even vinyl siding or pipes, to advertise his availability. First described in the early 1700s, these medium-sized birds have a wide habitat range and are busy parents, often hatching a second brood while still caring for the first. They are very territorial about their nests and will destroy other birds’ nests and eat their eggs to drive them away.
My father sent me a photo of his favorite tree in bloom. It was a red horse chestnut. The sight of the deep rose-colored flowers shocked me. Patrick called the budding of his tree the first sign of spring. So much time had passed. I’d been happy and then miserable. Now I lived in neutral, either staring sleepless as the shadows made their nightly traverse of the ceiling or sleeping so soundly I woke up to find my sister taking my pulse, slightly sick to my stomach some of the time or gorging as if I’d just broken a six-week fast. The seat of emotion is definitely not in the heart, but in the stomach.
Work is supposedly something you can throw yourself into to distract yourself from heartbreak—and that’s sure not true. But it does fill up time. And yet, whenever I had a free moment, I concentrated so hard on not thinking of Sam that all I did was think of Sam. Bad memories stung; good memories scalded.
A couple of weeks into that long stretch of time, I remembered a moment from that last, lost weekend, after I’d stated my high-minded intention to swear off him but before I confided my dark past intentions. It was a moment I hadn’t allowed myself to relive. I’m not sure why that was, perhaps because I wanted to save it if I ever needed to remind myself that once I was loved.
Sam was standing naked at the upstairs window, his back to me. He was not an Adonis, but his strong, modest body was everything I knew I would ever want to touch, his fierce, tender mind everything I would want to learn. In that moment, I wanted to take it all back, because who cared about any fucking story? The truth was, although I wasn’t confused by my feelings for Sam, nothing was ever clearer. I was overwhelmed by those feelings—and by the strangling vines of the case. Multiple tendrils tangled around the case, my past, and my story. I wondered, in retrospect, if I had approached life and love with the emotional maturity of a ninth grader. I said to him, “If it means I’ll lose you, then we won’t do it. I don’t want to sneak around. But nothing is worth losing this.”
In truth, we hadn’t gone far enough for either of us to feel that way, and I regretted skating so close to emotions that sounded like so much romantic hyperbole. “This isn’t something I want to do, Sam. It’s the right thing to do. I’ve had the time of my life here with you! And I love you.” It was out before I could restrain it. The next thing I said, after a breathless moment, was “Oh wow, I didn’t mean that.”
“You didn’t mean it or you didn’t mean to say it?”
I had to pause again for an additional few breaths while I considered lying. “I didn’t mean to say it.”
“Good,” Sam said. “I love you too.”
I thought then that if I had to live the rest of my life on that moment, I would have been able to do that. And as it transpired, it seemed I would.
I plunged back into research of the most granular variety.
The following afternoon, I headed for Ophelia, that “gentleman’s club” mentioned by the guy Ross knew, one of those places frequented by actually-pretty-good guys who cheated on their wives with escorts. Or just watched strippers.
The building was unprepossessing to say the least. Entirely windowless, it was a single story of bright pink concrete blocks with no windows, like a lurid bunker. There was a rotating sign on top that featured the silhouette of a naked, buxom woman, and it boasted a huge black wood-and-wrought-iron door that would not have looked out of place on an Italian castle. In the parking lot, which was nearly deserted, I had to sit for a while to calm down, wondering if anyone I knew would see me here, dismissing that thought as about as likely as the sky raining frogs, next wishing I had a wig and a pair of glasses, then thinking about how I’d never seen a wig in a movie, even a spy movie, that didn’t look obviously like a wig—and why was that? Surely movie producers had the money. They could hire the best costumers. Did the costumers have horrific taste? Was it on purpose? Ivy had a platinum blond blunt-cut bob wig so realistic that it actually had slightly darkened outgrowing roots and a couple of unruly layers that looked hand-trimmed. Marcus told me that it cost nearly two thousand dollars. I was still thinking about wigs when someone tapped sharply on the window. I screamed and the woman backed away, palms out.
“I’m sorry!” she called. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You’re Aurora, right?”
“Oh no, I’m Irene, and I’m here to apply for the bartender job.”
“We didn’t advertise a bartender job.” The woman grinned. She had a fake birthmark, like the old-time actor Amanda Blake, the dance-hall girl in the reruns of the 1960s showGunsmoke, which my father loved. (When we made fun of Matt Dillon, he would point out all the famous actors who got their start on that dusty set. “Look, that’s Jodie Foster,” he would say. “Look that’s Harrison Ford. And Kurt Russell.”)
“Don’t you have a bartender job? Just a couple of shifts a week? I’m a licensed bartender.” Every single bar in America had a couple of shifts for a licensed bartender who didn’t need to be trained.
“I guess we maybe do,” she said amiably. “Follow me.”
We made our way around the back, where the setup was pleasingly like a picnic spot at a family-friendly beer garden, with a dozen sturdy metal picnic tables ringed by a low wall of the same pink concrete blocks. A few outdoor fireplaces dotted the area and a graveled path wound through it. Trust Wisconsin to boast a strip club with a spick-and-span venue. Introducing herself as Lily Landry, the woman unlocked the back door and beckoned me in. Even after she flipped on a panel of lights, it was so dark in there that I had to stand still for a while to make sure I didn’t trip.Hell is murky, I thought. And so it was.
Despite the Brutalist Barbie style of the exterior, the inside seemed to be decorated to look like a medieval banquet room, or a medieval boudoir, or a medieval bordello—but it actually looked like a medieval dungeon. Along the back wall, under a massive mirror, was the most ornate bar I’d ever seen, made of black granite and brass mesh.
“The boss designed it,” said Lily. “He loves New Orleans. He loves bars.”
On the walls, thick, flocked gold-and-black wallpaper was draped with dark pink floor-to-ceiling puddle curtains heldback by gold hardware. In the center of each pair was a portrait of a reclining nude woman, different sizes and styles, probably intended to suggest Modigliani and Botticelli and Klimt, with more enthusiasm than skill. The round stage was surrounded by sequential circles of tables, standard-issue four tops that I knew would be slivery and sticky. It looked like a pretty clean place. Still, the thought of what might go on under the surface of those tables and what might remain on the sturdy carpet (black embossed with gold fleur-de-lis) gave me the crawls.
“The boss doesn’t invest a lot in furniture,” Lily said. “There’s at least one fight a month and the tables and chairs take a beating.” I blinked. She added, “It’s a shock at first.”
“I’ve worked in bars. I’ve seen some real brawls. Not just men, women too.”
This wasn’t true. Angel on the Rock was the kind of place people burst into tears, but not the kind of place they traded blows. Lily handed me an application to fill out. This, I hadn’t counted on, but I dutifully placed it on that shiny bar and filled in the blanks. When I was finished, Lily perused it as a few women came in through the back entrance, the most remarkable of them at least six foot two, with curly waist-length red hair, sporting a mink coat the size of a pup tent.
“Hi ho, Lilyloo!” she said, wiggling a hand decked with neon talons the length of the tines on a garden rake.
“Good evening, Archangel,” Lily said.
I blinked again, as the amazon woman favored me with a cheerful grin.
When she went down the hall, to where I presumed the dressing rooms were (this, after all, was the undressing room), I said, “Archangel?”
“That’s her real name! And here come Dovey and Lolo—they’re mother and daughter.” At that, I had to sit down.
