The bartender who brought over my Coors Light, which she said was the only kind of beer they had, was a scowling 300-pound gorilla of a woman who looked like she had just rolled out of bed. When I asked her name she pointed at a nametag that read: Hello My Name is Mama Pajama.
The peroxide blonde sitting on my right turned to me and asked, “Hey big boy, why don’t you buy me a drink? In case yer wondering, I’m Rosie, the Queen of Corona.”
I ordered her what she requested, a blended whiskey and root beer. And then I put my head in my hands and muttered, “I’m in hell.”
Rosie chuckled as she pulled my head up by my hair. Twisting my neck to the left, she said, “Do ya see that blotto priest sitting down at the end of the bar. Well that’s the Radical Preacher. Ya don’t think the powers that be would let him anywheres near the Pearly Gates, do ya?”
I sat quietly for a moment, bemoaning my fate. But Rosie wasn’t having any of that. She said, “Come on, pal. Drink up. Drink up. We don’t have all night. We’ez got business to transact. What’s it gonna be? A blowjob is fifty. A simple fuck is a hundred. Back door action is two-fifty. Anything kinkier than that is more.”
When I still didn’t respond, she turned on the faucets. Much more softly she implored, “I’ze got a big nut to make. You don’t know Julio. He’s my pimp. If I come up short he’s going to hurt me so bad I won’t be able to sit comfortably for a week. And it won’t show on my skin. That creep knows all of the no-show torture routines.”
When I finally made my purchase decision and we were heading out of the bar, Rosie took my arm and whispered in my ear, “It’s not so much Julio that I’m scared of, as that psycho killer, so-called singer he hangs out with. Now that guy is the creep of the century. I’m afraid he’s going to either slit my throat or bore me to death.”
We walked on in silence for a bit. Then Rosie fingered the lapel of my jacket, smiled coquettishly, and said, “Ya seem like a nice guy. How about ya taking me to a totally different universe where we can both make a new start. I heard of this cozy little Italian restaurant where we can get a bottle of red and a bottle of white. They even got checkered tablecloths and all.”
As I reflected that it couldn't possibly be any worse than this dump of a universe, I turned to Rosie, kissed her gently on the lips, and said, "Let's do it."
