The Ugly Dog
By hudsonmoon
- 780 reads
The woman was hunched over the juke box, wearing that yellow see-through summer dress I loved so much.
She wore no under garments. And when the sun came streaming through the front window of the Ugly Dog Saloon, enveloping her in its sunshiny goodness, my heart would jump and I’d have to catch my breath.
“A whiskey, neat,” I said to the bartender.
She had played I Always Get Lucky With You, by Merle Haggard. I downed my drink and had just washed it down with a cold beer when I felt the tap on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “But would you care to dance?”
I knew for sure it wasn’t a pick-up or nothing. I was ugly as sin and sometimes went more than a day or two with out a bath. And, besides, no young woman who calls a man sir is sizing him up for a good time. She just wanted what she said she wanted. A dance.
“Sure, Julie,” I said. “I’ll dance with ya.”
Julie is the night-time bartender at the Ugly Dog. She lives in a single room above the saloon and sometimes gets antsy to get to work. So she always comes down an hour or two before her shift. ‘To ease into it,’ she would put it. ‘I hate coming in cold.’ Or sober, as far as I could tell. She always had at least four Lone Star beers and a shot of tequila before she’d get behind the bar.
All the bartenders seemed to drink. And they were all women. They bring in the customers. Mostly men. And the bartenders that don’t drink, pretend to. It gives the place a good party atmosphere. But the ones that don’t drink are the ones you have to watch out for. They keep an eye on what’s what. And when you pick up a drink and money from the bar, it had better be yours, or the bouncer will put a squeeze on you, you won’t soon forget.
The bartenders at the Ugly Dog like to put on a show at night. They not only breathe fire, but they like to line-dance on top of the bar and then make the men drink tequila shots from their sweaty cowboy boots. No one’s ever refused. They always make sure the crowd is well oiled before the boots come off.
On occasion they’ll get a newbie drinker in here who wants nothing to do with drinking tequila out of a sweaty boot, no matter how pretty the sweater may be. That’s the one that gets sat on by Fat Annie, the owner.
She’ll sit on his lap until he decides when it might be a good idea to toss his head back and open wide. It usually don’t take more than half a minute. And tequila from a sweaty cowboy boot never tasted so good after you've been sat on by Fat Annie.
But that’s the night crowd. At two o’clock in the afternoon it’s dead quiet and I always find myself sitting on a bar stool. The only patron, in fact. And when I got that tap from Julie, I couldn’t get to my feet fast enough.
As we danced, I told myself that one day I’m going to clean myself up and show Julie and the other girls just what they’re missing. That there used to be a good hunk of man behind all the alcohol, grime and age.
And I might just do that some time. Only not today. Today I’ll enjoy my dance. And wait for my drink on the house.
I Always Get Lucky With You
By Tex Whitson, Freddy Powers & Gary Church
I've had good luck, and bad luck
And no luck, it's true
But I always get lucky with you.
I've been turned on, and turned down
When the bars close at two
But I always get lucky with you.
I keep two strikes against me
Most all of the time
And when it's down to just a phone call
I'm minus a dime.
There's been good days, and bad days
But when the day is through
I always get lucky with you
Oh, I always get lucky with you.
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Comments
Great story, Hudsonmoon.
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Good read, believable
GGHades502
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Love the songs you throw in
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Coyote Ugly is also a great
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