An Example of Creative Nonfiction

Prologue

I was home on a 30-day leave at a gym when an Army sergeant from the local recruiting office saw me in the ring sparring with a Navy recruiter he knew. He commented, watching us: “You’re strong… handle yourself pretty well. I know a club owner looking for a guy to work the door and floor. You can earn some good side money. Interested?”

I was—extra cash is always good—and I started at The Black Orchid that night.

The Vignette

She told me, “Behave…”

“What?”

She smiled… and I’d felt it before… Denise’s smile stirred me more than the naked woman on the stage who cupped her breasts, teased nipples erect, and presented them to the crowd.

Denise tended bar, and there was something about her that drew men and women. I watched the bar as closely as the stage and floor to keep men from crossing that boundary… trying to touch her. But it was partly her fault. Denise would tease and taunt; she was maddening in that way.

After a warning fails, when you pull a guy off or away from a girl to prevent him—and the situation—from getting out of hand, afterward, the girls don’t give you any adoring ‘my hero… my defender’ bullshit. I’d get a nod… a tired, jaded smile… and sometimes a bill or two from their tips. Maybe a caress at closing. But it’s business for them and you.

Few drunks fight well, but those that do… can hurt you. It’s hard to judge what the fuck they’ll do. Anger. Embarrassment (if they’re with someone they have to put on a show for… you know, of being a man in front of others… their buddies). Alcohol makes them brave. Sometimes makes them dangerous. You hope it makes them stupid for a moment. So you can get inside their reach and put them down, control the situation before someone gets really hurt.

Contrary to what you see in some movies—especially old ones—bar fights, at least all but one I’ve been in (Bermuda, resulting in being kicked out of the country), are quick and mostly one-on-one. It’s not a dance and paw-at-each-other kind of thing. And there are no rules; it’s any way you can….

“Behave…” she said again. Denise had come from behind the bar and pointed at B5 on the jukebox.

I read its label. “Lola… The Kinks?”

“Yes,” she mouthed with moist Cupid’s bow lips… “Bee Five… behave… play it for me.”

She leaned close, breasts pressed against my right shoulder, and whispered in my ear, “Give me a minute, and then play it.”

I felt the warm satin touch of her lips linger on the lobe of my ear, and, with a last brush of my cheek, she turned and walked to the left, stepping up onto the stage, vacant during a break.

That’s not right.

Denise didn’t just walk. She flowed. Her hips swayed—not exaggeratedly or forced—with natural grace. I’ve met few since who moved like her. Her ass was a perfect inverted heart shape, and watching her walk aroused me.

This was the first time I saw her dance. And I think she did it for me because I had asked if she’d ever been one… a dancer. That had been the night before. I had noticed her watching me since I started at the club, but hadn’t talked with her at length until the third night. Her eyes, an onyx glitter and gleam in the bar lights, had a depth that mesmerized… I felt pinprick tingles across my skin every time I looked into them.

Languid at first on the stage, Denise picked up the pace to match the song. Our eyes met, and she held the gaze as her back arched and lips curled, a grin of public pleasure. For you… seemed the promise in her eyes. She danced clothed except for the moment when she unzipped her jeans and, turning her back to the crowd, achingly slow—inch by inch—peeled them down to reveal the perfect, God-given or genetically-graced, pantie-less curve of her ass. Then—with a taut shudder and shallow breaths—she pulled the jeans up.

In the after-song quiet, she settled with a deep sigh that carried through the room. Standing for a beat, breathing, chest rising and falling, the buttons of her white shirt straining to free from the buttonholes, she faced the lights. A sweep of her hand through long dark hair cleared it from her face, and with a last look at me, she stepped down and returned to the bar.

Every night that followed, at 9:00 pm, she’d come from behind the bar and whisper, “Behave…”

And I’d play her song.

As she danced, I never wanted so badly to misbehave.

Epilogue

When I hear the song, Denise asked me to play, I sometimes wonder what happened to her.

We both felt a jolt of sexual electricity. The tingling touch that makes stomach muscles twitch and triggers that ‘wanting’ ache… for more. An anticipation…. I think—I know—she felt it, too. And it sustained through many nights working together over three weeks.

What happened afterward, her sudden disappearance (after she finally agreed to see me outside the club), has always puzzled me.

It was the last week of my 30-day leave, and on the day and time of our date, I went to pick her up to learn she’d abruptly moved out. Left without notice to her landlord or the manager at The Black Orchid. The manager told me she had applied for a bartender position six months ago and—as was fairly standard back then—got it by showing proficiency. Jobs like that weren’t dependent on any background check. He knew only basic personal details; no prior history.

To my knowledge (and out of curiosity, I checked during my next leave period), no one ever saw her again.

When I hear the song Lola … it all comes back. And I think maybe it—the song’s meaning and the true account of its origin (the encounter it represented for the songwriter)—is the solution to the mystery. The answer to Denise’s disappearance.

You see, my suspicion is… Denise let her guard down by agreeing to see me outside a business/work setting. Realizing what I’d likely discover and the aftermath… had frightened her. Not that she knew it, but I would not have been angered or gone into some form of homophobic, prejudicial rant or retaliation. In Europe, I’d had men come on to me and firmly—without rancor—turned down their overtures, more strongly if they persisted. But back then, certainly in Hot Springs, Arkansas, coming out as transgender was not something easy or wise to do. Though over four decades ago, I might have been part of an LGBTQ+ encounter, too… but who truly knows why Denise disappeared as she did.

Still, the memory of this experience… and the small personal mystery… lingers.

Ray Davies, who wrote the song lyrics based on his real experiences, was once asked in an interview whether Lola was a man or trans, and he answered, “I don’t know, all I know is that Lola was all right.”

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Before it became a strip club in the ‘70s—in its and Hot Springs’ post-Prohibition heyday (late 1940s to late ‘60s – early 70s)—The Black Orchid was a prominent nightclub with some notable entertainers appearing:

It burned down the same month/year I left the U.S. Navy.