Pole Dancer - a short story

I can't recall when I wrote this short story, though sometime during the 80s is a safe guess. It's about a man, an American Indian man, visiting a strip club to watch his sister perform. The idea came to me after I had visited a strip club. I'd had a conversation with a dancer who was upset because her father had come into the club to watch her perform and to try to convince her to quit her job. The bouncer had thrown him out before he'd had a chance to do either. 

Reading the story again after many years, I can still feel the anger in my words that I felt following a failed marriage and, most likely, still suffering from PTSD from my time as an infantry machine gunner in Vietnam. The sentences are choppy, and the dialogue stilted, but I refrained from launching into a massive edit job because it was written by the person I was at the time and not the same person I am now. Thanks for reading Pole Dancer and I hope you like it anyway.

Pole Dancer

Another hot Oklahoma day, dry clouds streaking a faded sky as dervishes of swirling dust burnished Joe Redbird's elbow. Two crows, examining an armadillo carcass, moved out of his path. Joe had other things on his mind and didn't notice as he passed a slow-moving pumping unit, siphoning the last greasy sips from a dying reservoir. Scattered remnants of a once proud industry littered both sides of the road, staining the dry earth with dirty water. Overhead, a lone hawk floated in a thermal updraft.

Redbird pulled into a pea-gravel parking lot surrounding a freestanding cinder block building. Broken neon lighting, mounted on two pilfered stands of drill pipe, proclaimed the place Valley of the Dolls.

Shading his eyes from noon sun, he steered the pickup between a red Chevy and a dented Fat Bob Harley. Waves of damp heat flooded the cab when he opened the door. He didn't bother stretching as he side-stepped a drunk Okie leaning against the wall.

He squinted into murky darkness, smoke accosting his eyes and loud music his ears. At least the air-conditioning felt good, chilling his sweaty neck as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. A half-nude waitress encircled his waist with slender arms, pressing her breasts into the small of his back.

"Whatcha having, Geronimo?"

"Pitcher of Bud," he said.

"Smile, Chief. Can't be all that bad."

Redbird's expression remained dark, despite the young woman's friendly prodding. He nodded toward the bar circling center stage. His mousy-haired server puckered her lips and made lewd kissing sounds. When he refused to respond, she wriggled her nipples between thumb and forefinger and then kissed him on the cheek.

"You need something, just whistle. I'm Anita."

Redbird's features remained impassive as Anita winked and backed away through the crowd. When his eyes dilated enough to see, he glanced over his shoulder at the dozens of other patrons. Bikers in leather and chains, soldiers with shaved heads and roughnecks in dirty overalls. They filled the large room to frantic capacity, and he had to elbow his way to an empty chair at center stage.

His dollar tip earned him a wet kiss when Anita returned with his pitcher of beer. Ignoring her, he wiped the lipstick off his face with the back of his hand. Anita shrugged and eased away through the crowd. After draining the first glass, he poured another. Then he faded into cool darkness as pulsating-neon flooded center stage.

Several-dozen prairie voyeurs rattling beer bottles soon replaced the jukebox. A new dancer was preparing to come on stage, and shrill whistles began piercing the darkness. Redbird cocked his head for a better view of the wooden stage.

Staggering up the short ramp, a young blue-eyed blond woman licked her lips. Clad in only a bra and gold sequined g-string, she smiled at the whistling, cat-calling audience staring back at her. When the jukebox began, she gyrated in a drunken simulation of sensuality. Above blaring rock and roll, a high-pitched voice shrilled.

"Hey baby, show us your snatch."

When someone put two soft hands on Redbird's shoulders, he knew who it was without turning to look.

"What are you doing here, Joe?"

Redbird pivoted in his chair, gazing up into a dancer's dark eyes.

"Pete Thompson said I'd find you here."

The young woman's long hair draped in raven waves over bronze shoulders. Reflections in her dark eyes rippled like black paint in a blender. Joe's neck grew warm as he sensed the gaze of everyone around them. They were admiring the attractive dancer, a woman with smooth skin, brown as his own.

"Pete's right. I'm a dancer."

Glancing over his shoulder at the girl on stage, Redbird said, "Like her?"

When Victoria shut her eyes, Redbird could almost feel the hot flush spreading up her neck. Opening them, she stared at the floor.

"Mom send you?"

In a voice barely audible above the loud music and grating background voices, he answered, "Mom doesn't know you work here. Maybe you can tell me why you do?"

Redbird leaned forward, touching her hand, causing her to wrench away and back into a drunk at the table behind her. The man groped her leg before she could move away.

"I have no answer. Least one you'd understand."

"Try me."

"Vicky, you're up next," someone called from behind the bar.

"Have to go," she said. "Finish your beer and get out of here before you embarrass us both."

"Will it embarrass you to have your big brother watch you strip and do squat thrusts while these monkeys masturbate in the dark?"

Vicky shook her dark mane. "I don't do that. They are to watch me dance. That's all."

Glancing at the girl weaving drunken circles on stage, Redbird said, "You call that dancing?"

"What about you? You've been here before."

"Different," he said.

Victoria tried to smile, but her quivering lower lip betrayed her true feelings. She leaned against the table so no one else could hear her reply.

"Why is it different?"

"Because people are laughing behind your back," he said.

"Who are they laughing at? You or me?"

"I don't dance in a titty bar."

"Yeah, and I suppose all your friends have great respect for the way you earn a living, driving a garbage truck."

"Honest work."

"So is dancing."

"This isn't dancing, Vicky. It’s obscene. I feel sorrow for you and shame for our family."

"Only thing you feel is your throbbing head and queasy gut when you wake up Sunday morning with puke on your pillow."

"Doesn't change things," he said.

Victoria touched his hand and said in a whisper, "I can't expect you to understand. I've wanted to dance since I was a little girl."

"But why here?"

"Because we all have decisions to make, and don't always have enough choices."

Redbird folded his arms and shook his head. "These scumbags don't care if you dance, or parade around on all fours. In fact, I'm sure that's what they would prefer."

"I do it for myself, Joe. Not them, and not you." When he didn't reply, she said, "Just get out of here. Please."

He stayed in his chair, noticing glints of sadness flicker and fade in the darkest corner of her eyes. Her lip quivered, and she drew a breath, almost losing the tiny halter covering her breasts when she exhaled. Clutching it to her bosom, she hurried away through the crowded tables.

Though impassive, his shoulders began shaking in an almost imperceptible tremble. Sitting straight up in the rickety bar chair, he locked his folded arms against his chest and turned toward center stage. Everyone locked on to the blue-eyed dancer. No one had noticed the confrontation. Enveloped in her third song, she'd already discarded the sequined halter covering her breasts. As he watched, she yanked on her golden g-string.

With eyes like a stalking wolf, she promenaded across the stage on hands and knees. When she spotted Redbird and saw his frown.

Pulling the snap of her g-string, she twirled it once around her head, sniffed it, and then tossed it around Redbird's neck. With a satisfied smirk, she flipped over, wrapping long legs around her neck. She rolled across the stage, displaying her shaved privates. Her performance brought whistles from the drunken crowd.

Redbird turned away. Some perverse curiosity returned his gaze to the stage. He locked onto the young woman's sweating body, dirty from the dust tracked floor. She writhed in widening circles, not forgetting Redbird until the music ceased.

When the song ended, she collected the dollar bills scattered across the stage and grabbed her outfit in a slight bend of the knees. Redbird folded his arms and turned away, trying to lose himself in the remaining slug of beer. At least, until a hand touched his shoulder.

"Another pitcher, Chief?"

Redbird nodded. After returning from the bar, Anita filled his glass, sipping from it before handing it to him. Confused by his rampant emotions, he studied the rose tattoo on her breast and the strange gold fleck in her left eye. She licked foam from her lips with an overt flick of her tongue. His dollar tip earned him another wet kiss, followed by solitude as she departed to wait on someone else.

Attracted by the booming jukebox, Redbird's gaze returned to center stage. As beautiful Victoria appeared through the neon-lighted darkness, he held his breath.

Except for her near-nudity, she seemed a beautiful princess, ascending dirty steps to a royal throne. Behind Redbird, the anonymous audience whooped and whistled their approval. He couldn't look her in the eye but couldn't take his own off her body. His face and neck grew red. Victoria was tall and dark, moving across the stage like a dandelion wafting in the breeze. She pirouetted in slow, measured circles, long raven hair billowing in synchronous waves.  Her eyes, dark and liquid, mesmerized and quieted the audience, Her movements possessed them. Victoria whisked off the tiny halter covering her breasts during a slow turn on the polished pole. As a single entity, the crowd gasped.

Joe Redbird watched, along with bikers, soldiers, and roughnecks. His skin flushed with rising anger. Unable to forget the leering creatures gaping at his beautiful sister, he turned away. His head began to shake with a subtle flutter that crept into his shoulders and down the base of his spine.

Victoria's last number sheathed its patrons in a tight knot of rapt concentration. As bass notes resonated through the murky darkness, her movements entwined them. Nothing disturbed her as she revolved around the polished pole, like a holographic vision in a giant music box. Finally, she whisked off her last garment.

Screaming shouts and wild applause punctuated her curtsied finale. Smiling at the ovation like a prima ballerina, she waved, acknowledging their praise. As she prepared to exit the stage, Redbird hoisted his half-filled pitcher of beer, hurling it at his sister.

She dodged the missile, watching it crash into the wall-length mirror behind center stage. An explosion of flying shards liberated the audience as angry patrons closed around Redbird. A fat security guard bullied his way through the crowd. When he reached for Redbird, the tall Native American took a round-house swing and knocked him on his ass. With fists raised, he pivoted in a semi-circle, daring anyone to touch him. Someone did.

Willowy arms encircled him; the gentle pressure of soft breasts in the small of his back calmed him like water on a lighted fuse. With fury bleeding from his soul, he allowed the woman to back him to the front door.

"Get the hell outa here and don't ever come back," the fat security guard called after them.

Someone started another song on the jukebox, and another dancer took center stage. Bar patrons grumbled but returned to consuming more beer and watching the next performance. Mousy-haired Anita pushed Joe Redbird into bright August sunlight of the graveled parking lot. He halted when she shouted at him.

"What right have you got pulling a stunt like that?"

Naked, except for a yellow strip of tawdry cloth covering her pubic hair, she waited for his answer. It never came. Instead, his apathetic stare caused her to shield her bare breasts with a perfunctory arm.

A pickup passed on the highway, honking its horn and raising dust devils on the blacktop. Heat from late afternoon sun sent perspiration trickling down Redbird's neck. Wiping it away, he continued staring at Anita in silence.

They stood like gunfighters preparing to draw their weapons. Brilliant sunlight revealed all the young woman’s physical flaws. Her self-confidence began to wane, and even the rose tattoo on her breast seemed to fade. Redbird stared at stretch marks on her breasts and belly, blinking as he studied her bowed legs. After gazing at angry scars of adolescent acne on her almost pretty face, he turned away.

Her shoulders sagged. Taking a single step backward, she tripped on a rock in the uneven parking lot and almost fell.

Quivering with emotion, she said, "Victoria is beautiful. Everyone loves to watch her dance. If you didn't want to see, you shouldn't have come."

Redbird didn't answer, unsure of what he had seen, or how he felt. Returning to his pickup, he lowered the windows before cranking the engine. The heat felt like the last agonizing breath of a bursting lung.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced again at sad Anita, her arms folded across her bare breasts. Numbed by emotion and too much beer, he spun the tires in loose gravel and drove away back down the lonely blacktop road from where he had come.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French QuarterMystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the OysterBay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.

Night at the Triple X - a short story

It’s been said that the biggest sex organ in the body is the brain. Years ago, I had reason to confirm that claim.

Miss Carol and I were a number, but we were beginning to get on each other’s nerves. She was smart, confident and good looking. I was simply young and dumb. Even though we worked in the same industry, the biggest attraction we had for each other was sex, pure and simple.

Six months had passed in our relationship, and the attraction had begun to wane. Both of us, it seemed, was searching for a way to let the other down easy. My friend Joel was in town from Colorado and staying with me. I was divorced, but my ex and I had not yet sold our house. We were taking turns staying there until we found a buyer.

Miss Carol’s friend Miss Ann took Joel with her to one of our favorite bars. Miss Carol and I were supposed to join them. It was Friday night, Miss Carol a lease broker who had just returned to town from a week of checking records in Roger Mills County, had been doing her thing during that time, and I mine.

“I just want to go home and go to bed,” she said.

“What about Joel and Miss Ann?” I asked.

“They don’t need us,” she said.

“Let’s drive over anyway. Joel can ride back with me, and Miss Ann can take you home.”

“Fine,” she said, “But I’m not staying.”

On the way to the club, I caught a whiff of her perfume and suddenly remembered why I liked her so much. We were on 10th street, an area in Oklahoma City populated by strip bars and seedy hole-in-the-walls. About that time, we passed a stand-alone X-rated movie theatre.

“Have you ever seen a porn movie?” I asked.

“I’m not ten,” she said.

On a whim, I pulled into the parking lot. “Let’s go in.”

Miss Carol grinned. She was trying to dump me but had just enough kink to consider my offer.

“Okay, Perv,” she said. “You’ll say uncle before me.”

The XXX Theatre was a single-storied building with a very dark lobby. We purchased two tickets from the disinterested ticket puncher who had likely seen it all before. The theater was small and dark and smelled like urine. A naked man and an equally unclad woman were going at it on the screen.

There were probably ten patrons in the theater. All weirdos and not people you’d want to call friends. Miss Carol and I found an empty aisle and settled in to watch the movie. The couple on screen was performing every sex act imaginable, complete with grunts, groans, moans, and even a few screams.

As I began getting into the flick, I put my hand between Miss Carol’s legs, groping her most private parts, fully expecting a slap in the face. Instead, she began licking my neck. Before long, we both had our jeans pulled down to our knees, helplessly locked in the throws of hot, mindless sex right there in the middle of an x-rated theater, surrounded by perverts with their own pants down to their knees. We were shocked back to reality by a raspy voice.

“Real sex ain’t allowed in here. Take it outside, or I’ll have to call the cops,” the man from the ticket booth told us.

I was having trouble discerning the difference between real sex and sex on the screen as we headed for the lobby. Didn’t really matter, faces burning and buttoning our jeans as we went. We were both still hot. Hell! My head was about to explode! I was all over Miss Carol soon as the doors of my car closed. She was as hot as I was, and I’m not sure who was all over whom. Our passion continued, the windows steaming like a sauna when someone tapped on the door. It was a cop. He wasn’t smiling.

“Take it to the house, and I mean now.”

Our ardor hadn’t waned when we made it home, spending the rest of the night locked in hot passion. Joel interrupted our ardor, knocking on the door around two in the morning. I let him in and quickly returned to the bedroom without bothering to hear the story he wanted to tell me.

Do I recommend a triple-X experience? I’ll just say this. It won’t save a relationship, but it’ll sure make for unforgettable memories. Miss Carol and I broke up shortly after our night of red-hot passion. My lust had dissolved and my brain again able to add two and two and not come up with five.

END

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Cyndi, Sandy, and Elvis

I bought my first motorcycle, an act I now realize symbolized newfound freedom, from Dave B. after divorcing my first wife. Dave now lives near Baton Rouge and was my best friend when we both worked as geologists at an Oklahoma City oil company. The rock and roll world of the last oil boom was hell on marriages, including Dave’s and mine. Both freshly divorced, we became running buddies.  A recent email from my old pal reminded me of one of our adventures.

We both had company cars and what seemed like endless expense accounts. The loose money was great for attracting attention. Between us, Dave and I knew practically every female that worked in downtown Oklahoma City. One night, six oil and gas secretaries persuaded us to spend some of our money and take them to see an Elvis impersonator. We were easily convinced.

Three of the young women were crazy about the recently departed Elvis. The band, backup singers, and Elvis impersonator sounded exactly like Elvis. Well, if you'd had a few drinks and were sexually excited because of being the center of attention of six adoring ladies.

The concert was entertaining, further enhanced when one young lady, in particular, began hitting on me, another on Dave. When we returned to my apartment, Dave and five of the women departed while Cyndi (not her real name) came inside with me for a nightcap. Hell, it was two in the morning! We both had our intentions, and for the moment, I assumed that they were the same.

We were sitting on the floor in front of a fire that I had hastily built in the fireplace, and we were groping around on the rug like a couple of boa constrictors in heat when the phone rang. I have waited to say that Cyndi was the girlfriend of a close friend of mine, Mike (not his real name). Mike was married, Cyndi only his girlfriend, and it is safe to say that he did not intend to marry her. Cyndi and I were both single.

"Have you seen Cyndi?" he asked, she's not at her apartment.

"Maybe," I said, our legs encircled and my hand under her blouse, still clamped on her right breast.

I began to smell a setup when he asked, "Is she at your place?" Cyndi, I suddenly sensed, had used me to make Mike jealous. Still very much engulfed in the throes of extreme passion, I said, "She was here, but she just left. I think she’s on her way back to her apartment. You need to go home," I told her after hanging up the phone and zipping up my pants."

"Are you sure about this?" she asked, standing and adjusting her own clothing.

"There's nothing I would like better than spending the night with you, but I think we would both regret it tomorrow."

Cyndi must have agreed because she was gone in less than five minutes, leaving me to contemplate my unexpected predicament. After all these years Mike is still my friend, as is Cyndi, although their relationship ended years ago. I never made it with Cyndi, though sometime later I had a little fling with Sandy, one of the other girls that Dave and I took to the concert. How did Dave do that night? I never asked, and he never volunteered the story.

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Happy St. Pattie's Day

 

 

Marilyn and I visited VZDs today, OKCs Irish/Okie pub. They were getting revved up for St. Patrick's Day. I obliged by drinking a black and tan (or two) (Guinness & Bass for you non beer afficionados). On the antique jukebox, Johnny Cash was singing Danny Boy. Made me feel like doing a little singing myself.

 

Eric'sWeb

Fading Wallpaper

A while back, Marilyn and I went junk store shopping. It's not that we are destitute, or need to shop only in the cheapest places. We visit thrift stores, garage sales, and junk stores because we enjoy it, perhaps because of the need to examine other people's discarded detritus. Whatever, we made a trek to an old Oklahoma City strip center just north of 12th and Pennsylvania.

The little strip center used to feature restaurants, upscale stores, and the Penn movie theatre. Now, the rundown buildings are all junk stores. We started our exploration at the southernmost store and worked our way north, along the way purchasing a 1982 Colorado Shakespeare Festival Poster, two old books—both first editions, published in 1914 and 1967, a walking cane (Marilyn collects them, among other things), a plastic hard hat, a moose lamp and a wolf knick-knack.

The wolf knick-knack (I don't know what else to call it. It’s a mini-diorama of a wolf, its mate, and cubs, backdropped by a scenic wilderness panorama with a soaring eagle in the sky). It was the favorite piece of the old man running the place. I managed to bargain him down to twenty bucks for the wolf piece, the moose lamp and a few inside pictures of the old Penn Theatre. Or, maybe I should say he got the best of me. Whichever, I enjoyed the exchange immensely.

I have no idea when the Penn was built but my guess is during the fifties. It has a vaulted ceiling and I'm sure was quite grand during its day. Now it is filled with junk—old bed springs, broken appliances, an old jukebox, pictures, books and many other things too numerous to mention. The books made me sad. There were hundreds of them, the collective works of many diligent authors. Now they languish in a grimy corner, unread for decades, some perhaps never at all.

As Marilyn and I returned home with our purchases, I wondered about the fascination of visiting junk stores, garage sales, and thrift stores, viewing the carcasses of people's former possessions. Maybe it's voyeurism, getting an illicit peek into other's lives. Maybe. I like to think it's because memories are the fading wallpaper of our minds, and every now and then you find a treasure that someone else has forgotten along the way.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Cruising the Oklahoma City Concourse

In writing about life in downtown Oklahoma City during the last oil boom, I mentioned the Concourse. The Concourse was a tunnel system connecting all the major buildings in downtown OKC, originally created to provide workers with a way of avoiding the city’s weather that is often inclement. It grew into much more than just an underground pathway.

During the oil boom, the city leaders decided there was room for retail development underground. Texas Oil and Gas, the company I worked for, had offices in the Midland Center and you could enter the Concourse from a stairway on the ground floor there.

The tunnel system was simply a dimly lit concrete pathway with a colorful carpet on the floor. The system of tunnels snaked in all directions and it was easy to lose your bearings – especially if you had just visited one of the many clubs and partaken of their liquor-by-the-wink. Purchasing alcohol, at the time, was illegal anywhere except a liquor store.

Retail clothing establishments, a jewelry store, a fast food kiosk, two barbershops and other businesses soon began to thrive. Several combination restaurants occupied space in the Concourse, among them the Bull and the Bear, the Brigadoon, and the most notorious underground establishment of them all, the Depot.

The Depot was a dark saloon masquerading as a restaurant and it is true that the place sold as much booze as it did chicken fries. Its main draw was the gorgeous and friendly waitresses dressed in skimpy outfits. The drinks were strong and at any time of the day or night, half the downtown Oklahoma City oil industry congregated there.

My former business partner, John and I had an engineer. Those days preceded the age of cell phones and we began noticing music and noise in the background when Nick called in a report. We soon realized that he was reporting from his “office” in the Depot rather than one of our oil wells out in the sticks.

The Depot was dark and loud and if I told you that I had witnessed a sex act performed on an adjacent table, I wouldn't be lying. I actually saw more than one, and I imagine they were a common occurrence in some of the back corner booths.

During the oil boom of the eighties, Oklahoma City emulated the wildest of any past boomtown, and the Oklahoma City Concourse was the very epicenter of wildness.

This past oil boom saw none of the excesses of the eighties oil boom and there was no place, at least to my knowledge, as wild and crazy as the Depot. I'm glad that I experienced the boom and all its excesses while it existed. Most of all I'm glad that I survived the experience to tell about it.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Junior's - an Oklahoma City Legend

Junior’s is a restaurant in the basement of the Oil Center Building. Junior’s was opened by legendary Oklahoma City restaurateur Junior Simon in 1973. It soon became an oily hangout and more oil deals were likely consummated there than in any boardroom.

I ate at Junior’s for the first time in 1978, shortly after meeting my second wife Anne. Anne was the accountant for a little oil company that had an office in the Oil Center. She had once worked for Carl Swan, one of Junior’s original partners.

Junior’s, at the time, was a private club as Oklahoma had yet to pass a liquor-by-the-drink law. You were supposed to have your own bottle (with your name on it!) to get a drink at a bar. It was rarely required and you could get a strong drink almost anyplace, at least if someone there knew you. The practice was known as liquor-by-the-wink. You could also get a “roadie” (an alcoholic drink in a plastic go-cup) to tide you over on your trip home.

Junior not only knew every one of his clientele by their first names, he knew the names of their kids, friends, employers or employees. I don’t recall ever seeing him without a smile on his face.

Since Junior’s was a club, Junior billed his members once a month. I had a medium-sized oil company and often took clients there for drinks, and dinner and my monthly bill almost always ran into the thousands. When my oil company went belly up, I owed Junior more than three thousand dollars.

“I’m broke,” I told him. “But I’ll pay you a little every month until I get it whittled down.”

Junior smiled and put an understanding hand on my shoulder. “Eric, I know you will. Just do your best and I’ll understand.”

It took me more than two years to finish paying my Junior’s debt and I felt like a giant weight have been lifted off my soul when Anne and I finally did. Junior didn’t make a big deal about it. He just smiled, nodded and patted me on the shoulder.

I was in Junior’s the night Penn Square Bank went under, just one of my many memories of the super club that would fill a small book. Mostly, I remember Junior Simon – the best restaurateur the State of Oklahoma has ever seen, and a fine gentleman to boot.

Eric's Website

Underground Chinatown in Oklahoma City

I became an independent oil man during the late seventies, just as Oklahoma City began urban renewal of its downtown area. My partner John and I had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center and we watched and listened as construction went on across the street. We soon heard rumors that the crews had discovered a maze of underground rooms, halls and passageways dug by former Chinese residents of the city.

The rumors were true. People of Chinese origin began arriving in Oklahoma City shortly after the Land Run. The Daily Oklahoman reported in 1969 that Underground Chinatown extended from the North Canadian River to Northwest 17th and Classen. If this is true, the “City” encompassed an area of several square miles.

According to eyewitness accounts, the tunnel system had a low ceiling and connected both large community rooms to tiny apartments where the residents of the underground city lived. Chinese writing covered the walls, including the words, “come gamble” at the entrance of one of the community rooms.

The underground city lay below restaurants and establishments owned by legal Chinese-Americans that likely took advantage of the cheap labor available from the illegal Chinese immigrants, afraid of deportation. Oklahoma City Fathers elected not to save the underground city and it was bulldozed in the name of Urban Renewal.

Like many of the historic Oklahoma City buildings destroyed during Urban Renewal, Underground Chinatown is now little more than a memory; all that remains are a few eyewitness accounts and the ghostly reek of opium often whiffed late at night in downtown OKC.

Eric's Website

Murder in OKC

When I moved to Oklahoma City in 1973, the downtown area was already a victim of urban sprawl. Many stores and businesses had moved out of the city’s original area for the more affluent outlying neighborhoods. Downtown OKC had long since fallen into disarray and disrepair. There was no new construction, no new businesses, and little sentiment to revive this crumbling portion of Oklahoma City.

Like other cities, OKC had its skid row. In the seventies, and to a large extent today, beggars, panhandlers, winos, prostitutes, and runaways congregated in an area near the downtown bus station. Hotels, many built shortly after the beginning of the city, remained along the Reno Avenue corridor. Most were run down, shabby, and homes for gamblers and prostitutes. One of these hotels was the Tivoli Inn on W. Sheridan Avenue.

The Tivoli was built in 1922 as a grand hotel. It went through several transformations but in October of 1972, it had degenerated into little more than a flophouse for transients taking a detour off I-40, one of the interstate highways that bisect the city. On October 13, 1972, the desk clerk of the hotel met her untimely death.

I hadn’t yet moved to Oklahoma in 1972 but I remember hearing about the murder of Phyllis Jean Daves. Daves, age 49, was the desk clerk at the Tivoli Inn the night of her death. According to accounts in the Daily Oklahoman, she was beaten, robbed and strangled to death.

On October 13, 1972 (yes, it was Friday) she was dragged into the elevator and apparently still fighting for her life when she and her attacker reached the sixth floor. Her nude body was found under a bed in room 607 and rape was likely attempted but never consummated. Two former employees of the Tivoli Inn were suspected but later cleared of the crime when they failed to provide a match to bloody handprints held as evidence.

I remember hearing stories of blood covering the lobby walls from the horrific struggle that ensued. The crime remains cold, never solved. Urban renewal of downtown Oklahoma City began in earnest during the latter seventies, the Tivoli Inn razed in 1979 to make room for the Myriad Gardens.

Nothing remains today of the old Tivoli Inn but memories and some old photographs. Most Oklahomans don’t even remember it, nor does anyone remember Phyllis Jean Daves, or worry much about who killed her, or why.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series set in Oklahoma. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Cattleman's House Dressing

There's a pivotal scene in my book Bones of Skeleton Creek that takes place at Cattleman's Cafe located on the south side of Oklahoma City. A rancher has hired P.I. Buck McDivit to help him catch the culprits rustling cattle from his ranch. Buck's friend Trey is an agent for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, and they meet at Cattleman's for lunch to discuss the case.

I-40 bisects Oklahoma City into what are really two distinct towns, the north side, and the south side. Just south of I-40, on Agnew, is a retail neighborhood known locally as Stockyard City. It's the home of Cattleman’s Steak House, the oldest continuously operated restaurant in Oklahoma City. Cattleman's opened its doors in 1910 three years after Oklahoma became a state.

The restaurant and Stockyards hold many bittersweet memories for me as I was banking at the now-defunct Stockyards Bank when my little oil company, caught up in the eighties oil bust, went “belly up.” Cattleman’s is still a fixture for oilies, cattle raisers, and other risk-takers, a fitting legacy as the owner won it in a game of dice.

Many luminaries including John Wayne and Ronald Reagan have graced Cattleman’s doors since 1910. The restaurant serves stiff drinks and some of the best steaks in Oklahoma City (no kidding!) along with lamb fries and their signature Cattleman’s Salad. The recipe for their famous house dressing is a secret, but it’s hard keeping a secret for one hundred and eight years. Try it and enjoy. If you can't get there in person, read Bones of Skeleton Creek and have lunch with Buck and Trey.

Cattleman's House Dressing

8 oz. cream cheese ½ pint sour cream
Egg Beater = 1 egg 1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp garlic powder ¼ cup Wesson Oil
¾ cup water

Blend in a bowl larger than 2.5 quarts with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of Wesson Oil and blend until smooth and well mixed. Add ¾ cup of water and blend until smooth and well mixed.

Makes a bunch and you may wish to share a portion or two with your friends.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series set in Oklahoma. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Old Penn Theatre, Oklahoma City

Here are a couple of pics of the Penn Theatre located in a strip center near 12th and Pennsylvania in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Today, the theatre houses a junk store. Check out the story at http://www.ericwilder.com/ .

Strange Encumbrance

 Tuesday is Mardi Gras Day, the third since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city of New Orleans. This year's celebration returns my memory to a Mardi Gras Day some thirty-five years ago.
I was in my last semester of graduate school at the University of Arkansas and still married to my first wife Gail.

Our best friends, Toni and Terrence went with us to Chalmette to celebrate Mardi Gras. Terrence was an animal husbandry major and we spent a day and night in Ferriday, Louisiana where Gail's father was the foreman of a large cattle ranch. We enjoyed a personal tour of the ranch and some of Gail's mother's gumbo before heading to Chalmette.

Gail had four sisters and two brothers. Each regaled us with drinks, dinners, and frivolity, all leading up to Mardi Gras Day. That Tuesday morning we awoke early and headed downtown. Drinking on the street was perfectly legal and we began imbibing by ten in the morning. We watched every parade we could get to, and along the way, we continued drinking.

We tried to pace ourselves, eating hot dogs and gumbo from various street vendors. All we really succeeded in doing was sobering ourselves for an awkward moment before plunging back into the depths of drunkenness. Somewhere around ten that night we finally stumbled to the car and headed north to Fayetteville.

When we reached Jackson, Mississippi, we stopped at a Denny's for breakfast. My stomach felt like hell, but still slightly better than my head. We reached Fayetteville at six the next morning, hardly time for a shower before I had to take a final test at eight.

Don't ask me how, but I aced the test, perhaps the best score I ever had in grad school. A few months later, Gail and I moved to Oklahoma City and never saw Toni and Terrence again.

I've never really thought much about that Mardi Gras, my lost friends, and a failed marriage. Maybe because youth is a strange encumbrance whose weight you never really feel until you're no longer young.

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All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.

The Robbing of Penn Square Bank

While it is true that the eighties oil bust adversely affected every oil hub in the United States, Oklahoma City maintains a unique position in the episode because it was the location of the infamous Penn Square Bank debacle.

Penn Square Bank occupied a stand-alone building in the parking lot of the Penn Square Mall, still located in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Northwest Expressway. The picture at the left was originally the Penn Square Bank Tower, symbolic of how much money the small bank generated in a short amount of time. During the go-go days of the last oil boom, officers of this bank began making oil and gas loans, then selling the paper to eager upstream banks like Continental Illinois. The problem was, many of these loans were secured by little more than a “lick and a promise.”

One story that has circulated for years now involves an oil company that borrowed millions of dollars to purchase drilling rigs. Auditors, attempting to account for the bank’s collateral after the company went bust, learned that Rig 13 (I don’t know if this is the actual number) was really a Lear Jet. Clients, supposedly with little or no oil experience, could get a million dollar loan with only a signature and the promise of drilling a few oil wells.

Many nouveau operators purchased jet planes, helicopters, luxury vehicles and lavish offices and lifestyles with the seed money they borrowed from Penn Square Bank and then parlayed into millions more with money raised from largely unsophisticated investors. It is safe to say that most of these investors had little more than a “lick or a promise” of ever seeing any return on their investment.

While drilling a well in western Oklahoma, one company encountered a large pocket of natural gas. The well blew out and the gas ignited in a huge burst of flame. Instead of worrying about the raging fire and its ensuing consequences, the company chartered a commercial jet and flew a planeload of investors and various company people to the blowout site. There they had tents erected, catered barbecue and beer, and a band to entertain everyone at an elaborate blowout party, ostensibly to raise even more money.

Elaborate parties were the norm during the last oil boom. Christmas parties hosted by operators and service companies boasted hundreds of guests, all enjoying free food, drink, and entertainment. I attended one oil company party where Mel Tillis and the Oakridge Boys were flown in by jet helicopter to entertain for an hour or so. One of the Penn Square loan officers was there, dressed in an Alpine costume complete with hat, shorts, and lederhosen. The party took place on a farm near Edmond, the cars and party-goers so thick that they blocked the adjacent county road for hours.

The eighties oil bust ended the careers of many would-be oil barons, including my own. Like so many others, my little oil company wound up on the busted scrap heap of broken dreams. Not much wiser but at least a little older, I became a fiction writer instead.

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All of Eric's books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on his iBook author pages, and his Website.