The Gorilla Mask Affair

Whiskey poured us into the cold, sweet night and when last call came we stumbled our way through the doors of a notorious after hours dive bar located in the basement of an otherwise abandoned hotel.

The three of us rolled solemnly through the neon lit cavern. We grabbed three stools at the horseshoe shaped bar forming a defensive moat of liquor between the drunks and the stage behind it. Working the pole with a perfunctory grind was Angele Pie; sixty-six inches of stacked dynamite and proud of every pound wiggled. Her skin glowed Star Trek green in the indifferent shift of the disco lights. Around her silhouetted arms extended frozen through the pall of gray smoke; withered bills clutched in brittle fists – the last leaf of a desperate autumn waiting for the wind to remember it.

The bartender served up three whiskeys quick. We downed them fast and professional that she was, the next round was already waiting when we slammed our glasses down.

I wiped my mouth with the top of my wrist, nodded at my mates and then at Angele Pie; unmistakably mouthing the word: “Her.”

The littlest of us nodded back and waved the bartender over. He leaned across the bar and whispered in her ear. She laughed. Then he produced the ‘Roll’ from the inside of his leather jacket, doing so the way one would draw a gun in a gangster movie- teasing it out halfway and letting the weight do all the talking. Her eyes widened appreciatively and she nodded with pursed lips. She turned around and plucked Angele out of her dance with a special sign they’d worked between themselves. She crouched down and they huddled quick.

To be honest we hadn’t even bothered counting the Roll. We scored it during a pitch to a local basic cable suit that we managed to somehow network a simple weed deal into a meeting out of. We elevator pitched the poor, stoned bastard a rock opera biography of Hassan I Sabbah – the Old Man of the Mountains. I gave him the spiel Hollywood style; promising both indie cred and box office epic vision simultaneous. Finally we gave him the show stopper as my buddies launched into an improvised duet about a forbidden love affair held between a lost Knights Templar and one sexy Hashisheen. The poor suit was openly weeping by the last chorus and threw the Roll at me to make them just go away. I threw the roll to our largest who handed it over to our smallest, who bit into it once and satisfied at its authenticity pocketed the cash. We left, but not before the suit made us vow to never call him again… much less even speak his name out loud in public.

We had been celebrating since.

Angele Pie walked over to us. She pointed at me and said – “Him?”

Our littlest nodded.

Angele Pie slapped me in the face so hard it made the record skip off the ancient jukebox. Satisfied with her blow she turned to our littlest and began the negotiations.

“Alright lemme see the money first.”

Little Man produced the Roll. He peeled off three hundred dollar bills and laid them in her waiting palm. She weighed the bills against the wad in his fist and came up short. Two more hundred dollar bills evened the scales just fine.

With a speed rivaling even the most seasoned prestidigitator she made the bills vanish with a snap of her fingers.

With a sigh and shrug she looked over at me: “Okay where’s the mask?”

***

Angele Pie wore the mask just fine. It was a rubber gorilla number, full face with black matted hair. I had stolen it out of the Suit’s bathroom earlier, while rummaging for pain pills and Viagra. It was sitting on the back of the toilet by an empty bottle of lube and a greasy issue of Popular Mechanics. Such are the ingredients of success in today’s fast paced world!

As Angele Pie cavorted around the pole to a Hellbilly cover of the Addam’s Family theme; we broke a bill off the Roll into a stack of fives and singles, which we folded up into paper airplanes to launch at her.

What few of the bills that managed to reach the stage, much less her, she swatted at furiously with a growl and crushed a few beneath the heel of her knee high black, shiny boots.

I was two pasties away from a small glimpse of heaven when all of a sudden a roar of incredulous cackling reverberated through the bar. As one, the three of us turned around.

A frat pack, five deep stood collectively in the doorway. Most of them were bent over in laughter while their alpha stood there filming the whole scene with his iPhone. One of the ‘roid boys stood there slack jawed and the skinniest of the lot kept repeating as if in a chant: “No way!”

They were dressed in practically identical shades of douches; sporting a uniform of crocs, shorts, polo shirts and baseball hats.

The three of us looked over at each other and nodded knowingly. We reached into our jackets and pulled out the other masks. The ones we wore during the pitch. Brown paper bag deals with the eyeholes clearly having been chewed out with our teeth and lipstick kisses over the mouth slits.

Frat pack breaks down into uproarious howls and incoherent declarative sentences.

We don’t give them a chance to recover.

Little Guy jumps into the fray first. He’s got years of stunt yoga, stage fighting and a black belt in extreme cuckoldry. He’s got seven chakras fired up and ready. Nimbly he leapt off the stool, swooped it up by the legs and charged the Alpha Frat. The Alpha Frat in turn absently filmed the incoming damage, camera mesmerized and unable to connect the screen with real life until the stool crashed into the side of his head.

And then it was on like a mother-fucker!

The other four pounced in on the Little Guy. But he moved through and around them with the speed of a howler monkey riding the gust of a terrible monsoon. He ducked under punches and danced around attempted bear hugs. All while the Big Guy finished his drink, planted a lit smoke into mask (with grizzled and peppered beard bursting under it) and waltzed over to help our buddy with all the time in the world. He arrived to tap the largest of the group on the shoulder, who turned around, looked oddly at the paper bagged giant before being knocked off his feet with a sucker punch out of left field.

I tried finishing my drink in a similar style as the Big Guy, but instead the whiskey just dribbled down my mask. I turned around and charged into the battle as well. I came in swinging and threw a haymaker at the first asshole I saw.

Who unfortunately turned out to be the door man/bouncer who just stepped in to see what the commotion was all about and was greeted by my fist. He staggered back and shook off the blow. When he looked over in my direction I was already gone. With secret ninja-weasel reflexes I ducked behind one of the frat pack, who I pushed off guard to go staggering towards the bouncer.

By now the other dancers and the drunks had joined the fight, however it should be said, that they seemed to be mainly taking the opportunity to fight one another. Drunk against Stripper, Drunk against Drunk, Stripper against Stripper and Angele Pie walking through the chaos with the gorilla mask still on coming right for me. One of the frat’s went into ‘roid rage and picked up a drunk over his head and threw him towards her. The drunk sailed right behind her and careened into the bar. He started guffawing wildly before the bartender returned fire with an empty bottle of vodka that crashed into the front of his laugh and audibly taking a few teeth out with them.

Angele Pie reached me and took me by the hand. She led me through the madness and not once looked back. I followed her to the back, by the bathrooms, where hidden away behind a Eniac sized cigarette vending machine, a small doorway was revealed. I was out of breath from the fight and shouldering the machine out of the way. Luckily Angele Pie had it covered – she slid the latch of the door’s bolt free, shoved me through the hole unceremoniously and pulled the vending machine back in behind her.

We climbed up a stairway blind until it led to a platform that opened onto the third story floor. She picked a room at random from and kicked the door in.

She lifted me up in her stout, tattooed arms and carried me in through the room.

She threw me down on the bed and a cloud of dust enveloped me. She finished her strip, without style but with raw energy to make up for whatever grace was lacked. She left the gorilla mask on. I left the paper bag on, even as I unbuckled and armed myself for the dance.

She climbed the bed and mounted me, her slide velvet and ice cream smooth across the need. I reached up and cupped my hands over her breasts. She looked down and whispered through the mask:

“Your friends are buying you time down there. Use it well.”

And I closed my eyes and already the moment had become a memory.