The Palisades
Chapter 1
THE PALISADES
October 31st
With the convertible top down, they travelled on the Palisades, in silence, heading back toward the city. Trixie and the Hammer were returning from Orange County, the site of another potential Foxy Hutch Night Club.
The sun shinned bright on a cloudless sky. The air was crisp and unseasonably warm for a fall morning in New York. Trixie felt light as a feather, a far cry from the way she felt when she woke up. She had woken up with a brewing migraine and a sense of foreboding deep in her solar plexus. Thankfully, by the time she hit the road, the migraine had dissipated.
In the Hammer’s old Wrangler, they enjoyed the ride and each other’s company. They didn’t need to talk to convey their mutual contentment. The Hammer and Trixie were as thick as thieves. They knew just about everything there was to know about each other. They seemed to think alike, often finishing each other’s sentences.
Hammond (aka “the Hammer”) loved Trixie like a sister. He was a bit overprotective, but she knew he enjoyed his role. The Hammer knew about Trixie’s secrets, at least the gist of them. He knew her real name, “Brida”, and how important it was to keep it a secret.
They’d been the fiercest of friends for the last 8 years, since Trixie came looking for a job at the Foxy Hutch-Queens. She had claimed to be 18 and had the fake ID to prove it. The Hammer knew better, but kept his mouth shut, seeing as she really seemed to need the job. He knew that a girl, who couldn’t be more than 16, and needed a job in a place like the Foxy Hutch, was either in trouble or heading there. She would either get the job or live on the streets. And given her stunning beauty, he knew she wouldn’t last very long. He pulled a few strings with the bosses, and the two became co-employees. And soon after the best of friends.
The fall breeze blowing over the Jeep was almost intoxicating. Trixie in her dark Ray-Bans and the Hammer in his Terminators, rolled on in light, late morning traffic. They should have been thinking about what Trixie would tell Gary Grumble, the lead partner of the Foxy Hutch, about the Orange County location. However, she had already formed an opinion.
The last thing she wanted to think about, at the moment, was the business of the Foxy Hutch. However, after about 20 minutes on the Palisades, a single grey cloud caught her attention. It seemed out of place in an otherwise cloudless sky. It briefly obscured her view of the sun and caused her a quick shudder. She closed her eyes, waiting for the cloud to pass. While waiting, she thought that somehow that damn cloud had snapped her out of her happy place, and back to the reason for her trip, a new Foxy Hutch location.
You could call the Foxy Hutch a “gentlemen’s’ club”, but that would just be a nice way of avoiding calling it what it really is, a strip club. It was a place where beautiful or ugly things happened, depending on your perspective. Men sought temporary pleasures and short-lived gratification. Dirty money changed hands for a jiggle and a thrill.
No doubt, it was a sleezy business, but it paid Trixie’s bills, and kept her off the streets. Plus, she met the Hammer there. When she first came to work, the Hammer snuck her into a small space in the basement, near the furnace room. It was warm and dry and relatively clean. More importantly, it was safe. She didn’t have to tell him that she didn’t have a home to go to. He just seemed to know that she needed a place. The least he could do was provide her a temporary place to stay. Once she got on her feet, he helped her find a decent apartment.
Trixie was smart. Very smart. In no time, she was out of the basement and living in a third story walk-up, a floor above the Hammer. Most would describe it as a crappy apartment, but she was happy to call it home.
The grey cloud drifted further into Trixie’s mind, pushing her out of her Palisades daydream and back into the Orange County property. The location was all wrong, she thought. The fact that it sat between a convenience shop and a playground was “Strike One”. She knew the bosses liked discreet, accessible properties, preferably dimly lit ones, so customers could easily slip in and out, without fear of bumping into a neighbor or associate. The Foxy Hutch served up hot and steamy exotic dancers, private VIP rooms, slippery lap dances, and adult movie screenings. Sure, one could claim they happened to roll in for a burger and a beer, but they wouldn’t fool anyone.
“Strike Two”, the existing structure was severely dilapidated and on the small side. Trixie knew that the existing plumbing and electric were inadequate for a night club. She already started estimating the cost of additional square footage and structural upgrades. She considered how much the bosses would have to lay out in mortgage principal and interest, taxes, and insurance. The expenses would be steep, likely prohibitive.
“Strike Three”, the politicians in Orange County were unknown to the downstate bosses. Neither Trixie nor the Hammer knew to what extent the bosses greased the hands of local politicians, in exchange for permits, but they knew it was an integral part of the business. If the bosses didn’t know which politicians’ palms to grease, the prospect of a Foxy Hutch-Orange looked bleak.
Trixie felt fairly confident that a Foxy Hutch-Orange would never happen. The Hammer knew it too, but he was just along for the ride, or, that is, to give Trixie a ride. The bosses came to understood that Trixie and the Hammer were a package deal. She did the thinking, and he made sure nothing got in the way of her thinking.
With eyes still shut, she waited for the dark cloud to pass. Instead, the cloud grew larger. The migraine and foreboding from that morning was suddenly back full throttle. She removed her sunglasses and saw that the dark cloud had grown so large, it completely obscured the sun. It was like driving in a solar eclipse.
She looked over at the Hammer, but he didn’t seem to be phased by the sudden darkness. She tried an exaggerated blink to flush out whatever grime may have muddied her vision, but when she re-opened her eyes, she suddenly felt constricted, confined in a small space.
She was a teenager again, sitting on a small bed, next to a filthy wall. The room smelled of mothballs and dirty ashtrays. She realized that the smell was moving toward her. Her heart squeezed in on itself. She felt a man’s grubby hand close tight around the back of her neck. His other hand fell heavy on her knee, rubbing it. The hand slid slowly up her inner thigh and began to rub at the denim over her crotch. His other hand rubbed at his own. When she tried to shift away, the man grabbed hold of the back of her head, fisting her hair tight. He yanked her head up, forcing her to look up at his scowl. His eyes were dark and soulless. He reeked not only of mothballs and cigarettes, but of whiskey. The stench spilled out of his grimy pores.
The rubbing became faster, rougher, greedier. Her heart and lungs were caught in a vise grip, trying desperately to beat, to breath. She felt sickly nauseous. She tried to look away, but the man’s grip on her hair forced her head up. When she shut her eyes, the man snarled, through tobacco-stained teeth, telling her to keep her eyes open. With an evil sneer, he told her to unzip his jeans. When she cried, and shook her head in protest, he swung her head back and forth violently, like a rag doll. The rocking sent scorching pain through her head.
When the man stopped jerking her head, she could only get the words “Please, Mister” out. Over and over, through whimpers, she begged “Please, Mister” for him to stop. But his evil sneer grew deeper, meaner. With another sharp jerk of her head, he told her again to unzip him.
Through searing pain and panic Trixie understood. Her unconscious mind seemed to be forcing her conscious one to accept that her pleas were futile, her predicament dire. She would submit to the man’s demands or he would kill her.
With hands shaking, nearly beyond her control, she slowly unzipped his pants. He told her to take it out. She knew she was probably too young to know what he was referring to, but she knew. This wasn’t the first time. With tears streaming down both cheeks, and her breath hitching with each labored breath, burning her lungs, she pulled his underwear away and took it out.
The Hammer roared in Trixie’s right ear, screaming at her to wake up. His arms were wrapped fully around her, gripping her as tight as he thought he could, without harming her. “Please Trixie, please! Snap out of it! It’s only a dream! Please wake up. Come back, Trix. You can do this, goddammit! Just breath!” He pled over and over, until she came back.
The convulsing finally stopped, and her eyes stopped fluttering toward the back of her head. Though she was back, her eyes were still clenched shut. Tears were still streaming. Her entire body was shaking. When her eyes slit open, the Hammer could only see terror in them. Slowly her orientation was coming back. She remembered she was in the passenger seat of the Hammer’s Jeep. They were now pulled over on the grass, on the side of the Palisades Parkway. Her door was flung open, and her friend was outside, crouched down beside her, shaking his head, helpless.
“You gonna by okay, Brida. Just breath. Long slow breaths, baby doll.”
Her gasping slowed down to a pant. “It’s Tr… Tr… Trixie, H’ Hammy. P’ P’ Please. No more Brida. I just need to…”
“Of course, baby doll. Trixie, you gonna be good. You safe now, darling.”
Still crouching, his shoulders slumped low. The Hammer reached for the ground, to steady himself. His other hand supported his forehead, which now seemed too heavy to lift. He was beyond angry. He was infuriated, feeling so helpless. He’d seen this before, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He could only wait it out and comfort his friend afterwards. His own anguish would have to be put aside.
“I’m so sorry, Trix. I saw you shaking. Your whole body was out of control! Your eyes were closed, and I couldn’t do anything to make it stop. I couldn’t wake you. I’m not sure if you were even breathing, goddammit! All I could do was pull over and wait!”
He reached for her hand. She gave him her own, apologizing. “I’m so sorry, Hammy,” she whispered in a raspy voice.
“What the hell you sorry for, Trix? It’s that mother fucking LDM who should be sorry!”
After a long pause, she looked away and murmured, still raspy “It wasn’t the same LDM as before, Hammy.”
Regaining his strength, he looked up. “What? Another LDM?”
A bit calmer now, she looked back at him. “This one was different.”
Knowing the answer, he still asked “You wanna talk about it?”
With her hand on her friend’s shoulder, she squeezed “No, Hammy. I just want to keep moving.” He reached into the big bag she left behind her seat and fished out a package of mints and a bottle of water. He knew from her last LDM episode, she would need it. She nodded and popped a handful into her mouth. Chased them down with a few sips of water.
The Hammer nodded back. “One hell of a way to celebrate your birthday.” She had almost forgotten what day it was. She turned 24 today. Just another day.
The Hammer knew there was nothing he could do to stop her terrors. He had urged her to seek professional counselling, but she refused. The choice was hers to make. What he could do was entertain and distract her. Though he still felt sick, both personally, and for his friend, he would change the subject. He would talk gibberish. Befuddle her with nonsense about work. Amuse her with stories, true or not, about what some dick patron did at the Club. The one that came in, too drunk to stop himself from falling on his face on the way to the men’s room, then peed himself. The Hammer heard all types of crude jokes, working at the Foxy Hutch, and he was a master at re-telling them, even making them funnier. He had a gift, one that he shared with only a few select people, including Trixie, to make them laugh or feel comfortable. He poured that gift generously into his friend, to help make her forget.
She knew exactly what he was trying to do. Take her mind off her recurring day terror. The grey cloud was gone, and so she forced a smile until one came naturally. She reached over and gave the Hammer a hug and asked if he wouldn’t mind stopping at the next rest stop, so she could fix her makeup and get a coffee.
