At Big Al’s it’s not like you’d think. You has to watch your p’s and q’s cos he don’t like cussin, and no smokin neither, not unless you go out back where it smells of piss and stale beer and where Maisie turns tricks most nights for extra money.
Big Al is odd, you know. Don’t get me wrong; I likes him, but he’s not what you’d expect. He’s a gentleman in lots aways. He don’t touch the girls, or make lewd comments when he comes backstage, and he always knocks on the door and shouts for everyone to be decent before he enters. But he can be stern, too, and there’s ways of dressin that he don’t like and he says it’s all about standards.
I laughed when he said that and he gave me such a look as would wither grass. He said it again and he looked straight at me when he was sayin it so there was no second chance for laughin.
He brings in his mother some nights, all tweed skirts and pearls, and she’s the one who has a word with a girl if there’s somethin not right. Like Barbara had a tat done high up on her back, just the name of her boyfriend and a red heart round the name and small wings on that heart. She paid good money for it and had it done proper, you know, and I thought it looked sorta neat. Well, turns out that Big Al didn’t agree and so his mother had a word with Babs and she don’t work here no more. That’s what he means about standards.
It’s sorta odd, like I said, cos the men that comes here to Big Al’s, well they ain’t so particular if you get my meanin. They’s just workin men and they just drinks themselves stoopid and they cheers at the girls takin off their tops and clappin like it’s a ballgame and scratchin at their hardening cocks. Just regular joes.
Maisie ain’t the only one that bends the rules, though she’s the only one that does it where she could be caught. There’s this one guy called Pete, and he keeps hangin around now on account of me and him, we went to a motel together after work and he paid me a hundred and fifty for the night. I had to phone my husband and say as how I was at Margaret’s and she needed me for the night and I said it was women’s trouble so he never asked more. A hundred and fifty and we only did it once; the rest of the night we just slept all close and clingin to each other.
Big Al don’t like that Pete keeps comin round backstage and askin for me. I tells him its nothing, cos if he knew then I’d be walkin the sidewalk like Babs. I got standards, I tells Big Al, and he nods and he tells Pete to back off and that keeps things straight.
My favorite character in this sketch is Big Al himself: to me, he’s intriguing, with his old-world formality and his mother in pearls. Nice touches! And he makes a good contrast to the narrator and her conduct. Plenty of good stories could come from this one….
April 17, 2013: At Big Al’s…
At Big Al’s it’s not like you’d think. You has to watch your p’s and q’s cos he don’t like cussin, and no smokin neither, not unless you go out back where it smells of piss and stale beer and where Maisie turns tricks most nights for extra money.
Big Al is odd, you know. Don’t get me wrong; I likes him, but he’s not what you’d expect. He’s a gentleman in lots aways. He don’t touch the girls, or make lewd comments when he comes backstage, and he always knocks on the door and shouts for everyone to be decent before he enters. But he can be stern, too, and there’s ways of dressin that he don’t like and he says it’s all about standards.
I laughed when he said that and he gave me such a look as would wither grass. He said it again and he looked straight at me when he was sayin it so there was no second chance for laughin.
He brings in his mother some nights, all tweed skirts and pearls, and she’s the one who has a word with a girl if there’s somethin not right. Like Barbara had a tat done high up on her back, just the name of her boyfriend and a red heart round the name and small wings on that heart. She paid good money for it and had it done proper, you know, and I thought it looked sorta neat. Well, turns out that Big Al didn’t agree and so his mother had a word with Babs and she don’t work here no more. That’s what he means about standards.
It’s sorta odd, like I said, cos the men that comes here to Big Al’s, well they ain’t so particular if you get my meanin. They’s just workin men and they just drinks themselves stoopid and they cheers at the girls takin off their tops and clappin like it’s a ballgame and scratchin at their hardening cocks. Just regular joes.
Maisie ain’t the only one that bends the rules, though she’s the only one that does it where she could be caught. There’s this one guy called Pete, and he keeps hangin around now on account of me and him, we went to a motel together after work and he paid me a hundred and fifty for the night. I had to phone my husband and say as how I was at Margaret’s and she needed me for the night and I said it was women’s trouble so he never asked more. A hundred and fifty and we only did it once; the rest of the night we just slept all close and clingin to each other.
Big Al don’t like that Pete keeps comin round backstage and askin for me. I tells him its nothing, cos if he knew then I’d be walkin the sidewalk like Babs. I got standards, I tells Big Al, and he nods and he tells Pete to back off and that keeps things straight.
My favorite character in this sketch is Big Al himself: to me, he’s intriguing, with his old-world formality and his mother in pearls. Nice touches! And he makes a good contrast to the narrator and her conduct. Plenty of good stories could come from this one….
Glad you liked him, Judith. Thanks for reading this.