In ’68 Hutch and me,
Sitting at the bar drinking
Our third cold beer.
In a semi Fern Bar
Laguna or Newport Beach
Which now, I’m not sure.
It was around nine or so,
A week day night,
The place more empty than not.
She came in alone, made
Entry like the dramatic host of
A TV show. As if she were the
Center piece on the nations
Thanksgiving Dinner Table.
Over dressed to the nines,
Lots of color, heavy make up
She didn’t really need.
Her perfume scent hovered
Around her like a cloud of insects
On a hot summer night in a wet meadow.
Kind of made my eyes water up.
She perched daintily like a dancer,
Upon a bar stool,
Three empty stools down,
Nodded the bartender her regular order.
A martini, a double it was,
With but a dab of vermouth.
One green olive on a stick.
The glass was prechilled as if
It had been waiting only for her.
She pounded that first one down,
As if the stem wear was a shot glass.
Another full stem glass appeared,
That one also quickly consumed
Two bright red lipstick stains all that
Remained in or on the stemmed glass rim.
Her main task accomplished,
She audibly exhaled,
As if tired or relieved.
I couldn't tell which.
Turned around on her stool to face
Hutch sitting closest to her.
“You boys Marines.” She declared,
More than inquired.
The close chopped hair cuts
giving us away.
Hutch just nodded, he never did say much.
A ****** just back from The Nam,
A dark scary guy of few words.
She opened her fur trimmed cloth coat,
exposing two very nice stocking clad legs,
And just a quick flash of red underpants.
Rotating towards us so we got a better shot.
She announced her name,
like as if we should know it.
Our blank stares informed her we didn’t.
Her face was to me, somewhat familiar.
From movies in the 40s or 50s.
We were early 20 guys, she much older,
Trying hard to look younger, not succeeding.
Soon she was sitting right next to Hutch,
Two more Martini stems had come and gone,
Her lipstick finger prints upon them.
And still Hutch had not spoken more than
Three or four words.
She bought us a pitcher of brew,
Hutch grunted a short bit of gratitude.
We didn't have to say much, she was in charge.
It was all about her, she rambled on and on
Speaking volumes saying not much at all.
Beating back her crushing obscurity,
With flowery reminiscence recall,
Of glory days, long gone away.
Important for the moment, if only to her.
It was all; “me and I, I did this, I was that,
I slept with him,
And him and him”.
How about so and so? I asked,
“No Darling not him, he was gay!
Still is.”
It was not long and she was touching Hutch.
On the hand, the shoulder, she was working him
With languid hungry looks from her big baby blues,
And the message could not have been plainer,
Had she held up a large hand lettered sign.
I don’t believe she was a “Working Girl”,
Just someone very lonely seeking to find
Herself, and some company for the night,
All to prove that she was still alive.
Looking at her, I could only think,
How sad and pathetic she seemed,
How desperate her plight.
To humble herself so,
In that dingy bar, among strangers
She did not know, Acting yet, still
On the only stage she could find,
Staring in her own bad ‘B’ movie drama.
In that dingy smelly bar.
Hutch and her left after a hour or so,
He never told me much about it.
He was unofficially AWOL for three days.
I covered for him, kept his name off the
Missing Morning Formation Reports
and the Daily Duty Lists.
No one cared to check. Our unit made up
Of mostly guys back from the war,
A pretty loosey-goosey outfit.
Once in a while now I see an old movie,
most are Black and white, Film Noir stuff,
And there she is, a much younger her,
Looking pretty **** good,
Not real big roles they were,
Claimed she was in the chorus
Of "Singing In The Rain" in '52.
To this, I cannot attest, over the
years watched that film several times,
But I never saw her there.
Had parts Playing damsels in distress,
A mobster’s gun moll a time or two,
Or unhappy Play Girls on a bar stool.
I guess it was type casting that done her in.
Or maybe she got a little too long in the tooth.
A sad ending to a short B movie career.
Life isn’t easy, even for a so called “movie star”.
Fame is not all it’s cracked up to be.
A smattering of fame, apparently worth,
Nothing at all.
True stuff from an old guys past.
She had called the Company Office
once or twice, looking for Hutch.
He told us to tell her that he had
been Shipped Out, when he actually
hadn't.
She no doubt found someone else to
tell her story to.
I saw that woman the other day on TV,
an old film on Turner Classic Movies
doing her thing. I sort of wonder what
ever happened to her, but refuse to
Google it to find out.
Some information you don't need
or what to know.
It did inspire this little Poem Noir write.
Got a letter from Hutch in '70, we were
both out of the Corps. He was headed to
the Arabian Desert as a hired gun, to guard
some pipe line operation. Have no idea what
became of him after that. Hutch was a real hard
case, 14 confirmed kills through a ****** sight.
I hope he made it out of the desert all right,
maybe sitting on a beach someplace recalling
his back in the day three nights with a once
upon a time B movie star. Actually I doubt he
recalls her at all.