The Taxi Club

by Joseph Ridgwell

I’d never been to the Taxi club before. It was just one of those venues that always seemed to drop from the radar, just like Round Midnight. I’d never stepped inside there either, despite the fact I had to walk past it everyday on the way to work. Round Midnight, pure Miles Davis.
     Elly told me about the Taxi club some months back. She’d heard about it from a colleague at work, Danita. Danita was a Filipino tranny. She told Elly it was a late night watering hole frequented by Sydney’s transsexual community. Danita did a good impression of a woman; in fact she was sexier and more feminine than most females. The effeminate nature of the south-east Asian masculine gene pool probably helped, but without seeing the cock and balls you’d never guessed. The usual clocking of the hands and feet didn’t help, for they were small and delicate.
     Anyway it was Saturday night and I was bored. I didn’t fancy going to any of my usual haunts, The Five G’s, Rhino Bar, or the Goldfish Bowl. It was the same old scene at those places and I was sick of it. Somewhere new, something different, that’s what I fancied. Then I remembered the Taxi Club, hidden away just off William Street, away from the hustle and bustle of the main drag.
     I flipped open another cold beer and looked out over Kings Cross road. I was living in my fifth apartment in less than twelve months, but this one had a nice balcony and despite its central location, was relatively peaceful.
I gazed at the night sky. There was a full moon out. Strange things can happen on the night of a full moon.
     After downing four beers in quick succession I headed off. At the corner of William and Victoria Street a large group of Polynesian happy clappers sang about JC and being saved. I purchased a slice of rubbery two-dollar pizza and listened in for a while. The harmonies were melodic and tuneful, pleasing to the boozy ear.
    Once the pizza was devoured I made my way to the Taxi Club. On the way I made a detour to, ‘The Wall,’ and eyeballed the hookers working it, three trannies and two junkie brasses. They didn’t appear to be doing much business, but then again it was still relatively early. I sloped past low-profile style and didn’t get any offers or come on’s
       There was no door policy at the Taxi Club and I just walked straight in, which is how it should always be. Nightclub door policies are just another form of elitism. The way I look at it, if people want to discriminate I prefer to stay with the discriminated.
      It was a small dimly-lit bar, half empty, smoke-filled. On a tiny stage in a far corner, a drag queen with the moniker Clare De Lune, mimed to an old 60’s pop song called Bobby’s Girl. I smiled wryly and wondered if the next track would be, I Love Men, by Eartha Kitt, or I Am What I Am. Well you could never tell, maybe I’d be in for a surprise.
    I ordered a bottle of VB and a whiskey chaser, found a quiet corner, and observed the scene. The place was indeed filled with off-duty tranny’s. There were old ones young ones, some who struggled with physicality issues and others who were pure Lola’s.
     I drank the beer and whiskey slowly and was just about to leave when in walked Danita, alone. I watched as he ordered a drink at the bar, some milky cocktail concoction. When she saw me she broke out into a big white-toothed and somewhat glamorous smile,
‘Josep, wha you do here? I never see you here before?’ He cooed.
  Although Danita had lived in Australia for a number of years she still had a strong Filipino accent,
‘Just thought I’d check this place out, you alone?’
Danita sat on a stool opposite and crossed his legs. She was wearing a short mini-skirt and fishnet stockings, ‘Yeah, my boyfriend, he otherwise engage.’
I clocked the legs on the sly. Shit, Danita’s pins would’ve given Betty Gable a run for her money, ‘Me to, another dull Saturday night in the Cross.’
     We sat chatting, making small talk, and immediately Danita began flirting. She gave me a running commentary on the state of his transexuality. She was pre-op, but had been taking female hormone therapy. She undid a couple of buttons on her blouse and gave me a peep at the results,
‘Wha you think? Look good, no?’
I zoned in on the natural looking breasts. I had to admit they did look good and better than a pair of false one’s, ‘Not bad, not bad at all.’
‘Maybe next year I have gender re-assignment, but Rodney, no so keen.’
I raised m eyebrows and my beer, ‘Not so keen?’
Danita flashed me a saucy smile, ‘He still like, you know, for me to have that down there.’
‘Yeah I know,’ I replied, whilst thinking how strange that was. Like why would some gay guy want to go out with a man who looked and acted like a woman? 
      Danita and I stayed in the club drinking and chatting. We ordered several more drinks. The weird cocktail concoction Danita was supping was called an orgasm. And yep, that’s what I had to ask at the bar each time, ‘An Orgasm.’ Embarrassing shit.
     At some point the convo turned to great rock and roll deaths,
‘Gotta be Johnny Ace?’
‘Johnny who?’
‘Fifties Balladeer, shot himself whilst sitting on his girlfriend’s lap playing Russian roulette, blew his brains out.’
Danita sucked some orgasm through a pink straw, ‘That crazy.’
‘Totally, but of course the story could be apocryphal.’
Danita shot me a, huh, look. ‘Huh?’ He replied somewhat predictably.
‘I mean, it might not be 100% accurate. Take the famous George Best, anecdote.’
Again, Danita didn’t know who the fuck I was talking about, ‘George who?’
     ‘Greatest footballer of his generation, almost as famous for drinking and womanising as he was for his exploits on the pitch. One story goes that a bellhop found him lying in a hotel bed with a former Miss World, surrounded by empty champagne bottles and scattered banknotes, and famously quipped, ‘George, where did it all go wrong?’
Danita burst out laughing and gently slapped me on the shoulder, ‘Don’t you mean, where it all go right?’
Now it was my turn to laugh, ‘Well, yeah, exactly. I don’t believe a bellhop ever said that. It was just something reported by the press to further embellish the Best myth.’
Danita flashed me another saucy smile, ‘I would love be naked with you in hotel room, covered in banknotes.’
By now I was good and boozy, ‘I thought you said you had a boyfriend?’
Danita threw her head back and let out another peal of laughter, ‘Yes, but who care? Life short baby?’
Danita was right, life was short, but maybe not that short, ‘Take it easy lady.’
      After that I didn’t say anything interesting aside from continuing my last train of thought, something about Wild West shoot outs at high noon, the streets deserted as the sheriff cleans up the town. How all that Hollywood shit never happened either, etc.  My speech was thick with drink. We stayed for another hour or so, but eventually it was time to go. I only lived a ten minute walk from the club, but outside Danita clung onto my arm and insisted she drop me off in a cab. Strangely I relented. The short cab journey passed in a drunken blur.

*
I awoke sometime after noon with a terrible hang over and a throbbing ankle. Looking down there was a good deal of caked blood around a superficial cut. It was the sound of the telephone that had awakened me. It rung for a long time before I was able to answer it,
‘Yeah,’ I croaked into the receiver.
The voice on the other end was angry, wavering with emotion. It was Danita,
‘You in big trouble Josep, my boyfriend wan kill you.’
I scratched my balls, ‘What the fuck?’
Suddenly Danita started sobbing, ‘You bad boy Josep, you assault me last night, in the taxi!’
I racked my brains. The night’s events were crystal clear, apart from the cab journey home, ‘Are you joking?’
‘No, you did a bad thing, I can’t believe you did what you did!’
I racked my brains again, nothing aside from a normal night out on the lash, ‘And what exactly did I do?’
‘You touched me in an intimate place.’
Touched her in an intimate place? Freaked, I hung up.
      An hour later the intercom buzzer to my apartment sounded. I was still lying in bed suffering, and thinking about Danita’s disconcerting statement. I struggled to the door and grabbed the handset,
‘Yes.’
A male Australian voice answered, ‘This is Danita’s boyfriend. Can we have a little chat, man to man?’
I stared at the handset in disbelief. Man to man? This was all getting out of hand, ‘Give me five.’
      On the way down I passed the landlord of the apartments and a workman. They were replacing a large broken window in the hallway. When the landlord saw me he pointed an accusing finger,
‘I want you out of here, today!’
My head was whirling, ‘Why?’
‘You were seen putting your foot through this window, and then there’s all this coming home late, singing, and disturbing others.’
I remembered the bloody cut on my ankle, ‘What about my deposit?’
‘That’ll just about cover the broken window.’
I looked at the landlord and he looked at me,
‘Out, today, or I’m calling the cops. This is a criminal offence.’
      I heard the word, cops, thought about my illegal status, and marched back to my apartment. It didn’t take long to pack, just one large holdall. There were two beers left in the fridge and a pot of yoghurt. I downed the beers in three or four large swigs and threw the yoghurt at one of the walls. It exploded on impact and made an impressive mess.
     The landlord was still fixing the window when I handed him the keys,
‘Cheers amigo,’ I said brightly.
     Outside Danita and her boyfriend were waiting in a car. The guy got out, well over six foot, athletic, but also somewhat flaky looking. I put the holdall down,
‘First things first, I think my girlfriend deserves an apology,’ the guy said nervously.
‘Fuck you,’ I said. ‘ Firstly that attention seeking prick is not a girl, even if he is doing a good impression of one, and secondly whatever he’s claiming happened is total bullshit, now fuck off.’
I went to walk away, but Danita’s boyfriend yanked me back by the shoulder. I spun around and caught him with a perfect shot to the nose. Then I tensed up, ready to kick off.
     Danita’s boyfriend staggered backwards and held his nose. Two trickles of blood oozed down his fingers,
‘Oh fuck, oh shit, you just punched me,’ he groaned. ‘I’m going to sue.’
I relaxed, dusted my hands, and then picked up my holdall, ‘Sue away faggot boy,’ I said over my shoulder.
     I turned one corner and then another without once looking back. Then I waited for the cops to show. The cops never showed. I kept walking.

 

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~ This piece was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 and was filed under Blog, Writing, Short Story, Featured. You can make comments on it below. ~