Grand Opening Ch. 01

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A man hides behind the bar.
4.1k words
4.59
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Part 1 of the 3 part series

Updated 10/30/2022
Created 05/13/2013
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JimBob44
JimBob44
5,011 Followers

Chapter 1

In 1958, construction on Highway 27 began. Working its way North-northwest, it extended, on paper, from Jazz Beach, Louisiana to Elgee, Louisiana.

In January 1960, Union strikes halted the progress just as the two lane blacktop reached the north side of DeGarde, Louisiana, right as it entered Bender, Louisiana. The private contractor, under a deadline from the state, pulled in scab workers.

The striking workers came armed with pick axes, sledge hammers, lead pipes.

Matt McElroy calmly walked over to his truck, pulled out his two Colt .45s and put a bullet between the eyes of the union leader. The union workers let construction continue that day.

The next morning, Matt McElroy started his truck. The explosion shattered every window in the home he and his wife and three children lived in, as well as the neighbor's home as well.

There was no more work done on Highway 27 until September 1962, when the state of Louisiana reached an agreement with the union.

X.X.X

In July 1960, Jack Eastman was escaping an attempted homicide charge in New Orleans. Driving east on the Evangeline Throughway, he, on a whim, decided to turn north onto Highway 27. He was unable to stop in time when the road suddenly ceased to be, ripping the driveshaft from his automobile as he ran over a broad tree stump.

So Jack lay low in DeGarde, picking up menial jobs here and there, all cash. A widow of World War Two rented him a room in her home for ten dollars a week. This included breakfast and dinner. Jack quickly found reason to skip these two meals; Nettie Duvalier couldn't cook.

Nettie was loathe to let Jack use her telephone freely. He would have to contact the operator first, give the operator the telephone number he wished to contact, then at the conclusion of the phone call, had to get the charges from the operator, and then pay that amount to Nettie.Once a week, Jack would call his mother to see if there was still a warrant out for his arrest, and once a week, she would tell him there was still a warrant out for his arrest.

On Sundays, Nettie would make Jack rise, shower and shave, and put on his suit and accompany her to church. Then, she would make him eat her Sunday lunch. Afterward, they would sit in the living room and read aloud from her large Bible.

Jack was convinced that Nettie's husband didn't really die in battle; Mr. Duvalier had wisely decided not to come home.

Nettie and Mr. Duvalier (she never did refer to her deceased husband by his Christian name) had no children. His only living relative had died in an automobile accident in 1959, and Nettie had no living relatives. So, Jack became her 'son,' and had to pay ten dollars a week for that privilege.

X.X.X

Jack couldn't help but chuckle when he got hired by St. Elizabeth courthouse as a maintenance man. It was a good job, and it paid the handsome salary of twenty three dollars a week. Of course, they didn't know him as Jack Eastman; they knew him as Jack Duvalier and had Mr. Duvalier's Social Security Number on file.

"I can remember when didn't have no social number; hell, my daddy didn't even have no birth certificate," Herman Voision, his supervisor commented. "Had him a baptism recorded, so they figured his birthday had to been maybe a week earlier, so that's the day we said was his birthday. Nowadays, got to have this and that, hell can't even get you a pack of cigarettes don't have no paper, know what I'm saying?"

"Uh huh," Jack said and extinguished his cigarette in the urn.

"That's what I like about you, Jack," Herman said, putting his own cigarette out. "You don't talk much. Don't waste nobody's time all that yakked yack-yack. Had one little n*gger boy here, hell, don't even remember what that boy's name was, but damn, little n*gger could talk, never shut up, just yakked and yakked, damn near talked my ear off."

"Uh huh," Jack agreed.

X.X.X

In March of 1961, Nettie began to complain of being tired all the time, but also said that it would pass soon enough. But when Jack found her, on the floor of her bedroom, she couldn't object to him putting her into the back seat of her car and driving her to Doctor's Hospital in Baton Rouge.

"Now, who's got this kind of money, huh?" Nettie complained bitterly when the doctor insisted on admitting her to the hospital and insisted on running several tests. "Need to bring me down to the V.A. Hospital; know where that is? My husband, God rest his soul, he was in the service...."

Jack was concerned about his hostess's health, but he couldn't help but smile that he could finally get into her kitchen and make his own dinner that night. And his own breakfast in the morning. His only meal of the day was normally the lunch served in the cafeteria of the courthouse.

"Now why'd you bring me here?" Nettie complained bitterly when he picked her up five days later. "All they did was stick mall kind of needles in me, poke me and prod me and they still don't know what's going on with me, I swear."

"Told me it was leukemia," Jack corrected her.

"That's what they think it is but they don't know," she argued.

"Made three phone calls, wrote them down and here, here's a buck fifty," he said, handing her the money.

"A buck fifty?" she gasped. "Where'd you call? France?"

"No, Japan. France was too expensive," he said.

"And probably been driving my car all over the place too," she muttered to herself.

"No, just to Las Vegas, committed three bank robberies, and then high tailed it back here," Jack said.

He looked over and smiled as he saw the corners of Nettie's mouth quiver up into a little smile.

"Well, did you at least catch any of the shows they put on up there?" she asked.

"Nope; figured you'd want to use the car before too long so came on back," he shrugged.

X.X.X

He quit calling home to his mother. The last time Jack had called home, his mother informed him that there was no longer a warrant out for his arrest for attempted homicide. The man had died of his injuries so it was now second-degree murder. He told his mother that he loved her, and was sorry he had let her down. Then he hung up the telephone and never made another call home.

X.X.X

Jack drove Nettie to Lafayette, then to Houston Texas, but those doctors told her the same thing; it was Leukemia.

"Well," she sighed as he drove back to DeGarde, Louisiana. "I guess that's it. Guess it's time for me to go see Mr. Duvalier again."

"Tell him I said 'hi,'" Jack said.

"You're a good boy, Jack," she said.

A few people from her church came to the funeral but Jack was the only one shedding any tears. Annette Catherine Hale Duvalier had been a cold, aloof woman that had kept all at arm's length. The only reason Jack had gotten to know her was because of his little quip about taking the car to Las Vegas. Nettie had possessed a wicked sense of humor and had welcomed someone to trade barbs with.

A letter from the law office of Hebert, Leblanc & Roberts arrived, addressed to Jack Duvalier, so he drove to the dingy office, located on West Congress Street, Lafayette, Louisiana.

There, Samuel Leblanc informed Jack that he was the recipient of Annette's estate. The home, the automobile, and a savings account of fourteen thousand dollars were now his.

Jack thanked the bone thin man, got in his car and simply went back to work.

X.X.X

An overheard conversation between Gus Voision, the mayor of DeGarde (and Herman's brother, the only reason Herman had a job at all) and one of the union representatives alerted Jack of the real estate available at the dead end of Highway 27. Gus had bought up several acres but was watching the value of the land plummet and continue to plummet each day that the construction was halted.

Jack went home, looked at a map of the plot of land, made a few calculations, and then made a decision.

The next day, he approached Gus and boldly offered the man two thousand dollars for the twenty five acres Gus had on hand.

"It's worth at least..." Gus tried to bluff.

"It's worth nothing right now and in two weeks you're going to have to cough up another three hundred in taxes on it," Jack said. "Tell you what. Forget it. You just keep losing your shirt on it."

After the two men struck a deal, Jack began construction on a bar. St. Elizabeth was not a dry parish, but Gus Voision belonged to the local Baptist Church and frowned on alcohol consumption and would not grant a liquor license to anyone in the DeGarde proper.

Joseph Gemelli, the mayor of Bender, Louisiana, however, would happily give Jack the license, and give Gus the finger.

Jack named his new bar the 'Dead End Bar.'

Chapter 2

Jack patterned the Dead End Bar after the bars of the French Quarter, in New Orleans. The drinks were watered down and over-priced, the music was supplied by a tinny sounding juke-box, and a low stage had not so young women dancing and shimmying out of their clothes.

Up front, the girls adhered to the letter of the law. Areola was discretely covered by pasties and pubic hair was covered by cloth. In the 'Hurricane Room' however, the only laws were dictated by the dancers. If they were okay with peeling the adhesive pasties off and letting their customer see their nipples, they would peel the pasties off and let their customers see their nipples. If they felt like peeling out of their panties and letting the customers see their pussies, they would peel off their sweaty panties. All of this, of course, came at a price above and beyond the twenty five dollar 'room fee.'

It was rumored that a few of the women would even have sex with customers, for exorbitant prices. It was only rumored, though. No one actually knew of anyone that would admit to paying the ridiculous price to have sex with a pudgy woman that looked tired and reeked of cigarette smoke. But they always 'heard of this guy that...'

When labor again began on Highway 27, Jack even took to opening at eleven thirty to provide hot meals at reasonable prices for the crews. He was also gentleman enough to allow the construction men to use his restroom and didn't charge them for the use of the facilities.

Jack made the money back, in spades every Friday, just as soon as the men got paid. The girls also made money, hand over fist, on Fridays.

"Eating steak on Friday, bologna sandwiches on Monday," he smirked as he counted out the tally.

X.X.X

"Honey, you even old enough to be standing here?" he smiled at the unattractive red-head.

"Just turned twenty one," she assured him and put an obviously forged ID on the bar.

"Well, um, Penelope," he said, squinting at the card.

"Everybody calls me Penny," she said.

"Uh huh, well um, Penny, come on, how old are you really?" he asked.

"Nineteen," she admitted.

"Honey, eighteen's the age limit; why'd you bring me this useless piece of paper?" he asked, smiling at her.

"Damn it!" the girl snapped, face an angry splotch of freckles. "My stupid cousin Tammy said I had to be twenty one!"

"Well, Tammy sounds like a real genius," Jack smiled and pulled out a standard application form.

The girl bent to the task of filling out the application and Jack walked down the bar to one of the construction men.

"You ain't hiring that, huh?" the man asked, jabbing a finger at the girl.

"She's old enough," Jack shrugged.

"Uh huh, men will be paying her put her clothes back on," he sneered. "Now, give me six of them specials today."

"Its pork chops," Jack said and bent to the task of preparing the plates.

"Don't matter. Ain't none of my guys Jewish," the man guffawed.

X.X.X

Penny could dance, could really dance, but didn't make much in tips. The gangly, slender girl had small breasts and almost no waist hour hips to speak of. Her face was mottled by freckles and her hair was kinky carrot orange and stuck out at odd angles.

Only one customer, an extremely drunk man, had ever paid the twenty five dollars to have a private audience with Penny. He did leave with a large smile on his face and Penny looked extremely uncomfortable for the rest of that evening.

The other girls were pleasant enough; she was no real competition, but they didn't encourage her either.

"I must really be stinking up the place," Penny said dejectedly as she nursed a Dixie longneck.

"Don't know what to tell you," Jack shrugged. "Hell, I think you're pretty enough."

"Come on Jack; give it a rest, huh?" Penny said tiredly. "You don't even look at me twice."

"When you up there dancing? I'm looking, I'm looking plenty," Jack assured her. "Want another beer?"

"Nah," she said, wandered over to the juke-box and dropped a nickel in.

"Know how to cook?" he asked her when she sat back down.

"Yeah; my mom made me cook supper every night for my three brothers," she said. "Dad ran off so my mom had to get a job; works for Dr. Prentiss, the dentist. Isn't that funny? Prentiss the Dentist. Almost sounds like he should be on the Saturday morning cartoons, huh?"

"So, here's what we're going to do," Jack said.

X.X.X

One Saturday, Jack asked Penny if she'd like to get together and do something on Sunday.

"Like what?" she asked, scrubbing down the grill.

"Hell, I don't know, um, how about a picnic?" he stammered.

"Wait a minute, you mean, like you and me, out? On a date?" she asked, looking up from the hot grill.

"Well, yeah, what'd you think I meant?" Jack asked.

"I don't know, I just figured," she shrugged.

"Hey, I told you, I think you're plenty pretty," he said.

"Yeah, but I mean, you're what, thirty or something?" Penny asked, turning off the overhead fan.

"Twenty eight," he admitted.

"Yeah, I guess so," Penny shrugged. "What time?"

"Pick you up at eleven?" he asked.

"Okay," she said.

X.X.X

She wore a pale yellow sundress for their picnic. She even had her unkempt hair pulled back and clipped down with a single silver hairclip.

He drover her out to Baylor Lake, claimed an area for them, put a blanket out, then smiled as he pulled two kites out of the trunk of the car.

"You are kidding!" she laughed.

"Bet I can get mine up higher than yours," he challenged.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, she was the same height as he.

"So, what do I win if I get mine higher than yours?" she asked as the wind from the nearby Gulf of Mexico buffeted the two kites.

"A kiss," he decided.

"And if you win?" she asked.

"A kiss," he said.

"So either way, you win," she said.

"And you do too!" he protested.

"Nah, I'm kissing some old guy. You're the one kissing a sweet, innocent nineteen year old girl," she smiled.

"Right now, I'm not so sure about that 'sweet' bit," he groused.

"I can be very sweet when I want to be," she assured him, and kissed him on the cheek.

X.X.X

Jack and Penny married three weeks later. Of course there was much speculation that the two 'had' to get married. The speculation was wrong but Jack knew no amount of protestation would change that opinion, so he didn't try. For her part, Penny would just shrug whenever any of her mother's friends would ask the circumstances of their hurried wedding.

"He just couldn't wait one more minute to get to my hot pussy," Penny would say, and then smile sweetly at the scandalized expressions on their faces.

"Penny, really, must you?" her mother would huff.

"Mom, those bitches come up, all smiles and sweetness. All they want is some juicy gossip. Good church going women? I hardly think so," Penny would laugh.

"For me, all right, for me, stop saying 'pussy;' it's so vulgar," her mother demanded.

Mrs. Scandurro stopped mother and daughter in the butcher's shop and snidely asked about the hurried wedding.

"I promised my mother I'd quit telling you nosey bitches that Jack couldn't wait to fuck my hot pussy, so I'll just tell you he couldn't wait for me to suck his cock but knew I wouldn't put my mouth anywhere near it unless we were married," Penny said.

Mrs. Scandurro fainted. Penny's mother just looked at her daughter, shook her head, and walked out the shop, still clucking her tongue at her daughter's impertinence.

The butcher, however, was laying across his counter, laughing hysterically.

"Mrs. Duvalier, here, here's a rib eye, on me," he finally hooted. "You and your husband enjoy it; it's a wedding present from me, all right?"

"Mr. Early; we won't buy our meat from anyone but you, hear?" she promised and took the free rib eye and the rest of the meat purchase for the Dead End Bar.

Chapter 3

November 23, 1963, America watched, stunned, as their President was slain. When the numbness wore off, the tears began.

In Lafayette General Hospital, Penny Duvalier sweated, cried, sobbed, and groaned and finally gave birth to Victoria Annette Duvalier. Because of the complications, the doctor performed an emergency hysterectomy on the young mother, but declared the child to be of fine spirits.

"It's a girl," the nurse told Jack and he sobbed with relief.

Behind him, the television screen continued to show the horrible images from Dallas, Texas.

When he was allowed to see his wife and daughter, Penny tearfully told him that they'd have no more children.

"Who gives a fuck?" he said, shocking the nurse. "Damn it, Honey! You're alive! My little girl's alive! Yeah, we both wanted five or six brats but so what? You're alive!"

"I love you, Old Man," she said.

"And I love you, Sweet Bit," he said.

X.X.X

Vicky grew up behind the bar. She was potty trained by her mother and the five dancers. She learned to ride her bicycle in the asphalt parking lot. When she learned her 'ABCs' she learned to spell all the brands of whiskey, vodka, gin, and rum sold at the Dead End Bar.

Hot Dogs were added to the menu of the bar, as was macaroni and cheese and tater tots.

Vicky was heartbroken when she had to start attending school. At five years old, the skinny red head was already an old soul, and didn't fit in very well with the children of St. Richard's Elementary School.

The cafeteria workers thought it was a hoot when the kindergarten student asked for a 'Jack and cola,' and frowned when they handed her a small carton of milk.

"Cow juice?" she asked, wrinkling her face. "Who drinks this stuff?"

"You do," Sister Bernice snapped.

When she refused to eat the carrot salad, Sister Lucille snapped that there were children starving in Asia that would love to eat the food Vicky was so carelessly wasting.

"Then box it up and send it to them 'cause I'm not eating it," Vicky snapped back.

X.X.X

The Vietnam War was a cauldron of mishaps and misfires. Many of the soldiers were returning to hostilities in the United States that were almost as vicious as the hostilities they'd endured in battle.

The Dead End Bar, however, welcomed the young men of DeGarde and Bender with a free meal and a free beer. Most of the dancers would welcome the battle weary and battle hardened men with a hug and a kiss.

"I salute you," Jack would say to them, and would indeed give them a sharp salute.

Because of the harsh welcome others would give them, however, many of the Vietnam veterans of DeGarde and Bender slipped out of society. The Dead End Bar was a refuge to them.

By 1970, the Dead End Bar was a biker hangout. Most of the bikers were Vietnam Vets. Some were into heavier things than watered down booze.

Because of the bikers, and some of the heavier things the bikers were interested in, the DeGarde and Bender Police Departments also took an interest in the Dead End Bar.

One of the officers, glancing at the wedding photograph that Jack and Penny so proudly displayed behind the bar studied the man's face carefully.

Charles Villeaux then went back to the office and looked over a file that had been sent to the DeGarde Police Department in 1961.

He found the police report in the rear of all the dispatches sent in from the New Orleans/Orleans Parish Courthouse.

JimBob44
JimBob44
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