Billy Luck, Episode 3: Cruisin’ the Tenderloin

Heading for Billy Luck

Alison Heasley

The last episode found Billy and his hustler pal Jed Harris bound for Washington, D.C. on a Greyhound bus…

Harris shook Billy awake, as the silver ship slid down a watery green and pink
river of neon tubing, L Street over to the back door of the New York Avenue Greyhound terminal. Somebody’s transistor radio was crackling, “Rockin’ In The Same Old Boat,” a recent Bobby “Blue” Bland cut. The driver was way too beat to tell them to turn it down. The air brakes screeched, announcing the bus’ lurching halt.

Harris and Billy squeezed to the front accordion doors, and Harris suddenly gulped. There to greet him, most unexpectedly in pink salmon stretch pants, Hawaiian print blouse held low and open with a cheap gold-colored buckle, and dirty blond beehive pulled up under a ripped purple stocking, was the dancer Elaine.

“We-ell, Elaine, ” Harris grimaced with his best fake salutation, “allow me
to introduce, Billy, uh Billy LUCK_–”

“Yer’ latest prodigy?” queried Elaine.

“C’mon,” roared Harris, edgily. “Let’s go hit on the Burger Ville, ’cause
my stomach is callin’ me some kind of names!”

Ted Briscoe, the station rent-a-cop, stopped poking Little Jerry, a raincoat-clad
wino diving the lobby dumpster, long enough to hook the sleeve of Harris’
polyester dolphin-print disco shirt. He growled, “I’m watchin’ you, boy..”

Harris turned sharply into Briscoe’s pug face. “I stopped bein’ a boy quite
a while back, sucker,” and the trio whipped through the revolving door
from the depot into the Burger Ville. Grease was redolent.

“Whattya want, Billy,” smiled Elaine suggestively.

“How about a short stack with Bacon,” Billy murmured.

“Real country boy, huh?” Elaine made tentative eye contact with the
newcomer.

“Shoot,” groaned Harris. “Who da hustler, here, anyway?”

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