It was about two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Donald Mays had finished catching up on his work, gone home, had lunch and changed into a pair of slacks and a polo shirt, and now he was going into Jim’s Bar, one of Conway Corners’ oldest drinking establishments. There probably wasn’t a business in the city that he did not visit once in a while, but Jim’s was one of the places he least frequented. Jim’s was simply a bar and it catered to people that Don didn’t mix with. Despite its name it was owned and managed by Jean, an obese, vulgar woman of fifty-some years who had been Jim’s widow for several years. It could sit about fifty people comfortably, twenty on stools at the bar and the rest at tables, but was seldom busy enough for anybody to feel crowded. It was perpetually smoky. Jean sold beer and booze. She didn’t bother stocking wine and didn’t sell food except for some pre-packaged sandwiches and the usual bar snacks. It was one of the businesses in the town which nobody in the Family owned any piece of and it was not a member of any business or civic organizations.
Donald saw Jean behind the bar with her bartender, Don. He took a seat at a table to his right, knowing that Jean would soon come over to find out why he was there. Angi, a waitress whom Donald did not know came and asked him what he wanted.
Donald looked at her. She was wearing a blue tank top and a pair of tight, almost knee-length off-white cutoffs. When she asked him what he wanted, he indicated that he would have a bottle of Budweiser. He didn’t drink a lot of beer, but he knew that the brews he would normally order were probably not available there. She took his order and brought it back.
“That’ll be three bucks,” she told him.
Donald handed her a five-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. She thanked him and left as Donald appreciatively admired the movement of her hips in the tight cutoffs.
In about two minutes, Jean walked by, her ever-present cigarette dangling from her mouth.
“What brings you in here, Mister Mays?” she asked, pronouncing “Mister” with a tone of false reverence.
“I wondered if you had a moment to talk with me,” he asked.
“You meet with all the business folks in town all the time. You make appointments to see them. Me, you just walk in and think I’ll just fall over myself for the chance of having an audience with a mighty Mays. Well, I know how to take an insult and read between the lines. Couldn’t run this place if I couldn’t. Whaddya want? I bet it’s about that new law that says we can all run around in our birthday clothes, ain’t it?”
Donald answered, ignoring the insult.
“Well, there are those who see this as an opportunity to bring more business into
‘Well, people tell me that you want Laura Lyon to run her coffee shop naked and she won’t do it. You want me to take my stuff off at this place?”
Donald blanched a bit about that last suggestion. He knew that one of the hazards of social nudity was seeing some people who looked better clothed unclothed and he wondered how much of the community plans had made it to Jean’s ears and what her sources were.
“I don’t know who might have suggested that to Laura,” he answered. “I know that she got that impression, but it wasn’t what we were talking about when we met with some of the business community Thursday. Whatever Laura does would be Laura’s choice, but I know that I certainly don’t expect business owners or staff to undress. It’s guests, visitors, we hope will be comfortable coming here and going about nude. Business owners and employees are something else. It would be nice if some did use their Bear rights, but that would bring up a lot of issues.”
“Hold on, Mister Mays,” Jean said, possibly with less sarcasm in the word “Mister”. Turning to Angi, she shouted across the room, ‘Angi, come here will you?” The younger woman complied.
“Do you know this man?” she asked her waitress.
“No, I don’t,” she answered.
“Well, Angi, this is Mister Donald Mays the Third. His family owns a fuckin’ lot of this town and a lot of the people -- but not me and not this place.” This emphasis on “Mister” was again clearly sarcastic. Jean went on with, “Donald, this is Angi McDowell. As you can tell, she is a waitress here.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Angi answered. “You’re some relation to C-Fred, I mean Connor, then?”
Nobody in the Mays family called Connor Fredricks, jr. by the nickname Angi had let slip, but Donald had heard it before. He replied, “Connor Fredricks, jr. is my nephew, yes. I guess that you must know him.”
“He works at Conway Market. He’s a nice kid and a good dancer.”
Donald was somehow a little surprised to hear that Connor was good at anything, but only added, “He’s my sister Barbara’s boy.”
Jean interrupted. “Well, that’s enough for the get-to-knows. Angi, you know that it looks like come Thursday that there won’t be any more laws making you wear clothes, aren’t you?”
“I’ve heard it. I hadn’t thought a lot about it. I still imagine that somehow it won’t happen or won’t last, but I guess I’m looking forward to it,” she answered.
“You looking forward to it? You want to show that chunky ass of yours off?” her employer asked.
‘No, I’m really more looking forward to seeing the guys. Connor said the first day it’s legal that he will walk to work completely naked and dress when he gets there only if his boss makes him. I want to see. Not just him, but I’m sure that there will be a lot of guys to look at.”
“But you want them to look at you?” Jean asked.
“Well, I don’t know how much I’ll give them to look at, but if I do and they see something, I guess they see something.”
“You want to work here naked?” her boss continued.
Angi answered with an emphatic, “No” then modifying her comment, “Well, I don’t think I’d want to do it right off, but maybe later after we see how it’s all going,” she answered.
Donald was impressed by her openness and Jean was surprised that Angi hadn’t given her a big, “Fuck you!”
“Well, this man here has suggested that nude waitresses might be a good idea to make this place more attractive to our town’s visitors,” she said. “What do you think of that?”
Donald cut in before Angi could answer.
“Calm down, Jean. Angi, that’s not what I said and it’s not what we were going for. We do want to make things as pleasant for our visitors as we can, but I suspect that nude servers in liquor establishments aren’t even going to be legal, probably not even in places with adult entertainment licenses. But naked customers likely will be legal and I was wondering what your attitude was going to be about them,” he said, looking at Jean.’
Jean paused for about five seconds. “Well, I don’t know for sure. I guess I’ll figure out when it happens, if it ever does. You know they said we could all run around topless a couple of years ago, but outside of a PETA protest by the packing plant once I don’t think anybody around here has been making use of that right. A woman fed her baby in here a year or so ago, but that’s different.”
Turning to Angi, she asked, “You ever gone topless yet?”
Angi was a little non-plussed at being asked so bluntly about her personal business, but answered, “Well, not in public really, but a bunch of us go late night swimming that way at Anderson’s Beach sometimes. That decision means that we can’t get in trouble if we get caught, but that’s not likely to happen anyway.”
“Well, you probably have booze to sell, so I’ll let you go. We can’t let these people get thirsty, you know. Not good for business,” Jean told her and dismissed her.
“Nice to meet you,
“When you’re through being a lech, you can get back to why you’re here.”
“Well, some of the people in the various business associations have been discussing the new era and how we can put Conway Corners on the tourist map better and I wanted to meet with you too since you’re also involved. Can you make a barbecue Monday night?”
“Don’t know. I’ve got a saloon to run. What are you getting at?”
He handed her a card. “Well, we’re having a barbecue and meeting at my cousin Edna’s place Monday night. If you can make it feel free to come over.”
Donald pointed to the card, “That’s the number to RSVP to, but if you can’t RSVP come on anyway.”
“Edna’s place? Up on that place called The Compound? That where you mean?”
“That’s right. You know where it is, don’t you?”
“Oh, I know where it is, all right. I’ve driven by it a lot of times. But I’ve been in this town for almost forty years and nobody has ever envited me to anything there. I suppose that you think I’ll just fall over myself at being envited to see that famous Compound of yours and make that barbecue, don’t you?”
“Well, it’s up to you. I’m just hoping to keep communication in the business community good so I came to tell you about it,” he replied as he got up and extended his hand. Jean did not seem to see the hand, so he turned and left.
