Brandi Bunko works the Vavoom Room at the Tattered Top Hat Club on Iberville Street, between Bourbon and Royal. It’s next to the bar where the B-girls are really transvestites. Brandy Bunko is a woman. She will show you for a small fee.
Paisley Malone is a nice name for a woman. That is why she chose it herself. Her other choices were Incense or Pepper Malone. Pepper Malone is a spicy name.
Paisley also works the Vavoom Room because, after all, Paisley is a real woman, not a passable transvestite. She is genuine. She harbors no surprises. The pleasure of her company is pure afternoon delight. She works the dayshift before Brandi Bunko starts her shift. The two make small talk at shift change but they’ve never been close.
They do share an admirer. This fellow shows up about an hour before Brandi is due. If Paisley is free, he buys her a drink and they retire to one of the curtained rumpus rooms in back. They talk about macroeconomics. Paisley is smart for someone so big-breasted. Everybody thinks she’s an airhead until she opens her mouth.
If Paisley isn’t free, this mook will sit in the corner and mope until Brandi shows up. If Brandi is already booked for her time, it ruins this poor guy’s day. He goes somewhere else. No one at the Tattered Top Hat knows where he goes. Maybe he goes to the transvestite bar next door.
Truth be told, this unnamed gentleman prefers the company of Brandi to the company of Paisley. Brandi is more his type. He and Brandi talk about microeconomics. Brandi is as smart as she looks.
Brandi Bunko is her stage name. Her real name is Margaret. She is named after a bar in Birmingham, Alabama. The Margaret in Birmingham is a New Orleans-themed bar where Brandi Bunko’s parents met. She says that it’s because she is named after this bar that she ended up a B-girl at the Tattered Top Hat. She is hoping to break into the burlesque circuit next.
Brandi Bunko is a fitting name for a fan dancer.
Margaret Bunko has a daughter. Margaret is married to Case Officer Jerry Bunko, of the CIA. She has not seen Jerry in years. He is on special covert assignment. She is very proud of him because his country is depending on him.
The daughter’s name is Pepper.
Pepper is eight years old. She attends the Bricolage Academy on Esplanade Avenue, in the former John McDonough High School building.
A majestic limestone staircase leads up to the front doors of Bricolage Academy. John McDonough’s front doorstep from his house is embedded in the limestone staircase, right in front of the double doors. It has been trod on, unnoticed, by generations of students.
Brandi Bunko had never noticed the top step when she picked up or dropped off little Pepper at school. The limestone is tan and the granite is gray, why no one notices this is a mystery.
It was the man who likes to talk microeconomics who told Brandi about John McDonough’s front stoop. He is an alumni of the old John Mac. Go Trojans!
When Margaret told her daughter, Pepper told her teacher. The teacher told the principal, who announced it over the PA system. Classes were temporarily suspended and everyone gathered in front of the school to marvel at the top stair.
Pepper was a hero.
B-girls meet all sorts of people who know all sorts of things. It is not always slap-and-tickle in the rumpus rooms in back when the curtains are drawn. Every B-girl will tell you that most of their customers are lonely men who just want to talk, who just want a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on.
Brandi asked Paisley if their mutual admirer had told her about the John McDonough step.
“Nah,” Paisley said, snapping her gum. “All he ever wants to talk to me about is Keynes vs. Hayek. He’s a Hayekian. Every sensible person is. I think that’s the only reason he likes talking to me, because I’m a Hayekian, too. It can get lonely at night when you’re a Hayekian.”
A gentleman of a certain persuasion can get a lot of bang for his buck at the Tattered Top Hat Club, especially if he buys a girl an overpriced drink for the chance to talk to her in the Vavoom Room in back. Most days in New Orleans are spent rolling in clover.
A B-girl learns a lot of things on the job. Not every day, but every day she learns a little something new. It could be anything. People talk about all sorts of things when they are talking to a B-girl in the Vavoom Room.
It is not only men who visit the Tattered Top Hat Club. Men from all walks of life go there to talk to someone who seems to care. They need to share, to be understood. Everyone could do with some sympathetic stern advice. That is one of the skills a B-girl brings to her job. Women visit B-girls, too. Not many do, but enough for it not to be mentionable unless someone brings it up. The girls never know what people will say.