The Dead Guy Road Trip Church

Neil Zawicki

Desert peaks decorated the funeral hall. No one mentioned it, but everyone noticed. As the people shuffled in, the stepmother of the guest of honor stood in a high-dollar business suit, emphatically thanking everyone for coming. His real mother sat quietly in the front row, staring. There was no casket. Instead, there was a stout, wooden altar. Draped across it was a white cloth, on top of which sat a basketball, a pair of diving fins, and a chessboard. John Looked over at Luke and asked, "what are we doing here?

1

The Lusty Lady is in downtown Seattle, on Pike Street. It’s a series of booths along a narrow corridor made of painted plywood. The floor is dull and scuffed, and each booth has a little window that, after feeding it quarters, opens to reveal a room full of naked women lazily dancing to Bon Jovi music. The window only stays open for around 13 seconds, so, naturally, many quarters are required. The Lusty Lady is frequented by bums, drifters, and fish-ripe sailors. Ryan Juke was a good-looking kid from Arizona who spent his college days blasting Doors music and smoking hoot. Tonight, he was a patron of The Lusty Lady. This was due to the fact that he had willingly joined the ranks of the bums, drifters, and fish-ripe sailors. He did this just to say he had done it. He and his companion Luke Schuter were reporting for work on a fishing boat the next morning—the first for Ryan and the second for Luke—and so thought they would hit The Lusty Lady, for no more than the novelty of it. At the moment, Luke was in the same booth as Ryan, which caused one of the women to stop dancing and address the pair.

“Okay guys,” she said, leaning into the tiny window, naked. Her accent was unmistakably southern.