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Momma and the Hoochie Coochie Club Honorable Mention by Shannon Rulé Starkville MS Here comes my momma. She’s loaded for bear, I can tell. No use trying to run and hide, she can see me sitting right here on the front porch. I smile and wave wondering what on earth brings her to my house at 7 o’clock in the morning. She’s driving up the drive, takes a wide swing, and slams on the brakes scattering gravel and digging a rut. “Hi, Momma. You sure are out early,” I call out. I give a little push in the front porch swing and wait for her reply. “Get your shoes on. I need you to go with me,” she issues a command as she stomps her 110 lb frame up the wooden steps. “Well, Momma. I’m not quite ready to go out yet. What’s so important that we need to go somewhere right now? It’s 7 o’clock in the morning.” “Have you seen the front page of the newspaper?” she asks. “No Ma’am. Has the paper come already?” I ask the question tongue in cheek because she knows I’m not an early riser. She always quoted those sayings about early birds and worms but I never had a one minute’s desire for any worm. “Well then what are you reading out here on the porch?” she asks. “My Bible,” I respond and smile sweetly. “This is what is so important,” she continues. “They are going to open up a hoochie choochie club right down the road in that old run down beer joint, that honky tonk where they had that shootin’ last year. The paper says so right here on the front page!” She flips open her hand bag and whips out the newspaper. “Listen to this right here.” “There is no club in the state as nice as we are going to make this gentlemen’s club. You walk in this one and you are going to be amazed. There will be nothing in here that I wouldn’t show my mother.” “Gentlemen’s club?” she says with a huff. She looks at me incredulously. “Tell me, would he show his mother dancing naked ladies?” “There’s more. It says right here that there will be semi-nude dancing, that the hoochie choochie dancers will have to wear at least a G-string and pasties. At least a G-string and pasties? Well isn’t that just wonderful. Do you think for one moment that boy would bring home to his momma a girl wearing a G-string and pasties? I think not!” I smile at the mental image. Momma looks at me with eyes widened; she’s almost gasping. She slaps the newspaper on her thigh and says, “So, come on!” “Momma, I agree it is terrible. I don’t want that club here either but what do you propose that we do about it at 7 o’clock in the morning?” “We are going to go to that honky tonk and walk around it seven times and pray that it falls down. We are going to pray and ask the Sweet Lord Jesus to stop this sinful place from opening. Can you imagine? A place like this will destroy families; it sucks those men in and then they are goners before they know what hit ‘em, not to mention those poor girls. Where are their mommas? That’s what I want to know, where are their mommas?” “You want me to walk around that place seven times and it’s going to fall down? Are you sure about this?” I ask all the while knowing she is very serious and knowing that in a very few minutes I’m going to be putting my shoes on and walking around a broken down honky tonk seven times and waiting for it to fall down. At least it’s 7 o’clock in the morning and not too many people will be driving by. “If you don’t get those shoes on right now, I’m going alone,” she announces. “I’m afraid of that; I’m getting my shoes on,” I assure her. Within minutes we are in the car and she is gunning her Chevette out of my driveway spraying gravel again. We make the ten minute drive to the proposed den of iniquity where she pulls over and parks the Chevette. Exiting the car I ask, “How exactly do you want to do our march on Jericho?” “Well, you go first, ‘cause you walk faster. Just go around and pray that something, anything, will happen to stop this place from opening. Pray that no one will come if they do open. Pray that there are no hoochie choochie dancers within a hundred miles of this place, no make that five hundred miles. Keep a count; we have to go ‘round seven times.” “Okay Momma.” I take off doing my seven loop walk. I pray just like she told me and I think about my Momma who cares enough to get out and walk seven times around a broken down honky tonk to save families from destruction and men from wanton lust and poor young girls with no mommas. I think about her faith that this place will not open if she prays that it won’t. In my heart I don’t doubt her a bit. I’ve heard her prayers before. I’ve been the recipient of them. I finish my seven loops and return to the car to wait for her to finish. I look up and watch her round the corner; she swings her arms with purpose. After a while she returns and jumps into the driver’s seat. She looks as energized as she did when she first showed up at my house. “Now what?” I ask. “Now, I’ll take you home but you keep praying everyday. Okay? This place could tear families up, take good men down; not to mention those poor girls. They can all be ruined forever and they don’t even know it.” “Yes Ma’am,” I promise. “You know something else?” she continues. “What’s that Momma?” “I can’t help but think about that poor boy that’s planning this hoochie choochie club. You know he said he’d be proud to bring his momma here. What kind of an upbringing could a boy like that have had? I ask you? What kind of a momma? Let’s pray for that boy and his momma too.” “Sure, Momma,” I promise again. The ride home is quiet and I think about what Momma said. I think about that man’s life and his mother. Momma was right; his momma must be very different than my momma. I wonder what would make a person want to open a hoochie coochie club in some broken down honky tonk out in the middle of nowhere. Money, I guess. Over the next few weeks I think about the club now and then and pray that it won’t open. I especially think about it when I pass by the old broken down honky tonk and I see construction going on. A few months later, the hoochie coochie club opened. Momma was heartsick. We continued to pray about the hoochie coochie club, the men with wanton lust, the families that are going to be destroyed, the hoochie choochie dancers with no mommas, and the man that opened the club and his mother. Sometimes we talk about it. “Momma I heard that man has a lot of money. It’s gonna be hard to stop him. I’ve read he covered all his bases. The county doesn’t have an ordinance against clubs like that.” Momma is not deterred one bit. “There must be a reason the Sweet Lord Jesus let that club open. We just don’t know what it is. Not now we don’t.” “I’m sure Momma. I’m sure that you are right. There’s some reason,” I assure her. I write a few letters to the local newspapers in the area protesting the club. Momma’s proud that we’ve taken a stand. There’s a fair amount of ribbing about my momma and me fighting the hoochie choochie club, especially after calling it a “dancing naked lady club” in the paper. When you think about it, it does sound pretty silly a bunch of ladies getting naked and dancing around. Momma and I talk about G-strings and personal hygiene and wonder if they wash the seats where the G-string ladies sit down. We laugh knowing all the while the situation is pretty sad and we wish it weren’t in our county. Later that summer, Momma died and went to be with her Sweet Lord Jesus. I think about her ‘specially when I pass by the hoochie choochie club. I think about the day we walked around the old broken down honky tonk seven times and prayed it would fall down. One day I ran into an old friend; he was the jailer at the county jail. “Sarah, I was wondering if you could come down to the jail and talk to a young girl. She needs someone to talk to and I’ve been thinking about you. She’s in trouble, looking at doing some time at the pen and she’s got a couple of kids. She’s only twenty-two years old.” I think for a minute then he adds, “She was a stripper at that club out on the highway.” For a minute it takes my breath away. “Sure, I’ll come,” I tell him. I think about my momma. She wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to help out one of those poor girls from the hoochie coochie club. I wondered where the man that owned the hoochie coochie club was, the man with all the money. Did he try to help the poor girl out? Probably not. We settle on the when and I go to the jail to see the hoochie choochie dancer, one of the girls my momma prayed for. I tried to prepare myself and considered what I might say but I couldn’t be prepared for what I saw. The jailer took me to a young girl and called out her name. “Lisa, there’s someone to see you.” She turned and a familiar but sad face looked at me. I remembered her. She was the daughter of a young woman I remembered from my momma’s church a long time ago. “Hi, Lisa. I’m Sarah,” I introduced myself. We talked for a few minutes then I told her I remembered her mother. They were in my momma’s church a long time ago. “In fact I remember a baby shower that the church gave for your mother when she was pregnant with you.” Lisa smiled and looked at her feet. “Lisa, I’ve seen you around town over the years. I watched you grow up from a distance. You were always such a pretty girl.” She looked at me with big tears in her eyes and said, “Look at me now. I’ve really messed up my life. Look where I am. I got two kids, you know.” “Lisa, I look at you now and I see a child that the Sweet Lord Jesus loves. He cares for you. I’ve been praying for you and my momma did too. We just didn’t know it was you. I left that night with a million thoughts in my head. I thought about Lisa, about the hoochie coochie club, about the dancing naked ladies with no mommas, about the men with wanton lust, and about the man that opened the club and his mother. I thought about my Momma. I thought about Lisa’s two kids. I went back to see Lisa one more time before they transferred her to the state women’s prison. I promised her I’d write and that I’d check on her two kids. I promised I’d pray for her. I hugged her and felt her tears wet my shoulder. I promised myself I’d to go back to the hoochie coochie club and walk around it seven times praying that it would fall down, that no one would come to the club, and that there would be no dancing naked ladies within five hundred miles. I’d pray for those poor girls and their mommas, the men with wanton lust. I’d pray for the man that opened the club and his mother. I’d thank the Sweet Lord Jesus for my momma and ask him to watch over Lisa and her two kids.
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