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The year was 1926, and Nelly was spending as much time as possible at the clubs. She was always trying to find a companion to spend her nights dancing with (and to buy her drinks). Her family, however, did not approve. Mainly because the last time she met someone at the club, she ran away and didn’t come back for a month. Gerty had insisted on supervising her, which only lasted two days. As it turns out, Gerty didn’t particularly like spending all night in a crowded, noisy, dark room. Especially considering how it absolutely ruined her sleep schedule, leaving her unfit to run the shop the next day. Jenny June seemed like an obvious fit, until it turned out that she didn’t particularly care for the music at the club, and as such refused to dance. And being the only sober person in the room bringing home a delirious little sister is never a good time.
So it was John N’s turn to watch Nelly at the club. Now John N didn’t particularly care for clubs. He didn’t care much for people in general. But if it was for the sake of his older sister, he would find a way to endure it. He was nervous, he didn’t get out much. If it wasn’t to watch Jenny June’s latest dive or to find a new animal friend, he didn’t want it. Thinking of his animals gave him an idea, he turned to Moses’s glass terrarium (it was actually a vivarium, but whatever). “Moses?” The ball python raised its head, acknowledging his name. “How do you feel about a little field trip?”
The python slithered out of his glass cage, wrapping himself around John N’s arm. “Ssseemsss like fun.” Moses adorned John N wonderfully, like a garland on a christmas tree, except for it was a ball python wrapped around a 16 year old boy's clavicle like a chunky necklace. The resulting bold fashion choice could pass as a very crude scarf, or very abstract to an art major. John N, feeling very confident in his newfound zoological garment, walked into the living room.
Gerty sat in a chair, looking at a book. The cover said Main Street by Sinclair Lewis but upon closer inspection she had removed the dust jacket of Main Street and put it on a different book. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. John N personally thought that it wasn’t a book at all, and was just some blank journal she held up to her face to people-watch and eavesdrop. Sure enough, as soon as he entered the room she kept the book in place, but he could feel her staring at him. He idly wondered how long she had been sitting there pretending to read before he walked in, but he kept that thought to himself.
"How long do you think it'll take before Nelly is actually ready to go?" John N fully turned to face Gerty. She placed her book on the table, fully abandoning any pretenses of reading. John N noted the cold cup of tea sitting dangerously close to the edge and scooted closer to fix it.
"Hopefully not too much longer, I've been sitting here for 17 minutes and 45 seconds." Gerty took the cup from him and took a sip before making a face and giving it back to him. John N chose to ignore the fact that she had been timing how long she was there to the second and took a sip instead.
He grimaced after swallowing. All of the honey had separated and sunk to the bottom of the tea leaving it bitter."Should I bring my jacket or would it be a bit much?" He handed the tea back to Gerty. She raised an eyebrow before grabbing the cup.
"You're going out like that?" She took an extended drink from the cup while eyeing him. John N adjusted his sweater before taking the cup from her.
"Well what's wrong with what I'm wearing now?" He took another sip of tea. It hadn't gotten better. He handed it back to Gerty.
"Wearing white to the club doesn't seem like a particularly good idea." Gerty finished her tea. "Also I'm not sure if they allow ball pythons."
"It's a scarf."
"I can see his face."
"No you can't." John N took Gerty’s glasses.
“Now John N, that is just disrespectful!” Nelly walked into the room, observing the not-unusual scene. She glanced at John N's bold attire, paused, glanced back, and burst out laughing. “Did Moses want a drink?”
John N was tired of defending his totally normal neck decorum. “Did you lose your other shoe?” Nelly looked down at her feet, indeed only sporting one heel.
“Yes, actually. What’s the problem anyway? Jenny June goes out fully barefoot all the time.” Nelly put her hands on her hips as if it would somehow solidify her point (it did).
Gerty sighed dramatically, pointed towards the couch, and picked up her book. Nelly turned her head to see her other shoe very obviously poking out from under it. She quickly picked it up and shoved it on her right foot. She glanced at the clock on the wall.
“Well we’d better get going, we don’t wanna miss the crowd!”
“I would, actually, like to miss the crowd.”
“If you don’t hurry up I’m going without you!” Nelly grinned and ran down the stairs.
Gerty pulled her book away from her face for a moment. “Don’t let her leave without you.” She returned her book to its place as John N attempted to hurry after Nelly.
They got to the club very quickly on account of their neurodivergence. They were not running on account of Nelly’s awful choice in footwear. When they walked to the entrance, the bouncer waved at Nelly.
"Your brother, I'm assuming?" He gestured to John N. “Nice scarf, by the way.”
Nelly giggled, “Oh, it’s not a scarf, it’s a-”
“Shawl!” John N hurriedly adjusted Moses to assure his face couldn’t be seen. “It’s a shawl! But I wrapped it into a scarf, I think it looks rather dashing with my glad rags.” He gave an awkward smile, praying that he didn’t misinterpret Nelly’s gratuitous slang use. He turned to her, ignoring the bouncer’s mildly amused face. “We should hurry in, right? You’re the one who didn’t want to miss the crowd.”
Nelly made that face she makes when she knows something’s up but she doesn’t want people to know that she knows (she’s not very subtle). “Well alright then, I never took you to be such a darb.” The bouncer sighed as if this is a normal and charming exchange and not a decidedly bizarre and illegal confrontation.
He opened the door and practically pushed them inside. “Have fun, but not too much- actually, do have too much fun!” He laughed at his own incredibly lame joke as the door swung shut behind the dynamic duo (troublesome trio). The club was loud, cramped, dark, and sweaty. John N was feeling very constricted and it wasn’t because of the ball python around his neck.
Nelly started pulling him in the direction of the bar. “What you need is some giggle juice!” He silently shuffled behind her as she sauntered up to the bar with the confidence of someone who pregamed the prohibition. She pushed, shoved, and elbowed their way to the front of the bar, pulled two unlucky clubgoers off of their stools, and shoved John N into the seat before he could ask if they were ok.
The barkeep looked at Nelly and laughed at her silly little antics instead of chastising her criminal activity. “Eleanor Elizabeth Fail, did you drag your brother over here to be your meat shield?”
“Well as a matter of fact, no, I didn’t. He’s my chaperone.”
“And here I thought Mr. Johnathan Nicholas was younger than you, but you say he’s a chaperone?”
“Sir, my name isn’t Johnathan. Or Nicholas.”
“Well name isn’t Sir, it’s Dodd, but that didn’t stop you. Now tell me, how old are you?”
“Well if I knew I would tell you.”
“Oh that’s right! You don’t have a birthday!” Nelly put down the drink she was holding.
Dodd paused and looked at her. “You didn’t order yet.”
“Oh yeah! Two highballs, thank you very much.” She slid one dollar over and leaned on the counter in a really bad impression of someone who was good at cards. “And the one I have right now is from the previous seat warmer.” She gestured vaguely towards the floor, where the patrons she assaulted still lay, crying.
John N craned his neck to look at the pair. “Sorry about my sister.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine but nobody cares.
Dodd pushed two glasses to the pair. Nelly swallowed hers in one second, ice and all. John N took a sip and gagged. “I think there’s mold in my glass.”
“There’s mold in all the glasses, I make the booze in a bathtub. Your sister is running off by the way.”
John N jerked his head back to see Nelly running into the crowd, arm in arm with the guy who’s chair she stole. "Oh my god, not again."
He dropped his drink onto the face of the guy who said he was fine. He was really having a bad day. As he got up to start following the lovebirds, Moses whispered in his ear.
"Wasssssn't it your one job to watch your sssssissster?"
“If you don’t shut up, I’m not going to bring you with me next time.”
“If you don’t hurry up, you’ll never go out again.”
John N chose to ignore that disrespectful comment and zeroed in on Nelly and the guy awkwardly standing five feet to the left of the dance floor. “Nelly!”
“Johnny!” Ah, so she decided to pull out the classic nickname that was longer than his actual name.
“I see you found a walking wallet.”
“I have a name.”
Nelly put her finger on his lips. “Shhhhh, no you don’t.” John N was silently glad that he didn’t drink any of the mystery liquid from the bar. He turned his attention to the man glued to her side. He wasn’t particularly remarkable in any regard, in fact he was about as generic as a person could get. If John N didn’t know any better, he would assume that the guy was destined to be a nameless background character.
“So, you wanna take my sister home?”
“Oh thank god, I was worried you were her boyfriend.” The man extended his hand, “It’s nice to meet you sir-” The man didn’t finish his sentence before John N grabbed his forearm.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, you know, if you’re picking up Nelly, you’re picking up the whole family.”
“Your- sir your scarf is moving.”
Nelly, who had been oddly silent throughout the entire conversation, decided to pipe up, “Oh, it’s not a scarf, it’s a snake!” She grinned as if this was hilarious (it was). Unfortunately, her date didn’t agree as he screamed in terror at the idea. Also because Moses had jumped him.
“Get his ass!” A yell of encouragement was heard from across the club as someone naivley assumed that the man who got jumped was fighting another human and not a four foot long constrictor. John N was grinning from ear to ear as if he was making a scientific breakthrough and not watching a stranger be strangled by his pet. Nelly was only mildly annoyed by the turn of events. Sure she got away with taking his wallet scott free, but the dancing would probably be put on hold for tonight.
Indeed it was, as the bouncer from the front waded his way through the crowd to grab John N by the back of the collar and shake his head disaprovingly at Nelly as she bent down to grab Moses before he got trampled. They were quickly removed from the club, and to top it off, they made sure to point at the fact that John N was now blacklisted.
The three of them sat on the curb, pumped full of adrenaline. Despite the fact that they had only been in the club for about five minutes, they really just wanted to go home. As they picked themselves up, John N took one last look at the door. “Why didn’t you get blacklisted, you fought like, twelve people?”
Nelly giggled, “Well, they just can’t say no to my pretty face.”
“Okay, but you’re like, a criminal though…”
“John N, you just got us kicked out for sending your snake on a guy and you want to call me a criminal?” He sighed dramatically, this is not an argument he was going to win.
“Gerty is going to kill me when we get home.”
“Us, John N, she’s going to kill us.”