The Gospel According To Slim: The Melody

She came from a small beach town but she dreamed of the city. She once went to one for university. But she doesn’t do that anymore. Her mum is sick. So they say. She got early retirement out of it but there was a huge court case around it. Make of that what you will. 
    Her mum named her Marilyn. She hated it. By day she was her mum’s full time carer and calloused target practice for her mum’s narcissistic ramblings. By night she danced at the Dollarino. She was always humming some song to herself. I always caught little bars of it as she passed by. Never could make out what it was. 
    The Dollarino mostly employed Eastern European girls who were like so many other someone’s and somewhere bounds on their way through Caine Town. Marilyn was the only girl who had some roots here. I never understood titty bars. Blokes splashing their hard earned cash just to leave with a hard on and a tonne lighter. Even the exceptions who paid for a little extra didn’t make all that much sense to me. Sex becomes a lot less sexy when you make it a transaction. 
    But whatever. 
    Who am I to judge? 
    Not like I weren’t spunking my hard earned cash either. The Dollarino was the only place open after midnight so it was obvious you’d find me there. 
    Marilyn fascinated me though. 
    Sad eyes know sad eyes. 
    She was the highest earner in the whole joint. She raked in thousands a night, all the girls looked up to her and she looked after them. Taught them how to take of themselves. She walked from podium to podium, hustler to brawler with her head held high and her varnished claws gleaming, ready to strike softly along the next suckers thigh, some poor lonely so and so in need of a little love. 
    Nature doesn’t punish the wicked. 
    It punishes the weak. 
    But what was that song she was always humming? I had to know. It had got stuck in my head and I found myself whistling it as I went about my day to day. For a time I couldn’t even remember where it had come from until she passed me one night and there she was again -- humming it! 
    That melody. 
    What was it!? 
    That night she stopped right by me and ordered a Bloody Mary. 
    “Hey Marilyn”
    “Hey Slim. Is tonight the night? You gonna have a dance?” 
    “Maybe next time” 
    “There’s never a next time with you” 
    “How you been?” 
    “Same old, same old” 
    “Not very interesting...” 
    “When does anything interesting happen around here...?”
    “True that,” I said. “Listen,” I continued, “what is that tune you’re always humming. It’s been stuck in me noggin’ for weeks.” 
    She stared right through me, as if she’d just walked into a memory absent of light. Nothing could be pictured. Only felt. 
    “I don’t remember”, she said. 
    A single solitary tear had risen in her right eye. She brushed it away. 
    “So why are you always humming it?” I asked. 
    She looked at the Bloody Mary that had just arrived. With a silent gulp she composed herself, sipped the Bloody Mary, sighed and then looked back to me. 
    “Every idealist needs something to whistle, Slim”, she said before taking another sip from the Bloody Mary, “when they’re disappointed.” She turned and went back to work.