She's back.   Like a missing breath of fresh air, Frankie's been gone from C-Mowes and  the St Louis Metro East Club scene for five years.   Then suddenly, I'm back in the club for a macho mug and to reclaim a little lost History.  After all it is here that I met the girl who would become the main female character in my novel, "Death on the Wild Side".  Her name--at least in the book--was to become Lori Mellon.  And tonight I came in with Lori alright.  But a different Lori---a striking ex bartender from Visions.

Suddenly a girl runs up to us.  I hug her as she hugs me back.   Personality plus, she's eager to meet new friends and it's Lori I introduce her to. 

But Frankie and I have been old friends.  It was back in the days that are now just memories.  Yet Frankie's much more than just a memory.  She was there when I first started writing the novel.  Remembers it when it was only a thin manuscript.

"How's the novel doing?"  Frankie asks me.  

"It's done.  I published it five years ago."

"I want to read it.  I want to read it so badly," Frankie exclaims and means it.   Because back then when I was taking Lori Mellon out, Alex was working here at C Mowes with Frankie and since then Alex and I have become great friends.  

I come here often because C-Mowes recalls experiences I have had at no other place.   Place used to be like a home.   Although the bar has been redone it still oozes all those things that happened---to be encapsulated in a novel the focus of which has often been this bar.   The music recalls those old days but the girls are different.  It's no longer the same.  Sad in a way.  

This time I'm with a different Lori, one who would never put me in jail the way Lori Mellon once did.   A far better Lori.  And now, it's Frankie, who was once a part of it all---of that swirling action packed series of adventures when things sometimes went right but usually went wrong.  No fault of hers.   But she was there, a confident and part of it all.  And now that she's back, the best news of all.  

Alphapro and C Mowes needs a girl to anchor the new cast.   And there's no one better than Frankie to be a bridge between the past and the present.   A club close by has lost much of its original luster.   Another has been bought out by a large gentlemen's club consortium.  But it's here where many old timers still come.   I tell Frankie about my new digital cameras.  She wants to do a photo shoot.  We are on. 

A week later I arrive at the club after midnight which is good enough for two macho mugs.   Frankie's there so I mention the photo shoot.  "When do you want to do it?" she asks. 

"How about tomorrow?"

She's off the next day and evening.  Wants to do the photo shoot as badly as I do.  It's on.   But the next day ends up being a marathon.   We are about half way through the photo shoot at Jack's Hang Over Haven when Lori, the World's Best Bartender Instant Messages me from her computer---or was it the other way around? 

That's the thing about the St Louis Metro East Club scene.  You just never know what's going to happen next.  Lori insists that we visit her in New Athens.   Now you got to understand something about Lori----the quintessential Alpha female.  She's damn hard to refuse.   She rushes our photo shoot.   And Frankie and I head to New Athens, the Home of The Goddess.  That's Lori.  

Who proves to be a damn good cook too.   And those drinks she made as we sat around two computers all of us online?  Well...what can we say.  She's the World's Best Bartender and I'm not the only one saying it now that Frankie's been made a believer.  But we are going to have to hang one on Lori lest she become too big-headed.  She kept both of us up all night long.  And the next day.  So now Frankie and I are so damn tired that we decided to put this web page up.  After all, that takes less energy than cutting the grass. 

Alex would be proud of us.  Where is she?  We are online and she must be taking a shower.  Frankie's not seen her for years.  Or as Frankie puts it:  "She's awesome."  But that's the way this place used to be---with girls like Alex and Frankie working here.  And now......it's time to write a new chapter.

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