A writing experiment


Who She Is: Queenie Parker

Queenie is a 68 year old maven who has been around the block a time or two and is the hard-core lady owner of Queenie’s Bar in Reno City.  Queenie is a bit rough with BIG white hair and arms like a wrestler (which she may have been in a previous life), and nobody messes with Queenie.  Her voice is as big as her hair and deep from too many cigarettes over her lifetime, although she quit several years ago at doctor’s orders.  Queenie owns the bar but is not a heavy drinker; again, that is in her past, but she can knock a few back now and again, if the mood is right.  Queenie is more about MONEY$, and she has an eagle eye for the dollar bill, so she runs a tight ship.


Back in the day, Queenie was a beauty and quite the toast of the town, chased by men but good buddies with the hard-drinkin' Moms who needed a night (or morning or afternoon) away from the kids, beautiful ladies from the 60s with bouffant hairdos, who smoked cigarettes, and wore dresses and heels in which to do housework. 

Nowadays, Queenie's establishment itself is clean but not fancy and respectable enough for most of the day, but later on in the evening, the second floor is where the action is.  This is, more or less, a men’s club, with “exotic dancers”, and you can hear the music pounding after 9pm at night until about 2am.  There have been tales that other goings-on occur on the third floor of the establishment, but thus far, the men in blue have never been able to catch anything untowards in raids.  We’re not sure if it’s gambling or prostitution, drug peddling or all of the above, but Queenie’s looks squeaky clean until you go behind the green door, and you need a special key for that.

Some folks in town like Violet Hammond the town clerk and Rivers Fox the church organist have found themselves odd company by protesting the goings-on at Queenie's, with Dr. Steve tagging in, just to be near Rivers and get on her good side.  Queenie takes the protests in stride, "Don't they know that their protests is just good advertisement for me?"