by Annie Oakley
Sometime I would sit up in those rich men’s houses with their marble steps feeling like any second they would realize who I really was and kick me out, afraid I’d steal their shit. Which I did, but in return they got my body for an hour or two, so I don’t think they ever felt robbed. I would sit with them in restaurants, half dressed, pretending I knew what things were on the menu, knowing my only tool of power in the situation was their hard little dick under the table. I think the way I was made them feel like they were rebelling. At the same time they were correcting the way I talked, they were imagining taking me back home and how shocked and mad their parents would be. Whatever it was, I didn’t really care, because I got my shit.
It got old, though . . . pretty soon I felt played out. I couldn’t even find the dudes with money anymore. I never had a pimp, well, only the pimp that is working for an amerikan dream that will never quite fit in the hands of people like me. Wait, I lied. I had another pimp once, an older Italian man. He picked me up right at my front door in a Lincoln Continental one day. It didn’t take me long, even being young and impressionable, to realize it didn’t make sense to make your money touchin’ and fuckin’ nasty dick, only to have to give it back to some motherfucker whose nasty dick you have to touch and fuck too. It seemed stupid, like working for free and for what? Oh yeah, that’s right, for “protection.”
Let me tell you something, none of those johns ever pushed for more because they knew I wouldn’t hesitate to fuck them up. I never had to tell them that. I showed every one of them by the way I wasn’t afraid to look straight at them, and for whatever reason, whether fear or genuine respect, they never challenged it. See, when you tell most anyone that they have to pay for something they want hella bad, like, say . . . pussy, for instance, they’ll believe you. It’s about how you present the goods. If you hustle like you believe your shit is gold, they’ll believe it too. If you look them deep in the eye like you can see every inch of how bad they want it, they will melt in your hand. You know why? Because wanting things makes people feel weak. And when people feel weak for something they can somehow “obtain” they’ll do anything. But, when a motherfucker can smell your hustle because they got one too, that’s when you got a problem. And that’s when you watch a man drive away with your dignity; still confused, only half realizing what he’s just taken, but it’s already too late. That’s growing up though.
Fuck a pimp.
By definition: pimp n.: One who derives income from the earnings of a prostitute, usually by soliciting business.
And: prostitute (pros-ti-toot) n.: 1. One who solicits and accepts payment for sex acts, 2. One who sells one’s abilities, talent, or name for an unworthy purpose.
Take these words by definition, thinking outside of their traditional use, and relate them to the lives of those who’ve never sold their body for cash. I see my family, my people, every day in the position of selling their abilities, talents, and names for unworthy purposes. And these motherfuckers sittin’ up in Capitol buildings determining the future of my folks and soliciting their value are, yes, deriving income from the earnings of them. By definition, this country is the biggest pimp of ‘em all. Please, next time you feel for those women on the street in that alternate reality on the other side of town, take a moment, too, for my sisters in the maquiladoras makin’ your clothes, for my brothers picking your produce, my family washing your dishes and cleaning your house. Please take a moment for all the beautiful spirits that have been labeled criminals and thrown away into prison cells who deserve freedom. Please take a moment for all of those in the position of selling their abilities, talents, or names for an unworthy purpose—the appalling economic wealth of this country.
bella
Shoshana Von Blanckensee
It didn’t end that day on the roof when it should have. Bella didn’t come home for a few weeks, through Thanksgiving when I waited for her up in the hotel by the window. The following Monday a key in the door and here is Bella, dropping a big green duffle bag at her feet, looking sheepish and tired with her hair and eyes that change me. All my anger slips, my wanting shifts to the front of the line. We look at each other. I can see someone all over her, on her skin, and a new jacket that doesn’t belong.
“I need my stuff and half the money and I don’t want a big deal.” She holds one hand with the other and looks down at her feet. Her hair falls across her forehead, and I notice how greasy it is, like she hasn’t showered all week.
“Okay,” I say.
But after a moment of standing by the door, she moves towards me, pulling me by the wrist onto the bed covered in clothes. “Han-nah,” she whines.
“What?” I say. She doesn’t say anything. “What?!” I say again louder. I feel like a kid. I want to hold her and say mine! mine! mine! over and over again. But suddenly my face is in her hands the way she always does and her mouth is hot and all over mine, a sinking inside of me knocks and then echoes, like rings of water extending from a sunken rock.
This will be the last time and we both know it so I’m pissed. Bella is working it like her breakthrough Hollywood role; holding my face, pulling herself over me, my T-shirt over my head, taking me by the wrist again, pushing my hand up under her skirt, pushing her underwear aside, and how she stinks from no shower and god knows who, spilling into my palm a little, rocking over me, leaning on her arms straight like crutches, her hands planted on either side of my head, her mouth open some, her two front teeth and the shiny inside of her lower lip exposed, like we were still teenagers, in the dark, in her twin bed, in Long Beach, New York. I’m angry fucking her now. Saying, fuck, you, fuck, you, in my brain with every push and shoving the rest of my hand inside of her too fast.
“this is stupid,” I say, worming my way out from under her. It’s daylight. We’re in a shitty residential hotel in San Francisco. Bella’s been fucking some dummy, definitely a guy, I’m sure of it now. In over our heads is what we are. I untangle myself, pull my shirt back on, move towards the door.
“Our money’s still in the jar in the closet,” I tell her, swinging the door open. I walk out. The hallway sings to me because I’m leaving angry now. A high pitched electric song. Pushing the fire door open out onto Ellis and charging in any open direction. I tell myself to never think of her again. Never ever think of her again. I need to wash my hands.
The birds swerve around tires. Gridlock on a Monday afternoon downtown. Everyone getting home to their houses and money and kids. I see a woman on a cell phone fluttering a hand over the steering wheel to explain, then smoothing her hair in the rearview mirror. I want a car to get into. I walk up Ellis, past Mason, turning to glance at the neon lit-up leg of the Chez Paree. The stupid leg that had started all this trouble in the first place, luring Bella and me in, the second week after arriving in San Francisco. The rain hadn’t stopped for days and we were wandering, too close to out of cash—waiting till the last moment before making a fateful phone call home for help. But the call never happened. Huddling under an umbrella on the corner of Ellis and Mason we turned to see that leg, thick-thighed in orange light bulbs, kicking a red heel over the sidewalk below. Blurred by the rain the leg was more magic, more twinkle, more carnival than anything for miles. And we laughed a little. A double dare, her arm hooked in mine squeezing tighter.
I keep walking, past Reds, the dumb sports bar were I had propositioned Chris over a gin and tonic, past the Thai food restaurant with the long wooden bar to sit at, the cook rolling noodles and shrimp into the air from a giant pan. There’s mayhem on the sidewalk in front of me, a man in light blue jeans is shoving a homeless guy with two hands, real hard against his shoulders so he stumbles, catches himself and then barrels forward to shove him back. They’re both screaming “Motherfucker! You motherfucker!” at the top of their lungs. A woman in a too-big 49ers windbreaker is gathering all the stuff she was selling—men’s shoes, a bent-up package of batteries, a stack of records—raising her eyebrows up high and saying to no one in particular, “Ho-
ly shit! Ho-ly shit!” I make eye contact with no one. I maneuver my way through the three of them and keep walking. Ahead of me I see a bar. Nana Jimbo’s Lounge in pink cursive. And then I see a queen with big shoulders and a curly red wig cross the street and disappear under the sign. A gay bar? I pick up the pace, suddenly with a destination in sight, make a quick dart in front of a cab, past a sprinkling of boys outside of the liquor store and tuck into Nana Jimbo’s with my hands in my pockets, my eyes adjusting to the dark.
Nana Jimbo’s is a long skinny place, like most small businesses in the Tenderloin. A popcorn machine with red plastic baskets and then a long wooden bar extending down the left side. The right side with just room enough for some stools against a mirrored wall and at the end of the bar, the smallest stage I’ve ever seen painted black and no larger then a full size mattress. A beefy bartender with a sweet coarse face and a gray ponytail serves drinks to the queen who has just arrived and an old guy with a round back, his face almost touching the bar, and now me—sliding into a stool, pushing a red basket of popcorn onto the bar, and ordering a gin and tonic. I suck it down and order another one, eat with my hand that smells like Bella.
the hours run by as people filter in and out. Turns out the big beefy bartender is Nana Jimbo, which I find out pretty quickly because everyone who comes in here knows him by name. I also find out they have a poorly attended drag show every night of the week. I suddenly recognize two of the girls from around my neighborhood, under a spotlight that erases all the sad right off of them, making them smooth and sweet and brand new. It feels a lot like the Chez Paree, the magical way that a stage underneath you and a spotlight on you and a sweet strong song can change you. It had washed the thick-skinned junkie look right off of Lexi’s face. It had turned Bella’s hair more shiny, her eyes more green, and I’m sure it did something to me too.
At Nana Jimbo’s I hand dollar bills to the girls that get the least tips. The thicker girls, with big arms and rough faces, the ones that don’t pass, or have teeth that seem haphazardly placed. Then the MC announces, “Next we have the mesmerizing hypnotizing age defying wonder of wonders Nicki Delovely!” All the lights in the entire place turn off with the help of Jimbo who flips a switch behind the bar and then a spotlight comes up on the back of her, her brunette wig falling around her shoulders and a fully sequined dress with a matching shawl throws glittery light in my eyes and all over the walls. It’s a song I know real well. “Total Eclipse of The Heart.” Bella and I sang it over and over in the van on our way out to California, rewinding it to hear it again on the mix tape labeled Out the Door in ‘94. Bella had made us this tape, decorated the case with heart stickers, pushed it into the back pocket of my jeans while she pressed her lips against my cheek when I came to pick her up that very first day.
Nicki Delovely turns slowly towards the audience with big wet eyes and all this intensity, and I realize suddenly how old she is. Like late sixties or early seventies, but her eyes are wet and sparkly and she dances like a snake smooth and easy, then lurching forward with her hips every few moments to fly down the length of the bar, do an oozy turn, throw her arms up and dance her way back to the stage. She’s got her eyes on me. Every time she dances her eyes land on me. When she does “Witchy Woman,” she sings right into my face, flicking her foot onto my knee in a way that says, look at my panties and come on, crack a smile rugrat. I do crack a smile, but she must see the me way inside of here, how lost it feels.
at two in the morning the bar was closing and I was officially near sick on too much popcorn and too many gin and tonics. Nicki was wearing a fur coat and a purple scarf instead of a wig and carrying a suitcase with some blonde hair poking out of the corner. She stops in front of me, letting the suitcase drop to the floor.
“What’s your problem?” she asks.
I stretch my arm flat across the bar and lay my head on it. I feel shy. How do I answer a question like that?
“I don’t want to go home.”
She smiles at me and rolls her eyes, in a way that breaks my face, makes me smile right back.
“Where’s home?”
“The Ellis Street Hotel.”
“Well I wouldn’t want to go back there either. You having girlfriend problems?”
I blush. Surprised she hadn’t said boyfriend.
“Kind of,” I say.
She keeps smiling at me and I keep smiling at her. She taps her foot a few times, so I look down and see she’s wearing Keds. Really white ones, on surprisingly small feet.
“Come on,” she hands me her suitcase, “but you have to pay for the cab.” I stand up quickly, confused, grabbing her suitcase with two hands as she moves towards the door. She throws her hand up, tosses out a “Bye now Jimbo,” pushes the door open and spills us onto the dark street.
As I wobble behind her, holding her suitcase across my chest I go over the facts to make sure. She’s in her seventies, right? Or at least late sixties. She isn’t hitting on me right? She’s a tranny lady and how many tranny ladies really want to fuck twenty-year-old girls. Fuck girls half their age. Not even half, a quarter of their age, or a third or something like that. My eyes are bleary, and I put out my hand for a cab.
When we get out of the cab I follow her into the front hall of a giant apartment complex, the walls are white with fluorescent strip lights on the high ceiling above. It has a real clinical feel especially because I have to sign my name in a guest book and read the time off a giant clock behind the desk attendant and then record it next to my name, a huge feat for someone in my state.
Once we’re in the closed elevator I ask, “Where are we?”
“We’re in my apartment building, where do you think?”
“What kind of apartment building do you live in?”
“HIV positive section 8 housing, if you have to ask, but you can call it the International House of Pancakes.”
I think about it for a minute.
“Does that make you a pancake Nicki?”
“I guess it does.”
We don’t turn towards each other but I am laughing a little and I can see out of the corner of my eye, where Nicki is blurry and tired, I can see her smiling too, shaking her head from side to side like she’s sick of me already. We’re both quiet again for a moment until I get up enough nerve to ask.
“Why are you letting me stay with you? ”
She turns to me, maybe surprised, “I take in stray pups all the time,” she says.
“Oh” I say, when I really mean thank you or why?
“Don’t worry honey, I’m going to kick you right out in the morning.”
I smile, squeeze her suitcase tighter against my chest.
“You think I’m kidding, but I’m no-ot,” she sings at me.
Nicki sets me up on the couch in the living room, which is also the bedroom, but divided by a bookshelf that’s open on both sides. She has a seventeen-year-old cat named Alf, because Alf was a big hit when she got him and “Alf ate cats,” she explains. Alf is thrilled to have the company. She throws an open sleeping bag over me and then puts Alf on top, a real bowling ball of a cat, pinning me down, pushing me into sleep.
When Bella and I were swimming in the quarries outside of Boston, still fresh from home, I pulled myself out of the water and onto a dry rock, which was warm and perfect in every way. I lay on my belly, my head turned to one side so I could watch Bella swim around, about forty feet out. She was swimming away from me, her hair dry and fuzzy on top, then clumping into wet columns that disappeared under the surface around her neck. As she swam away the back of her little head bobbing side to side out there made me laugh out loud, and because my right ear was pressed against the hot rock and my left ear was full of water, the laugh was louder. Inside of myself. Private here with no one around. I love her, I thought, comparing the size of her head to my thumbnail, blurry, held a few inches from my face.
in the morning I wake up early, the way alcohol can race in your blood all night, give you crazy dreams, snap
you in and out of sleep. When I wake Nicki is still asleep, snoring quietly in a big bed behind the bookshelf, I peek at her through it. She’s not wearing a scarf or a wig or anything at all, and I’m surprised to see a full head of long gray hair, a soft face with no makeup so I can barely recognize her from the night before. Alf has jumped ship in the middle of the night and is curled in a perfect fluffy circle on a pillow next to Nicki’s head. I fold the sleeping bag up and stack it with the pillow on the couch, then look around a little.
Nicki’s apartment is wall-to-wall photos, each in their own little frame. I step closer and peer into one:
An old black-and-white photo of two queens, neither one Nicki. Matching white dresses with tan thighs exposed, the photo cutting them off at the knee. Black eyeliner, wicking up at the corner of each eye and matching brunette wigs flipping up at their shoulders. One of them leans towards the camera laughing with her hands on her hips, while the other leans back with her eyes big and soft and her chin up, her hands tucked behind her back. Behind them is out of focus, the window of a liquor store and inside, the blurry face of a man smiling with big white teeth, his hand perched in the air next to his head, palm open, fingers splayed.
I move over to another one, a color photo from the ‘70s, the colors faded out to orangey-yellows and browns. It’s taken at the head of the table on Thanksgiving I think, a giant shiny brown turkey planted square in the middle. I see Nicki way down on the far right, wearing a blonde wig with long curly black eyelashes. All the other girls pose carefully, but Nicki has her thumbs in her ears, her fingers dancing around on either side of her head, her tongue sticking out. When I laugh out loud I hear Nicki move around in her bed. I see her lift her head and look at me through the bookshelf.
