5.
Arrive at 11 P.M. A slow night. There are more dancers than customers—ten of them, six of us. Men come and go and I know this is a business that operates in waves.
A young woman with dark hair and brown skin, early 20s, immediately sits next to me. She asks if I would be kind enough to buy her a drink. I say sure. She says, “Can I have a double?” Why not. It costs $10. My beer: $5.
“You’re good looking,” she says.
“Thanks. You tell that to all the guys.”
“I mean it. Honestly, we don’t get many good-looking men in here. Take a look.”
I look at all the other men—one in a wheelchair, the others in their 50s-60s, one in a plumber’s shirt, all overweight. Two of them, however, sit in a booth with five dancers. They are all drinking.
“You look like trouble,” my dancer says.
“I’m not.”
“I mean, like you could get me into trouble.”
“I won’t.”
“My name is Angelfood. Would you like a couch dance?”
“Not yet.”
She says couch dances range $20-40 per song, depending on the “quality” of the dance.
“The sign out front says ‘do not touch the dancers.’”
She grabs my hand and puts it on her left breast. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean we can’t touch you.”
Physically, I am not attracted to Angelfood; she is too top heavy for my personal preference, but I do like her youth and innocence, faked or real. I buy a couch dance from her. She asks for the $20 upfront. She is indeed new; she is not very good at this act—or not as good as I am used to, as I expect. Here is a case where I apply symbolic interaction to a couch dance: the meaning it has for me, how I interpret her dancing and react to it. Angelfood goes through three positions of dancing: in my lap, her back facing me; straddling me, allowing my face between her breasts; standing up, her back to me, her rear end close to my face. She goes through these motions several times, mechanically, and I do not respond in a positive way. When the song is over, she asks if I want another. I shake my head. She asks for a tip. I give her $5. She asks if she can sit with me, if I would buy her another drink. “I won’t be offended if you say no or want to sit with someone else,” she says. I tell her I want to mingle.
Avoid other dancers sitting by moving from table to table, watching the stage show. There are always two women on at the same time, each at either end of the stage, by the pole.
A large group of young women, all blonde, walk in. They are from a bachelorette party, or a sorority. They are slumming. They look at the dancers and turn up their noses.
A dancer on stage interests me. She has the body type I’m attracted to; her hair wildly sticks out, and she looks angry. Go to the edge of the stage and hold out three $1 bills. She allows me to place them in the front of her g-string, allows me to touch what little pubic hair she has. She presses her breasts into my face and goes, “Oops.” She grabs one of my hands and puts it on her rear end. “How about a dance later?” she says.
She joins me. Buy her a double drink—vodka and Red Bull. Says her name is Brianna, “but my real name is Cheryl,” she lies. I know how dancers use the “this is my real name” tactic as manufactured intimacy, to make a customer “feel” as if he is getting something special, a sneak peak into her secret life. I don’t tell her I know all the tricks because I have dated exotic dancers, lived with one for nine months and another for three.
She says she is a single mother, has two sons—one is seven months, the other is three years old. “My little men,” she says proudly.
“You look pretty good for having given birth seven months ago,” I say.
She seems to blush. “Thanks. I work out.”
Both her children have different fathers. She is twenty-three. Like Anglefood, she wants to go to college in the near future. “This is a college town,” I say.
“I’ll go to IVT first,” she says, which is Indiana Valley Tech, “then transfer to IU or Purdue—or as I call it, Purdon’t.”
I gesture to the group of sorority girls. “What’s their story?”
She shrugs. “Who knows, who cares. College bitches, lesbians, anthropologists.”
“Really?”
“We get people who come in here and study us from the school.”
The father of her youngest is in jail. “I hope he stays there,” she says, “he’s bad news. He was on meth. Always stole money from me. He wanted to knock me up to keep me, so I could make money for him here. Then he got busted. It’s for the best.”
I don’t ask her why she stayed with a man who took her money.
Brianna yells at the group of blonde girls, “Hey, why don’t some of you cuties get up and show us what you got. C’mon, get on stage.”
“Gross,” one of them says.
They just stare at Brianna like they can’t believe she’s real.
“Cunts,” she says, and to me: “Let’s go to the couches. I promise you it will be good, better than you expect. I want to give these bitches a real show.”
Her couch dance is a world of difference than Angelfood’s. Brianna lets me touch her anywhere I want, lets me fondle and caress her small breasts. She kisses me on the lips. She puts her hand between her legs and tells me to rub. She stands on the couch and puts my face into her crotch. She gets on her knees, touches me between the legs. “No underwear!” she says.
“Not tonight.”
“Going commando,” she says. She has my penis in her hand; my khaki pants the only thing between our flesh. She puts it in her mouth, licking my pants. I have never had a dancer in the states do this; dancers in Tijuana do it all the time, but they all double as prostitutes as well.
Another dancer sees Brianna do this and says, “Oh, you naughty thing!”
“Hey,” says Brianna, “at least I don’t take it out and suck it like some do.”
“Guilty!”
“Really?” I say.
“You can get a blowjob if you want,” she says quietly, and then in my ear: “Not here, but in the back, if you want.”
6.
Her car is in back; a small, beat-up car. We sit in it. I hand Brianna two $20 bills.
7.
You have to understand something—my wife used to give me great blowjobs when we were dating but has not put my penis in her mouth in four years. I forgot how wonderful blowjobs are until Brianna put my penis in her mouth and I realized what I had been missing these past four years.
8.
Stay in the club and watch Brianna and the other women until it is closing time. Take some money out of the convenient on-site ATM machine. Brianna gives me two more couch dances. She asks what I am doing for the rest of the night—or morning. “Nothing.”
“Wanna come to my place and…”
I ask how much.
“$200 an hour,” she says.
9.
Follow Brianna’s car to her apartment, three miles away. She takes my hand as we go inside.
10.
Her boyfriend is waiting inside. He smokes crack from a crack pipe.
“It’s about time,” he says.
“What are you doing,” she says, “you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’m home,” he says.
“This is not your home,” she says.
Start to back away. I want out.
“Who is this?” he says, looking at me, exhaling crack. “No one,” she says; “a friend.”
“A friendly friend,” he says; “more like a trick. A trick.”
“None of your,” she starts to say.
“You like fucking whores?” he asks me.
She screams. She jumps toward him and attacks him. She scratches his face. He punches her in the stomach. There is blood.
Start to leave and then they both attack me and hold me down on the floor. The boyfriend is on my back.
“Where do you think you’re going, John?” the boyfriend says to me.
&nbs
p; Brianna smokes some crack. “Trick,” she says, “trick with a little dick.”
“She’s spoiled,” the boyfriend goes, “I’m a thick 11 inches.”
11.
They take all the money from my wallet, demand the PIN for my ATM. At first I am not going to give them that, until the boyfriend holds a knife to my neck. Give him the wrong PIN. Fuck these two.
12.
There is something else I have to endure with a knife to my neck. The boyfriend goes, “So you came here to get laid, I don’t want you to leave unlaid and unhappy,” and pulls my pants down and sodomizes me.
Brianna cheers him on as he does this, smoking crack; she sits there smoking and watches her boyfriend fuck me in the ass.
13.
They take my car keys, say I have to walk. Walk funny; a man raped me with an 11-inch penis, anyone would walk funny.
Stumbled into the street and get hit by an oncoming truck.
The next thing I know, I’m in the hospital ICU, the same hospital where my wife and new daughter are on another floor.
14.
Everything I just told you is a lie. None of it happened. It’s a fantasy I have when I drive by the stripper bar. When I take a U-turn to go to that bar, I slam into a speeding truck. It’s a bad accident. The next thing I know, I am in the hospital ICU, the same hospital where my wife and new daughter are on another floor.
15.
That story is also a lie. It sounds good, though. Both stories have a moral base—you’re a family man, you have no business in a stripper bar, only bad things will happen to men who cheat.
16.
I’m not sure this newborn baby girl is mine. I look at her from the other side of the glass partition and she does not look like me. I have thought for some time that my wife was cheating, with more than one man, maybe with a friend. This is some other man’s child.
17.
“I’m so happy,” my wife says as she breastfeeds the little baby girl in the hospital room. “Aren’t you happy?” she says. “You’re a Daddy now,” she says.
I smile and think about leaving the hospital and going somewhere—a stripper bar, maybe.
It's Very Cold Down Here
“What do you mean what you said about what you said!” said twenty-seven-year-old Ripped van Wrinkle when he abruptly and unexpectedly woke up from a forty-five day coma and found himself inside a science station at the South Pole.
A man with a long thick beard said: “Hey, doc, surfer guy is awake.”
Ripped asked: “Who are you?”
The man with a long thick beard said: “The real question is, who are you?”
Ripped noticed, then, he was lying on a flat metal bed in what seemed like a doctor's office. He was wearing what seemed like a patient's blue gown; this was not what he was wearing when he was out in the New Zealand ocean; he had been in his favorite black body suit, that's what he last recalled.
A short woman in her late 50s with white hair and thick glasses, wearing a white doctor's smock and a stethoscope around her neck, waddled into the room (like a penguin, Ripped thought). “Well,” she said, “the Mystery Man is finally awake. I bet you’re hungry.”
As a matter of fact, his stomach was growling and hurt.
“…in the hospital?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” she said. “Sickbay.”
Two other men with long scraggly beards and hair in ponytails entered the area. “Hey,” one said, “the dude is awake.”
“Doooooooood,” said the other, wanting to high five.
Ripped did not want to high-five.
“Okay,” Ripped said, “where am I and how did I get here?”
“Oh dear,” said the doctor.
“You’re in the South Pole,” the first man with a scraggly beard said.
“The what?”
“Antarctica, dude.”
Ripped was alone with Dr. Helen Mann in sickbay. The bearded men had brought him some food—macaroni and cheese and canned peaches. He ate it fast and wanted more. Dr. Mann told him to take it easy.
“Tell me the last thing you recall,” she said.
“I was out on the water, catching some waves. I’m a competitive surfer. I live in San Diego, California, in a place called Ocean Beach. I was in Auckland for a big comp. I was, I was practicing, you know, gotta keep it up. I,” and he had to think; “I think I fell asleep on my board.”
“Indeed you did.”
“And I woke up here.”
“Oh my.”
“What is it, doc?”
“Here's what I know, as best I know,” she said. “You fell asleep on your board, as you said, and you drifted all the way to the South Pole.”
“How is that possible?”
“You went into some kind of coma.”
“I don’t understand, coma.”
“I don’t know how long it took you to drift from Auckland to here, but you’ve been asleep in sickbay forty-five days now.”
“Wow,” he said. “I didn’t even dream.”
“You kept saying ‘Rosebud’ in your sleep. Is that the name of your surfboard?”
“It's what I call my girlfriend's… ”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“It's okay.”
“So you found me out in the water?”
“Not exactly. Half a dozen Emperor penguins carried you here, with your board.” She nodded at the surfboard leaning against the wall.
“Emily,” he said, smiling fondly, “she and I have been through a lot. Wait, did you say penguins carried me?”
“Yes.”
“How? They’re small.”
“Ever seen an Emperor penguin?”
“They’re big?” he asked.
“Indeed.”
“That's very kind of them,” he said, after thinking about it.
“They’re full of surprises,” Dr. Mann said.
The Emperor penguins who had carried him to the science station wondered about him now and then. They had rescued Ripped from the waters because they were afraid killer whales would eat him. Eventually, killer whales ate all six of the penguins that carried Ripped, so his story was forgotten among their tribe.
This calls to mind something Bernard Stonehouse*1 once said: “I have the impression that, to penguins, man is just another penguin—different, but predictable, occasionally violent, but tolerable company when he sits still and minds his own business.”
“I need to contact my people, my girl,” Ripped said. “You have phones here, right? How do you get out of the South Pole? Helicopter? Plane? Boat?”
“Um, that's the problem,” the doctor said.
“What?”
“It's winter here. Twenty-four hours of darkness. The conditions are so harsh we can’t even leave the station, and no transports. Too dangerous.”
“Are you serious?”
“Afraid I am.”
“How long we talking?”
“Four months.”
“Four?”
“Maybe five. Four and a half. But not six, so don’t you worry none.”
“Wait,” he said. “Are you saying…?”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re stuck with us, inside here.”
The phone lines were touch and go, especially to the United States. He tried calling his manager in Malibu and his manager kept saying, “What? What? Who is this? Speak up! Where you calling from? What's the meaning of this? Call back.”
The Internet worked. He sent off emails. Ripped wasn’t much of a writer, so he kept it brief: I am still alive and in the South Pole. Long story. Keep a candle burning. It's very cold down here. I’ll be back in the Fall.
It would be summer here when it was fall back home.
He was about to send an email to Jolene Nemo-lavokis, his girlfriend. He stopped. What would he say? Then he noticed there was an email from her in his Inbox, dated six weeks ago.
yo, r:
i dunno if yr alive or dead or what or what happ
ened but i cant let it drive me crazy anymore. i have a feeling yr wholed away w/ some beach bunny bimbo on a remote island out there or in the mountains of n.z. so you know what, thats ok. if you get this email i just wanted to write & tell you that i met someone here in la la land & weve become close & eye think im in love & ah might even marry him. he has proposed but eye havnt given him an answer yet. If aye say yes or no it doesn’t matter b/c its later city 4 you & me. yr a sweet & hot guy & great in bed & you make me laugh & feel safe but lets face it yr a surfer & women throw themselves @ you all the time. i have to get on w/me life & so that is what im gonna do. U take care & eye hope U R ok & having fun which im sure U R.
xxoo,
jo-jo nemo
p.s. rosebud will always miss ya!
She was a model in Los Angeles, a half-Greek, half-Russian six-foot-one beauty he’d met on a photo shoot for some fashion magazine, he couldn’t remember the name but it was one of those generic 200 page things with slick pages and Photoshopped pictures of the beautiful people, made to look more plastic than they really were, including him.
He wrote back: Good luck, Captain Nemo. Sweet dreams, Rosebud.
At first, he was the novelty. Everyone on the station wanted to chat with Ripped, know all about him, and in turn tell him about their lives, since having a new audience was also rare. After a few days, though, people lost interest and he was just another body stuck inside the geodome. That was okay with him.
The winter personnel consisted of several scientists doing arcane research on the atmosphere, ice, and rocks—they were called “beakers.” The rest were support personnel: the cook, janitors, and general maintenance. One doctor. One researcher: a twenty-nine-year-old sociologist/ anthropologist named Kate Drew.
Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories Page 6
