by P. J. Post
And that is fucked up too.
But more than anything else, she reminds me of Shelly and how fragile she was at the Café. This isn’t the Tonya I know, and the sudden change is unnerving. I remember those scars on Tonya’s wrists in every detail, where I'm sure she made the first incision and where she lost her nerve and fought through the pain as the scar twists and then the sloppy perseverance of using her left hand to finish the job.
She’s coping differently now.
And regardless of how I fit into her life, I’m scared shitless for her.
5
Sweet’s
Todd picks me up as promised and the Agatha Christie mystery continues on the drive over to wherever he’s taking me. We listen to the Neil Young’s American Stars ‘n Bars on cassette and ignore each other. I spend the whole time thinking about Tonya and what her issue is. I can’t wrap my head around the sudden change and the feeling that she’s slipping away. Neil summed it up perfectly with Like a Hurricane, and the song depresses the shit out of me.
It’s like a nightmare. I’m standing in the rain like everything was finally going to work out, like I was finally home, but then the rain turns to a storm of flames and the home catches fire. No matter how fast I run, no matter how much I struggle — I never reach it, never save it.
It just burns.
Fuck you. That’s what the fire says to me — fuck you loser.
And then I refocus, pushing these irrational thoughts away as we pull into a parking lot and I realize what Todd has in mind.
“You really think a strip club is the best place for this?” I ask.
He just grins. “It’ll get your mind off Shauna.”
But not Tonya.
“Sweet’s?” I ask.
Todd shrugs as we get out of the car. The entrance to Sweet’s is in an alley off a main sidewalk, lined with reputable business and restaurants. We step over the threshold of respectability and into the dark mouth of the alley. The walls are covered with posters and flyers for bands and concerts and graffiti. I see a block of forty of our own flyers that we pasted up last week for The Underground show and it almost makes me smile.
Deeper down the alley, the service lights mounted near the steel door to Sweet’s are reflecting off puddles of oil and who knows what.
It’s a cesspool, but not an unwelcome one.
Todd just grins. He steps in front of me as the front door flies open. We jump back when one of the bouncers spins some dude around, and I see the green and purple stage lights glisten off a pair of brass knuckles as they descend onto the poor guy’s face. He goes down immediately. It reminds me of how my dad went down when I hit him at the bank — lights out. The bouncer buries the guy’s head in a trashcan near the door.
We nod at the other doorman who gives us a warm and welcoming smile as we step over the unconscious troublemaker. Foreigner’s Hot Blooded greets us along with a blast of fetid, smoky air. Todd shakes his head at the ass-kicking and grins at me while he hands the doorman ten bucks for our cover.
The mirror lined stage is located in the far right corner, surrounded with a low counter and college kids and desperate old men waving cash over their beers. The leggy brunette is swaying around a pole stabbed into the floor under a disco ball.
She ignores the gallery and smiles at Todd and me as we stop to admire her. She’s pretty under the lights and is, without question, a professional tease as she alternately pouts and then leers at her adoring fans, each vying for her attention. It’s like some fucked up religious ritual, the goddess claiming her tribute and dispensing favor.
She has long hair and a slender body. This must be the end of her set because not only is she completely nude, except for the heels, but her lone garter is loaded with cash.
“I’ll grab us a pitcher,” Todd says.
The bar is to the left of the stage, past a few rows of fake, wood-grain plastic tables and metal chairs. Coin operated pool and foosball tables fill up the space to the left beyond the bar, resting on a checkerboard of red and gray stained vinyl floor tile. The ceiling is a grid of collapsing, black tiles and the walls are dark gray. They’re covered with beer posters and neon liquor signs. I walk past it all; ignoring the nearly naked young girls draped all over the guys as they hustle table dances; the Budweiser and Miller hanging pool table lights, and the sideways glares of the players as they sharpen their cues. I’m heading for the few tables pushed against the very back wall, away from the show.
My chair has a ripped, red vinyl seat with stains that I don’t want to even think about. I pull it out and sit down, tossing my Zippo and pack of smokes onto the table.
I’m already pissed about being here. I don’t want to be in a strip club or waiting for this mystery drummer. Shit, I don’t know where I wouldn’t be pissed. I’m just worried about Tonya.
“Give it up for Dakota,” the DJ says through the house speakers. “And now, let’s hear it for Tempest!” The opening riff of Cat Scratch Fever blares through the bar as Tempest takes the stage.
I ignore her and pull out a cigarette. I absently thump it against the back of my hand while I wait for Todd. And where is this mystery prick we’re supposed to meet, anyway?
I notice Dakota down on the main floor, looking around and then we make eye contact. She’s wearing a short school girl skirt and a white button-up blouse knotted under her breasts. Her hair is twisted into pig-tails. Dakota weaves her way through the other dancers, pulls out the chair next to mine and slides into the seat with practiced grace.
She’s pretty with that exotic model vibe, but up close, the makeup doesn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes. I just feel bad for her — she looks like she’s been rode hard and hung up wet.
“Cigarette?” she asks.
I slip one out and she leans over and takes it from me with her lips. I light it and she takes a deep drag and then exhales as she leans back.
“You’re kind of hot,” she says as much with her eyes as her voice. She’s good.
“Thanks, Dakota, is it?”
“Dakota Storm.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” I say.
“Why are you way over here? You one of those shy boys, is that it? You need some privacy for your dance, honey?”
“I’m good, but thanks.”
“You’re no fun,” she says with a pout.
“Yeah. I get that a lot,” I say.
“I still think you’re hot.” She takes my hand.
“I’m still not interested.” I light the cigarette I’ve been fiddling with and turn my head to blow the smoke away from her and slide my hand away.
Where the hell is Todd with the beer?
“You don’t need to be an asshole about it,” she taunts, pretending to be angry.
“I’m sorry. I’ve had a fucked up few days.” And then I see Todd peeking around the corner of the bar, grinning like an idiot. “Todd put you up to this, huh?”
“Uh-huh. He said I should distract you.” She pushes her tits together and looks up at me with a coy expression that looks oddly familiar. She gets points for effort, but the cigarette she’s holding between her fingers cheapens it. It’s more like a mechanic pointing to an alternator that needs replacing. “You think these will take your mind of her?”
“On a different night, maybe.”
“Maybe?” She sits back annoyed. “That’s all I get, maybe?”
“Look, you have great tits, but who are you talking about?”
“Thanks,” she says with a genuine smile. “Todd said you had girl trouble,” she says, leaning back.
“No, I’m fine. No girl trouble to report, ma’am.”
“Now you’re just lying. Every guy has girl trouble, whether they know it or not.”
“Are you a psychic or a psychologist?” I ask.
“A little of both maybe; it comes with the territory, you know? Now how about we stop talking and I start dancing?”
“You know, I don’t think this line of work agrees with you,”
I say tentatively.
“Or not. What are you talking about, stripping?”
“Yeah. Why?’ I ask.
“Why what?” she asks.
“Why are you doing this, stripping I mean? Paying your way through college or some shit like that?’ I expect her to tell me it’s none of my goddamn business, but she doesn’t.
She laughs. “As if.”
Nugent fades and the Red Rocker’s Heavy Metal fills the room.
“So, what’s the story?”
“Rent, man.” She snubs out the cigarette and suddenly I’m talking to the nameless girl that goes by the alias of Dakota. This is the girl underneath, the girl behind the mask. “I got bills, you know?” she says.
“What about an office job, or making tacos or some shit?”
She laughs even harder. “Tacos? Me? This suits my lifestyle better, besides, the money is good and I don’t have to do anything except shake my tits and ass at a bunch of horny drunks. It’s like taking candy from a baby.”
“But you don’t need this. Why don’t you live at home? What are you, like, twenty-one?”
“Twenty. Home isn’t there anymore. And you know what, I do need this. What I don’t need is your sanctimonious horse-shit.” She glares at me, but for some reason doesn’t leave.
“I’m not judging, even if I do sound like a sanctimonious prick, I’m really not. I can sympathize, really. What happened?” I ask as I light another cigarette and hand one to her.
She takes it and looks at me sideways as if she’s considering what she wants to tell me, if anything at all. I light her cigarette.
“Fuck it,” she says. “We used to be pretty well off, my family — I mean. We lived in Sterling Hills, you know the …”
“I know it,” I say flatly.
“Yeah, so dad made some bad investments.”
“Was he a stock broker or some shit like that?”
“No, just poker. He got in bad with the wrong people and we lost everything, well, he lost everything for us — the fucking dip-shit. My parents split up after that. Mom hooked up with a creepazoid. He hit on me, can you believe it?”
I deliberately stare at her tits for effect and then her face. “Yeah, I can believe it.”
She grins with appreciation.
“Did he try anything?” I look at her apprehensively. I didn’t think through what she said the first time.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. He just propositioned me, you know? I mean, literally — he offered to pay me to dress up like a cheerleader and fuck him, like some common whore. It was just too creepy and too fucking insulting. I didn’t trust being around him after that, so I left, but Dad is dating Johnny Walker Red these days in a shitty efficiency apartment up on the North Side. So I had to get my own place. Well, I’m staying with my asshole boyfriend. I’d leave his ass too, but I don’t have anywhere else to go, and he takes most of my money every night. I tried living in my car last summer, it’s overrated.”
“That isn’t right,” I say as my chest tightens with growing anger.
“Well, he’s strung out on coke half the time and he’s bigger than me. I’m fucked, but I’m used to it.”
“No one should ever get used to being fucked. You need to figure this shit out.”
She blows smoke at me. “Thanks Einstein, I’ll get right on it.” She glares at me. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do. Got it, asshole?”
She gets up to leave, but I gently touch the back of her hand and she pauses.
“Want to hear a story?” I ask.
She slowly sits back down and crosses her legs.
“My dad killed my mom.”
“What the fuck? Seriously?” She leans forward, shocked by the revelation.
“As a heart attack. I blamed myself for years, but it was him. Car accident when he was shit-faced. I got arrested a couple of days ago for knocking his ass out. I’m staying with a friend now, otherwise I’d be one homeless motherfucker.”
“Jesus,” she says quietly.
“Everyone needs at least one friend, someone to be there when the shit hits the fan, someone loyal.”
“You want to be my friend, is that it, honey?” she asks skeptically.
I laugh. “I don’t have a pot to piss in, so I’m not sure what my friendship is worth. But it’s bullshit for this dick to take advantage of you.”
“Maybe. I had friends once, but the change in my social status fucked that up. I guess they weren’t my friends in the first place, huh?”
“Sadly, it doesn’t sound like it,” I say.
“But even still, loyalty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I was loyal once. I had a best friend, not those country club jerks, but a real friend who I would have died for, I shit you not.”
“And?” I ask.
“And I saved her life. She had a really bad time for a while. Really, really bad shit. I was the only one who knew about it except for her grandmother. I go over the day she gets home, you know, to see how she is and just be there for her. I ring the bell. I knock on the door. Nothing, you know? It was like one of those houses where everyone is away on vacation, abandoned like.”
“Like a corpse waiting to be buried?” I ask.
“So yeah, it was like that — creepy.”
“I used to live in a house like that, go on,” I say.
“Well, her car’s there, so I’m pretty sure she’s home. We’ve been friends since junior high, so I go around back and get the key they have hidden and let myself in. I’m worried, you know?
“I find her passed out in the tub and bleeding to death. I mean the blood starts over by the sink and, well...it’s a fucking nightmare.” Her eyes are turning red and glassy. “I wrap her wrists the best I can to stop the bleeding and I don’t know how, I don’t even remember it, but I get her down to my car and drive her to the hospital. I save her life, you know?”
Tears are tracing lines in her makeup, streaming down her face, mascara and glitter staining her cheeks. Some memories die hard.
“So when she comes around the next day, she won’t even talk to me and she hasn’t since. I don’t know if it’s because I know everything that happened and she’s ashamed, or because I’m a reminder of how bad it got. That’s what loyalty gets you. So when I needed her, fuck me. You know?”
She wipes her eyes and crushes her cigarette into the ashtray.
Dakota’s story makes me think of Tonya and what she went through. It was probably a lot like Dakota’s experience and a painful queasiness hits me as the image burns into my mind.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said all that,” she says.
“Maybe you just needed someone to give a shit and listen,” I say.
“Maybe.” She looks at me with sadness. “I guess your story is more fucked up than mine, huh?”
I laugh. “You have no idea. What I told you is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you love her?”
She looks at me with sadness. “Yeah, I still do. I think about her a lot.”
“You have to give friends the benefit of the doubt. Did she know about your situation?”
“No, I mean, I don’t know. I called her parents. Her mom’s a bitch. She just said she was on vacation for the summer, which was obviously bullshit.”
“So you don’t really know what happened, right?”
“No,” she says sullenly.
“Maybe there was more going on than you knew about and she didn’t abandon you. Maybe things were just too fucked up.”
“You’re probably right. I don’t know. I don’t know much, do I?”
“More than you think,” I say.
“Well, I know you should have taken the table dance,” she says, grinning as she changes the subject.
“Yeah, you might be right, but I got a girl. Well, maybe. But either way, it’s like that song; I only have eyes for her, so I’m not into any table dances.”
“Oh. I knew
it. The hot ones are always taken. Hey, if she doesn’t know what she has, fuck her, you know? I’ll take a ride on you, I mean with you,” she says as she winks at me.
“Thanks, but I’m sort of committed, for better or worse.”
Her eyes widen and then she laughs. “You’re in love!”
I laugh with her. “Yeah, but she doesn’t know it, and I’m not sure she likes me like that anymore. She might, shit, I don’t know.”
“You’re way more fucked up than me and that’s saying something,” she says.
“You have no idea,” I say through a grin.
Todd sets the beer down and joins us and then leans over with the most sincere look I have ever seen on him.
“That ain’t right,” he says to Dakota.
“Which part?”
“All of it.” He’s mad.
“Shit happens,” she says and shrugs.
“This is all news to me. Hey, we have a place, I mean if not there — I can talk to my parents,” Todd says.
Todd’s coming on a little strong here, what’s this all about?
“Whoa, thanks white knight guy, but I’m fine. No need to get Mommy and Daddy involved.”
“No, you’re not fine. And you need help,” Todd says firmly.
“It’s been swell guys, but I have to get back to work.” She gives Todd an annoyed glare. “I’ll check back later to see if you want that dance,” she says and winks at me. “Thanks for the smokes.” And then she walks off and begins working the crowd.
I look at Todd. “You can’t save everyone, man, especially from themselves.”
“Like you’re one to talk.” He scowls and looks across the room, his gaze following Dakota.
He has a point.
“And Shauna knows how you feel about her, so what was that shit you were telling Dakota?” he asks without taking his eyes off her.
He obviously overheard me talking about Tonya. I think back, but don’t remember saying her name in the conversation. Christ, I hope I didn’t.
“Just bullshitting, dude, just bullshitting,” I say dismissively and take a drink of my own beer, hoping he buys it.
