And now, as they say, this. Life goes on. All those things they say, whoever they might be. You do what you have to do to go on living. Or, you don’t. Too many people I’ve known just gave up. Maybe I should have, but.
There’s no dishonor in working for a living, after all. The things they ask, though, for a wage. I never thought I’d be one of those people. Tried hauling freight for a while. It rapidly got old, I got tired, got hurt, spent too much time rehabbing my joints, listening to the docs in the charity ward cluck their tongues about how such a pretty girl got in here.
Well, maybe that’s the whole story, right there. Of course, in some cultures, women cover up from head to toe, and stay out of sight. So, when the men in the family come to grief, I suppose the women must, also. Not burned alive on the pyre, no; we’re civilized these days. Just turned out onto the street to be spat upon.
Here, we’re even more civilized, if not exactly civil. Worked retail for a while; waited tables. Found out that, if I covered my scars with a smile, the tips were pretty good money. Hard work, but honest. I’ve got no problem with that.
But it’s precarious. If you fall, it gets worse in a hurry. Living day to day, knowing if you get sick or hurt, you’re right back on the street.
Which is why I’m here, tonight, in the euphemism otherwise known as a dressing room. Hey, the assets are metabolizing; they should help pay for the food I’m eating to make it all possible. Though, truth be told, I sometimes wish I didn’t have to eat, even while I’m doing it.
The lights in here are merciless, which is good, because the ones out there are easily as bad. And that’s where the money changes hands. Changes from hand to, uh, what the hand wants to, but can’t, touch. Not here, anyway. There are rules here; it’s a high-class joint. Talk elegant. More to the point, we have Benny here. Three hundred pounds of Benny, who likes to throw all of them around, and who has no interest in the merchandise, except in a friendly way. Protecting us from the grubbier customers. I’d like to be able to say I don’t need his help, but I’d be wrong; I do. And he’s glad to provide it. I’m sure Benny has done his share of thinking with his little head, but these days he thinks with his fists, at least if somebody else’s little head is getting uppity.
Anyway. It’s time. Odd how nobody seems to want to see the bracelets come off. Neither do they want to actually see anybody’s face. Not the real one, anyway.
One of the bennies of working here is you get to watch the shows. Unless you’re in it, of course. If a benefit it is; I’m not so sure. Some of them are pretty engaging. I think maybe there’s something about certain people in the audience. This one guy in particular. Let’s call him John.
So Danielle gets up on the stage, and I’m standing in the back; it’s a Saturday so there’s a good crowd. She’s doing the pole thing; how she manages in high heels I’ll never know. I’m a bit of an empath, I guess; maybe that’s why the tips were so good for waiting tables. If you can feel what the customer is about to ask, you have it already in your hand when they think of it, you score extra points.
Anyway, this guy was broadcasting on Clear Channel. Like one of those high power AM stations in Juarez, just over the border where it’s legal to pump out as much power as you want. It was creepy enough, seeing what he’d made of Danielle. She’s a nice kid; boyfriend left her with a toddler, the usual story.
But when he’s doing it to me, while I’m trying to dance, it’s way beyond creepy. It’s hardly me anymore; rather a creature of his own creation. Not even a creature. More of an undulating body, performing for his pleasure. I could see myself through his eyes, moving to the music. Feeling the beat, feeling all the eyes in the place feeling me up, looking up at me, looking up to me. But mostly his eyes. The body on display was remarkably unremarkable, a creature of paint and music and lust. Not me at all.
Not me at all, no. Just a feedback loop, amplified in his overheated imagination. A toy. With only minimal contributions from the part of me that counts.
And yet, it was me. The metallic light, all the fancy paint on the face; all the naked put on for the show. Behind all that, inside all that, am I really there at all? Or is the whole thing the creation of John’s libido? Of his imagination?
Like he’s projecting some kind of a field; some kind of an image, from his imagination, and I’m just there as a reflector. In some ways, I suppose, he’s typical. I feel it on the street sometimes, see the eyes, just a passing amusement. But eventually I have to scream. Get out of the costume. Scrub all the makeup off my face. Scrub all the nudity off my body. Wrap up in something shapeless and grey, pull my hat down over my eyes, and walk away, head down, hands in pockets, looking for my proper place in the world.
While Benny is facing down the customers. I can hear Benny shouting at John; feel John’s eyes in my back. When I turn the corner, the presence fades a bit, but he’s still inside my mind, still feeling what I feel, still seeing what I see. I need him out. Before I get home, I need him out.
So, Thursday.
Benny picked up John outside the club. He’d been waiting; checking out the windows in the back of the place, that open onto the alley. He seems to think he’s stealthy, John does. Anybody with an ounce of the Talent can hear him coming blocks away, though, like a kid with a super sub-woofer in the city.
I slipped out the back, on my way home, and there he was. John. I turned to go the other way, and John happened into Benny.
“You know,” Benny said.
“I do?” said John. It was the first time I’d heard his actual voice, I think.
“A guy comes here often enough, I get a handle on his habits and proclivities, if you take my meaning,” said Benny. Benny has a way of being a formidable roadblock when it suits him to be.
“You work in the bar, right?”
“Smart guy,” said Benny.
“We’re not in the bar.”
“Smart guy,” said Benny.
“So if you’ll kindly move aside, I’ll get on with my evening’s activities.”
“Not such a smart guy,” said Benny.
“You want to call off your dog?” John called, to me. I was probably fifteen or twenty feet away.
“Annoying guy,” I said.
“Annoying guy,” said Benny.
“And you really don’t want to annoy Benny,” I said.
“Well, he’s annoying me,” said John.
“I’m not letting you through, is what I’m doing,” said Benny.
“I am aware of that,” said John. “I’m just minding my own business, and you’re obstructing a public way.”
“We own the alley,” said Benny.
“Ah. Perhaps I’ll go around.”
“Perhaps you’ll just wait here with me,” said Benny.
“But Gloria and I have a date,” said John.
Benny laughed. Nobody calls me Gloria, except the billing at the club. I’m not really like that; just doing an honest night’s work, acting out the fantasies of a few Johns and Harrys, letting them create someone based on whatever.
And then I take it all off and go home. With the help of Benny, sometimes. Getting it through the thick heads of some of these guys that what happens in the club stays in the club, and that it’s all an illusion.
I was glad I had sensible shoes and a remarkably ordinary and forgettable face and figure. As I slipped into the night, I could hear Benny becoming forceful with John. Making him sit and stay. Who’s the dog now?
“Hey, babe,” came the voice from the bed as I slipped in.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
“How was business?”
“Fine,” I said. I hoped the quivering of my lip was invisible in the semidarkness.
“What’s wrong?”
I guess it wasn’t. Or the quavering of my voice gave me away.
I sniffed. After some rolling about, a tissue appeared in my hand. I blew my nose. Told my story.
“Oh, Martha, I’m so sorry. Tell me who it is. I’ll kneecap him for you.”
“I think Benny’s got that covered.”
“Benny’s a champ,” said Mel.
“Was, at least. He’s kind of gone to seed a little, now.”
“I was talking about his attitude, his willingness to go above and beyond the call. But he’s still enough of a force to be reckoned with, that I reckon I wouldn’t want him reckoning with me.”
I had to laugh.
“It’s a hard life,” I said.
“You try slinging steel,” said Mel.
I spent some time working knots out of the muscles in Mel’s back. We spent some time, uh, passing the time of night, together, like.
When it was over, I was teary.
“‘Sup?” asked Mel, sleepily.
“It’s hard, being this, this person, here for you. After being that person at the club.”
“Not so much a person as a screen for their fantasies,” Mel suggested.
“Is this different?”
The light went on. I lay revealed in all my middle-aged ugliness. So very unlike the carefully crafted legend at the club.
Mel examined my face, trying to read my mood. Which was, for want of a better word, frazzled.
“Yeah, it’s different,” she said at last.