Tuesday, August 25, 2009

George Washington, Pocketed

I worked for eight hours and didn’t think for nine. As soon as I stepped over the threshold onto 7th Avenue, I thought about quitting my job at MarketMarket as I pulled at the seams of my just-received check. The smell of food clung to my hair. I looked down at my paycheck and cried, then seriously considered purchasing cigarettes. I had money, have money. The most money I have ever made. I thought about the dresses I could buy, or the friends I could visit in D.C. What do other people do with their money? With all these tips? A man pushed by me in tight jeans, Bob Dylan sunglasses and the quick stench of cold hard cash. Strip clubs. That’s what people do with their money. If I buy cigarettes with too many singles, I will smell like a strip club. Her strip club.
I chose not to buy them.
My friend Ana always told me her father would drive her places she never wanted to go, but this wasn’t the scrapping of the barrel, she told me. Stripping is only the nails holding the whole disgusting, alcoholic, life digesting concoction together. I visited her with some of my tips spilling out of my back pockets from work last Tuesday. I stood outside, looking into the brick, wondering if I should take up smoking. I asked who I could only assume was a customer of the club if he had a light, and when he said yes, I told him thank you, but I have no cigarette. He talked with me as I looked at the words LATINO LUXURY flashing in pink, pale fluorescent skin. That little phosphorescent woman moved in standing, squatting, spread-eagled position across the windows. I walked in and smelled loss sliding down the throats of every man looking at the gyrating, naked women. I saw her from the doorway, somewhere towards what must have been the back of the place. The dollar bills become aware of their surroundings and made my pocket warm. I pulled my purse back over my shoulder and walked with no grace. Naked breasts stared at me from stage to stage, women slick with Vaseline, not sweat, and men eating sushi staring at their shoes. I reached the end of the curving red faux velvet couches, spots in the seats worn to black. I sat down at one of the tables right in front of her. Music on a distant speaker broke into static. She shook herself around, then saw me. She was wearing a wig. Red brown. I ordered a Jameson on the rocks from a nearby waitress in only an apron and looked up at Ana. She looked back at me and she danced. The speaker was fixed and played 80’s hair rock. We didn’t blink as we looked at each other. I reached into my back pocket and placed a one at her stiletto-ed heels. She danced. Other men noticed and watched me. Steadily they made their way to the edges of the stage and added a one or two. Ana started to dance their way, before I added money and looked at her wig as she turned back to dance towards me. A man placed down a 20 and I put down a 50. She looked at me and I looked at her. A man shouted it wasn’t fair my faggot ass got all the action, this wasn’t some lesbo club, get the fuck out of here. My fingers pulled more bills out of my back pocket and when that place was empty, I reached into my purse and took cash from there.
Finally a waitress came over and motioned to Ana signaling the end of her shift. She blew a kiss to the disappointed men whom I promptly stared at before reaching for my purse to leave. I turned and a man twice my size stared down at me.
"Who you doin' that for, young lady?" he said.
"Me," I said.
He shook his head.
"Nah. I don't believe that."
"I don't either."
I shrugged and pushed by him.

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