I’ve been making the most I’ve made in years. I feel much more hopeful for the future and like the world is maybe full of possibilities. But it feels fleeting and makes me nervous. I didn’t go to work last night and I realized there’s only one more Friday in August and then it’s September and then it’s fall. There are already orange orb spiders all over my yard. They know that they have to eat now so that they can mate so that they can die before the rain comes. When the rain comes, people stay in. They don’t get married and they don’t go to strip clubs. Everyone’s talking about Florida, Texas, Atlanta, Vegas.
The revolving door of drunks and out-of-towners is going to slow down and I’m going to have to stop wannadancing and build up regulars. I’m already having a hard time not wannadancing on slower weeknights. I come across as desperate and aggressive.
Me: Hey, how’s it going?
Customer: Okay…
Me: Just okay?! I bet a dance would make you feel better!
Customer: I haven’t even ordered a drink yet.
Me: My bad. Wannadance?
Customer: No.
On weekends it gets so packed that it’s standing room only by midnight. There is no time to change outfits because you’ll lose money in the time that takes. You lose money if you stop to count your money. I end those nights doing dances until the music turns off and the lights turn on. My ears ring and my hair is a strange texture from the cycle of getting drenched and evaporating for hours. I remind myself that I can’t cut bangs until it’s less sweaty at work. When you open the door to the stairs leading to the dressing room in the basement, you’re greeted by a wall of heat. There are roaches: little ones in the bathroom, big ones in the hall, medium ones upstairs on the bar. They navigate elbows and pints of beer like it’s Frogger. Most people are too drunk to notice.
The girls get so drunk that they don’t get off stage when it’s no longer their turn. They just don’t. You can’t rush them. It takes however long it takes for them to squat naked, trying to collect their outfits and stage tips. As soon as they scoop up a few dollars, they’ll lose a top. When they pick that up they’ll drop more dollars and a thong. Sometimes they get distracted and pause to yell belligerently, using their arms and dropping everything. One girl got so wasted recently that she lost the jeans that she wore to the club. She had to go home in a fleece blanket that hangs by the door, reserved for girls going outside to smoke.
There has been more than one girl to defecate outside of the actual bathroom. I asked a witness to tell me about it. “Oh that girl that just took a shit in the middle of the dressing room? I seen her the other day at Burgerville. She was in the parking lot crying on her phone and I was like, ‘That’s the bitch that shit in the dressing room!’” I love that she can’t be the girl crying in the Burgerville parking lot because she will never top being the bitch who shit in the dressing room.
The customers are even drunker than the girls. On Monday night, I caught a man using his library card at the ATM. I was waiting with a customer when I caught glimpse of that Multnomah County logo in the hand of the guy ahead of us. I had to physically move him to the side with no explanation and tell my customer to go ahead. The guy just stood there playing with his library card like it was a rattle. They get so inebriated that they will buy dances from you because they don’t realize that they already bought dances from you. They have loose bills coming out of every pocket and hand twenties over in sweaty, crumpled balls.
It’s the kind of place where you notice a girl’s sleeve is fresh and she’ll tell you that it’s unfinished because a mean bail bondsman arrested her while she was getting tattooed. She sounded as indignant as if she were speaking about Mumia Abu-Jamal, but also like she didn’t expect me to flinch. Of course. Why wouldn’t a bail bondsman be tracking her? I wondered to myself whether it was for writing bad checks because one time I heard her compare notes with another girl as if they were talking about clipping coupons. It made me remember girls burning security tags with lighters in the dressing room at the Sugar Shack, which made me nostalgic.
I guess I just love a good dive. This place is my home now. I know all the girls. The fugitive is always giving away cool clothes. The sensitive alpha female taught me a new pole trick. The Burning Man stripper texted me a Hafiz poem. The tiny token black girl who’s always leaving to get pizza slices twice the size of her head laughs at my jokes. The cook can make an iced mocha if you ask. I learned that from one of the minors who tips him every shift, regardless of whether she orders food. “Yeah, and then he just makes me whatever I can think of!”
“You have him on retainer?”
“What’s that?”