I’ve only thought I was in love
twice before in my life, once head over heals in love with a red headed Heroin addict and once with a black stripper while
I was hammered on New Years Eve. Ironically the first love triggered the other, which in turn caused
my wrist to shatter into three different pieces.
I was in a shitty mood, an
especially shitty mood because not only had I just crashed my beloved Cadillac
but also I had just been forced to break up with my girlfriend. I had lost the
only two things I had ever fell in love with in the same month and it tore my
fucking heart to pieces. Some people put all their money into their arms and
there is nothing you can do about it, I know that now. It was this type of chauvinist,
break-up attitude that drives a man to want to read “The Crucible” and totally
understand why they burned girls at the stake. It was the kind of mood that makes
a man drink too much and consider buying a muscle car. I’m still looking into a
Chevy Nova. Naturally my childhood friend and I decided the only remedy was to
go to a strip club in West Palm Beach to reign in the new year. After-all where
is there a better place in the entire world for depression, rage and sexual
angst to come together with a full liquor bar? “Girls end up taking all of your
money anyway, only here they’re not ashamed to admit what they want” my buddies
reassured me the entire ride. “Thanks guys”, I guess they didn’t hear the
sarcasm. My heart felt like it was sinking into my stomach and being consumed
by my acidic innards.
Packed
in the car down to West Palm Beach was one seven foot tall ginger by the name
of Greg and three German flight students who I had met at a beer bar the
weekend before. They had been amazed at the lack of girls in Vero Beach, Greg
and I had planned to quench their thirst with a waterfall. The entire ride down
to West Palm our Chrysler 300 rode in the fast lane going ten under the speed limit,
I had grown up with Greg’s driving so it was easy for me to ignore the angry
horn blasts and flashing lights from the people having to pass us in the right
lane. I had to smile. Greg was the kind of guy who could tell you how the earth
spun on an axis and how cells multiply, but didn’t know what to say to a pretty
girl. I happened to be the opposite and I sported the GPA to prove it .
Whenever we talked to girls at bars we ended up convincing them he was a professional
athlete. No one argues when you are as big as Greg, either because they
actually believe you or are too afraid to question it. This particular night
though he was not worried. He had three hundred dollars in one dollar bills,
George Washington would do all the talking he needed tonight. As I stared out
of the window into the dark fields parallel to I-95 my depression plagued me
like locusts. This was our exodus from crappy Vero
Beach, we were pilgrims and our promised land was called
“Cheetahs”.
We
arrived in West Palm and decided to visit Clematis Street. I had been there
earlier that year with friends chasing them from night club to night club. I
hate nightclubs with the same intensity that Hitler hated the Jews, but I
digress. We ate at an upscale sushi restaurant that was considered “hip” for serving
portions that even anorexic supermodels would have complained about, soon after
we crushed some Five Guys burgers and were on our way to Cheetahs.
We arrived to the strip club at
about nine o’clock. As I walked up to the door a bouncer frowned down at me,
ironically another tall ginger but not as large as Greg. “ID’s”, he demanded as
we approached. He looked me in the eyes and barked “take the hat off”. This
particular rule pissed me off. A strip club is one of the worst and most
desperate places on the planet. It is a place where drugged out single mothers
wave their genitalia in the stale air for disgusting pigs like me to throw
money at. The last thing a strip club should ever have is a dress code. If I
want to wear a Darth Vader costume, I should be able to. If I want to dress up
like mickey mouse, the bouncer had better open the door for me and call me “Mr.
Mouse”. I was wearing my lucky captain’s hat that night and fuck anyone who
said otherwise. This plus my lack of respect for authority caused me to chuckle
condescendingly at the bouncer’s not so friendly request. “Come on Andy” Greg
pleaded with me, he had been my friend long enough to tell when I was down to
start trouble. I sized up the bouncer, he looked like the kind of guy that had
just finished shooting uncut HGH into his ass while watching himself flex in
the mirror. I wasn’t impressed. I took my hat off and stuffed it into my back
pocket. I walked slowly past the bouncer, he looked like he was about to go
into a steroid fueled killing spree. Inside the club was like a meat market
where all the meat had been left in the sun for a day. Like a candy shop
selling candy that had been dropped on a carpet before being sloppily
repackaged. The place was covered in mirrors and flashing pink lights. As I walked
through the thin layer of smoke in the air, I gazed around at all the broken
dreams I saw dancing naked on the poles.
Now I spent two years of my college
career partying in Atlanta, Georgia with some of the biggest fuck-off frat boys
of all time, I can hold liquor. That night though I had ordered a slew of the
cheapest vodka drinks available, Mr. Boston and Red Bull, and they were doing
their job well. I had blown about half of my hard earned money on a girl who
could shoot a marble across the room like a bullet when I met Simone. Simone
was a short half black, half latina girl with big fake boobs and an ass you
could bounce a quarter off of. She had hair down to her waist like an amazon
princess and dark eyes that reflected the pink neon lights. She was nice, but
she was paid to be nice. I knew it and she knew it. She asked me what I was
doing in a place like Cheetahs, “a young guy like you should be out actually
getting laid”. I laughed and responded “aren’t you supposed to lead on male
customers so they think they’re gonna get laid?” Suddenly I realized why I was
there. “I’m here to satisfy a primal urge and so are you.” This time she
laughed, “and what kind of primal urge am I trying to satisfy?” I took another
sip of my drink, it was hard to pretend to be slick when you’re choking down
Mr. Boston. I paused for a minute to collect my thoughts, I looked into
Simone’s big brown eyes and said “you want money, and I want sex. You’re
willing to exploit your body to obtain money and I’m willing to exploit my wallet
to obtain sex.” Simone gave me the first real glance she had given me all
night, she had let her guard down and I could see it in her face. “I like you”
she said, suddenly her guard was back up as she flashed me a fake smile,
“but I’m gonna have to watch out
for you.”
The next few hours pass. I drank
more cheap vodka drinks. I became numb. Simone had circled the bar twice
talking and laughing with other guys but I could tell every once in a while she
looked back in my direction. I could feel her eyes beaming down on me like the
hot sun. My gaze also occasionally followed her around the bar like a lion
spotting a gazelle from a nearby patch of tall grass, I still can’t decide who
had played the part of the lion. Finally she sat in my lap while I was in front
of a stage with Greg. The Germans were already smashed and resorting to their
native tongue. They laughed wildy while the stripper on the stage pulled Greg’s
face into her ass with her feet. I had to smile as well. Simone began to speak
to me “so what’s your name?” I told her my name. “What about you?” I said gruffly
as I felt the vodka now cheerfully helping my stomach acid tear my sunken heart
apart.
“Its Simone, I told you –“
“Its not Simone.” I smiled as I
looked into her eyes. I could tell I was right.
She looks back into my eyes with another genuine expression.
We’re the same type of animal, and we could practically smell it on each other.
It was eleven fifty at night, only
ten minutes until the new year when Simone offered me a private dance in a room
behind the bar. She told me there was something special about me, I reminded her
she is paid to say things like that, but who could pass up a private dance? I
told her I would meet her in the back room as I stood up to go to the bathroom.
As I pissed onto the urinal cake I thought about my mortality, I think about it
all the time, it comes with the territory of depression. As I began to leave the
bathroom I noticed a small black man standing next to the sink surrounded by
cheap bottles of cologne and little packages of mints.
“Where are you from?” I ask him as
he squirts soap into my hands. My voice echoes off the tile.
“I’m from Haiti, but I live here
now.” He seemed surprised, it was obviously a question he didn’t
get often. He looked like he was in rough shape. As a
romantic I place significance on events in my life, and as a cynical bastard I
later realize that significance is a farce. “This place sucks.” I said as I
reached into my wallet to place a $50 dollar bill into his plastic tip bowl. “Take
it easy,” I tell him. I began to walk out of the bathroom I thought to myself
that if a god exists it is going to have a hard time trying to decide to put me
in heaven or hell.
As I exited the bathroom Simone
grabed my arm and lead me into the back room behind the bar. She shoved me hard
against an arm chair in a cubicle covered in mirrors. She didn’t give me a chance
to tell her I just ran out of money. She stripped naked for me and began to rub
her body against mine. “You don’t have to be shy with me,” she whispered in my
ear as she took my hands and ran them along her breasts. I looked up at the
large “No Touching” sign about the door we walked in through. I was drunk,
incredibly depressed and feeling a naked stripper when I heard the countdown to
2013 begin. At that point the large bouncer had walked through the door and
witnessed the blatant and rather enthusiastic breaking of the “no touching”
rule.
“TEN!” The crowd shouted from the
bar.
“What the fuck is this?” The ginger
bouncer yelled.
“Fuckkk”, Simone moaned as she
jumped off me.
“FOUR!” The crowd continued.
“Are you kidding me bitch?” The
bouncer yelled again.
“Uhhhh,” is all I could muster from
my drunken stupor.
The bouncer grabbed Simone by the shoulders and threw her
into an empty arm chair violently.
“ONE!”
The crowd shouted as I became enraged.
By some strange twist of fate like
something straight out of Patrick Swayze’s Road
House or literally any terrible Chuck Norris movie ever, we had had words earlier and now we
were finishing the encounter with fists. Now I’ve been boxing for the past six
years of my life and when the crowd shouted “One”, I heard a bell ring inside
my head. I jumped off of the chair like a prize fighter jumping off of a stool,
I clench my fists. I could feel the alcohol pulsing through my veins as I made
every muscle in my body tight. My hands felt like stones and my heart raced, I
was unstoppable. I threw a combo, jab, cross to his nose, and I pivoted my feet
to throw a left hook to his ribs. BANG.
The giant bouncer fell to his knees. I had never punched anyone so hard in my
life, my knuckles were leaking blood. I hurt him and I immediately feel bad
about it. Simone looked stunned as people from the bar outside the room screamed
and laughed “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” I took my captain’s hat out of my back pocket and
threw it on my head like a trophy. It was about time to hit the old dusty
trail. Simone laid naked on the arm chair adjacent, mouth open in shock.
“Hey
Simone” I turned around in front of the door to face her. “What’s your real
name?” She looked from the giant bouncer back to me, “It’s Tammy.” She suddenly
sounds more ghetto, its still sexy. In 2013 my eyes opened and I looked through
my glasses and across a darkened sex room at another human being, “Happy new year
Tammy.” I ran out into the bar and made my escape, Germans and all.
One week later a doctor squinted at
an X-ray rendering of my shattered wrist, and I sure as hell
don’t regret it.
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