there i was w/dona at trader tom's in g'ville. the place had lost it's allure, there was no doubt about that. the bikers standing guard at the front door should have clued me in. i suspect i wouldn't have gotten in alone. having a young attractive woman w/me got me in but only grudgingly. w/moran & mike, we'd been shuffled right in. the place was lit up & alive w/activity. not anymore. i went inside w/a deep sense of dread.
what had been a hopping club now seemed abandoned & forbidding. the room where i remember spending so much time in, the main dance area w/a huge stage & numerous side stages, was empty. not just empty but closed. there were no lights flashing, no music. it was darkened & cave-like. red velvet drapes hung dirty & torn by the old main stage. we went through another small door & into a tiny area. there was the bar. there was the stage. each was small, tiny, in fact. & so was the room itself. i immediately felt claustrophobic. it felt like a mausoleum. what the hell had happened, i wondered.
there were maybe two or three single men there. they all turned & stared at dona. i understood. the girl on stage was simply weaving slowly around on stage, her body looked like she'd been strung out for months. i assumed she wasn't the headliner. it struck me that there probably wasn't a headliner here. a very fat woman came to the table & announced, " there's a two drink minimum for each table." she stood there like an cow & clearly had no intention of leaving until we'd met the minimum. "two beers," i choked out. her lip curled. she spun around & lumbered away. this was not going the way i'd envisioned.
i felt dona's gaze burning into the side of my head. i'd been avoiding eye contact w/her. i understood that this place was not advancing my argument FOR strip joints. dona was a third generation feminist(she hadn't read de beauvoir, for example)& had missed the man hating phase of that movement. she was willing to give anything that might enhance HER sexuality a chance. for instance, she loved pornography. the idea of mmf 3somes thrilled her. she loved looking at other women & evaluating them almost like men, as sexual objects. in her mind, that was ok. if a woman does it, it was ok, esp as it spoke directly to what turned her on. that was crucial to the whole process.
that's what led me to that deeply depressing & indefensible moment in trader tom's. i can say for a fact that if she'd been in new orleans w/me & seen terra dance, she would have been on fire. but she hadn't been there & we were in trader tom's in g'ville now. i was just trying to figure a quick way out when one of the dancer's sat down at our table. i was about to beg off what i assumed would be her supplication for table dancing tips, when she said outright, " don't worry, i'm not here to get money from you." she looked at dona & said, "why are you here, honey?" dona was reacting as if an untouchable had intruded into her personal space, which i guess really was what was happening. the real world is NOT what anyone thinks they're getting when they come to a strip-joint. she started sputtering out some kind of response when i said, "i'd been here years ago & thought she might like it. this isn't anywhere near what it used to be like." i remember her visage drawing near to me thru the smoke of the place, " it hasn't been like that in years. you shouldn't have brought her here. this is no place for a decent woman." i remember her narrowed eyes & hissing voice. her tattered lingerie was motley & foolish looking. i tried to make light of things. "yes, well...if i'd known things were in such disrepair...ha ha ha." "fuck," she spit out & turned to dona. "whatever was in your head you need to really rethink. this is hell on earth. there's nothing romantic here for anyone."
i tried to give her some money but she wouldn't have it. dona looked near tears. i'd been caught masturbating by my mother once. she pushed though the bathroom door i thought i'd locked & stood gaping at my very modest erection. since i was only 12yo at the time, it defiantly stayed erect. this felt much worse in terms of pure abjection. unfortunately, i've become familiar w/that feeling. you might even say i'm an expert. our bovine waitress brought the second round of beers w/o asking. she just set them down & said, "twenty bucks." i paid. i figured we'd paid our minimum & could scram as soon as the woman left the table. as she wandered off, i started saying goodbye to our table-mate. "good, get out. there's nothing for either one of you here," she said. then she just kept sitting there, staring blankly up at the now unoccupied stage. "at least i don't have to put up w/you two in the audience when i dance," she mumbled glumly. amen to that, i thought. dona was acting as if she'd been infected by something. "well, goodbye," i added as a grabbed dona's arm to get her up & out of there. "i'm so sorry," she suddenly offered to the woman. she continued to stare up at the stage.
as we were going out the door, i heard the bartender sceam, "hey stacey, get your scrawny ass up on that stage. you ain't paid to sit on that ass." when we opened the main door to the outside parking lot, the smell of pot nearly knocked us down. the bikers were still there but had more to say this time, to dona mostly. she was staggering along as if she were drunk, mouth twisted in a rictus of disgust & loathing. "why would you bring me to a place like this," she blurted out shrilly. "well, ha ha, you actually asked me to," was my smooth reply. "why would YOU ever go to a place like that? it's just degrading, it's sick, it's...," she feebly trailed off. "well, ha ha, that's a more complicated question, isn't it," i replied weakly. we road back to the apartment in silence. cold, stony, silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment