More random pages I wrote for the book that never got finished:
DAY 6
Destination: Santa Fe, NM to Amarillo, TX
Date: 7.13.97 (Sunday)
Mileage: 20,128 to 20,428 (300 miles)
Bar(s): Cassidy's
Imbibed: 1 screwdriver
The evening of barflying begins after I hang up with P. and Mom. Which had me feeling slightly guilty when I decided that tonight might be a good time to explore the phenomenon of the strip bar.
So I catch a ride with Dave the Cabbie. Dave gives me the dirty lowdown on Amarillo's strip bar scene. The best place, he tells me, is closed on Sundays. So we decide he'll take me to Cassidy's, the 2nd best place in town, according to Dave, who looks like he'd be familiar with such activity.
Dave, like me, is the owner of a big head. As in circumference, not ego. Unlike me, though, he wears glasses. Big ones. Got a bit of a Reverend Jim thing going, too. His nervous laugh has got me cracking up.
Dave says if I need a ride back later to my overpriced room at the Quality Inn I should call and request him.
Thanks, Dave. I feel safe now.
.
..
...
My first waitress, Claudia, is in dark business slacks and a forgetable blouse. Like some frumpy single mom you'd expect to find down the hall in personnel — not delivering drinks at some skank bar.
She brings me a watered down screwdriver and sets her hand on my shoulder.
"Let me know if you need anything else."
There are 5 other guys in the place. Plus the emcee, who's getting a little too into it.
welcome to Kitten! The finest pussy in all the land..."
Less than 7 minutes later, Claudia is back. Checking to see if I was okay on drinks. Touching my shoulder.
Nobody touches you in L.A.
"You okay, sweetie?"
"I'm fine, thanks," I say looking up from my journal, which no doubt infuriates the dancers. Sorry, ladies.
I've never been totally comfortable sitting in a room with other men, starting at tits and asses and vaginas. Call me crazy, but the concept is a little strange. And I always feel like the women dancing despise me. I get the sense that they think I'm looking at them like just another piece of ass. So in their eyes, I'm just a wallet.
They'll love me when I'm handing out $20 bills like they're Altoids. But when I'm broke, I'm scum. Welcome to Humanity 101.
"Whatchou writin'?" Claudia asks, her bottle cap-shaped drink tray resting on her bosom under her folded arms. She's showing less skin than me.
"I'm writing a book, actually..."
I give her the whole story while a big brunette with pockmarks on her ass saves her beaver shot for the guy on the other side of the stage.
"Good for you," Claudia responds with obvious glee and a bit of pride. Imagine that, she must be thinking. A REAL writer. At MY table.
If she only knew.
"I'm a writer myself," Claudia tells me.
"Oh really?" I take the bait all too willingly. "What do you write?"
She bends down to get a direct shot into my ear.
"Well, I've never been published. Not yet. But I'm taking journalism at the local community college. Then I want to get a master's."
I think she missed a step in there somewhere.
"So what do you want to write?" I shout over ZZ Top's "Legs," the inspiration tune for a dodgy blonde I'm only too happy to ignore. "Fiction? Non-fiction? Magazine articles?"
"Erotica."
"Erotica?"
"That shit sells, man. Do you have any idea how big erotica is?"
"Well..."
I had no idea. Porn videos, yes. Cybersex, yes. But erotica?
"Sex sells, man. You know that."
"Yeah. For strip bars or porn flicks. Are people really reading erotica though?"
"Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? It's huge...HUGE."
"Huge?"
"Anne Rice? She gets into eroticism, along with the mysticism and vampire stuff. But I want to focus mainly on hardcore erotica."
Claudia didn't strike me as particularly sexy. But that last comment has me thinking of her doing naughty things.
"Hey, working here I got plenty to draw on."
No shit.
"I can't believe that stuff is such a huge seller," I say, trying to harness my skepticism. "What with all the dirty magazines and skank movies."
"Are you kidding? The business guy who watches porn flicks, he gets on a flight or he's having lunch, he can read erotica. The housewife, she's not into all the graphic stuff in the movies and the magazines. So she's reading erotica. I'm telling you, it's huge."
.
..
...
Claudia goes on to give me some strip bar facts like this one: Most of the dancers hate men. (I KNEW it.)
"Oh, yeah. I'd say 80% of them are either lesbian or bi."
She points to the almost-sexy brunette onstage, a scowling package of attitude and truck stop toughness.
"See that one. She's married. Her husband's underage. And she's got a lesbian lover."
Hmm...Such a sweet innocent.
"That one over there..."
Claudia motions towards a wide-hipped, small-breasted blonde trying to hit up one of the regulars for a lap dance.
"She's a Sunday school teacher."
"C'mon! That sounds a little..."
"I'm serious."
"But today is..."
"Sunday. That's right. She may have been teaching this morning."
.
..
...
Then there's Patty. The OTHER waitress. Patty looks young enough to be working at the DQ. She's cute, not beautiful, with short blonde mom hair — the cut preferred by women who don't want their babies yanking on their 'do all the time.
Patty's baby is a boy.
At work tonight she's dressed in black courduroy overalls. White t-shirt. White sox. Black shoes. Too innocent for this place.
She just moved here 2 months ago from Tyler, where I'm headed in 3 days to see my high school buddy Victor. Patty landed in Amarillo looking for a change of scenery. "Had a family crisis I needed to get away from" is how she put it.
It seems the father of her baby jumped off a pier. Broke his back, just like Santa Fe Edmund many years ago.
"It's tough," Patty says. "But I'm trying to get back on my feet."
.
..
...
The night ends in strangeness. While I wait outside the bar for Dave the Cabbie, a shy young thing offers to drive me back to my motel. In an instant we're trading life stories. The Shy Young Thing tells me her daddy was a trucker.
"Don't see him too much," she says.
This girl is about the most attractive female I've seen all night. It's close to 2 a.m. when she pulls up to pick up her friend, who I'm assuming is a dancer. Maybe not. Maybe she's one of the waitresses. She goes inside to tell her friend about me, the stranger they're gonna be driving home.
But I'm getting nervous waiting out here. It's kinda chilly. An eerie silence hangs thick in the air. The fact that there's about one car driving by every 5 minutes has got me jumpy. In L.A., when the streets are this empty, that's when you gotta worry.
Where the hell is Dave the Cabbie?!
My mind kicks into 2 a.m. mode. What are her intentions? Does she want to hook up? Do I want to hook up? She comes out to tell me it'll be another 5 or 10 minutes until her friend is ready to go.
She heads back inside. And I'm alone in an empty parking lot left pondering where the hell all this might be leading? Am really getting a ride back to my motel room from a couple girls I've just met at a strip joint in Amarillo? On a Sunday night, no less?
Then Dave pulls up. A decision must be made. I decide to go for the sure thing and play it safe.
A few minutes later, I'm back in my room at the Quality Inn.
Alone.
Wondering if I made the right decision.
Share
No comments:
Post a Comment