Naked Men

by Alicia Giménez-Bartlett

  “Did you see that? It’s incredible, right? That teacher’s dancing is electric, unsettling. I can’t believe these things are going on right in our city.”

  But they are going on, Sandra. People make a living however they can. Though there doesn’t seem to be anything sordid about this—I don’t see anything like the classic patrons of the female striptease, guys staring lustfully at the dancers while nursing their whiskeys.

  Another performance begins, announced by the Mexican-style strumming of a guitar. Bright lights spill across the stage. Entering from stage right comes the legendary Zorro himself, dressed in the obligatory black, with a wide-brimmed hat, a cape that goes down to his ankles, and boots with spurs. Despite the mask, I can tell it’s Iván. I would have recognized his pursed, unsmiling mouth anywhere, twisted by the faintest rictus of contempt. I lean over to Sandra and whisper in her ear: “I think that’s him.”

  She nods, her curiosity piqued.

  Zorro begins a dance clearly influenced by indigenous styles. He stomps his feet, cracks his whip, pretends to gallop on an imaginary horse. It’s pretty ridiculous, so much so that the audience titters. Unexpectedly, then, a man dressed as a prerevolutionary guard bursts through the curtains and attempts to capture Zorro. They draw their swords and run through a showy fencing choreography. Thrusting and parrying, they move along the catwalk that juts out into the audience. Seeing him up close like that, there’s no longer any doubt that it’s Iván. The dust rises up under their stomping heels and floats suspended in the beams of light. The fighting intensifies, until finally Zorro/Iván starts removing the guard’s clothing, item by item, with the tip of his sword. Every time an inch of skin is revealed, the audience bursts out into raucous, if still somewhat mocking, cheers. When the entire uniform is off, standing before us is a body in briefs, a little pudgy, with an incipient belly but sturdy legs. Naked and humiliated, the guard looks down at himself and takes off running. This time it’s Zorro who chases him, inspiring a frenzied uproar, until the fugitive disappears behind the curtains. The music gets quieter, the ethnic elements drop out, and it becomes the standard pulsing accompaniment to the traditional striptease. Zorro gracefully swings his hips and drops his cape, ruffled shirt, wide-brimmed hat, and pants. He’s left wearing black briefs and boots.

  “Your friend is hot,” Sandra says, laughing.

  And it’s true, Iván’s got the body of an athlete—or, more accurately, like something halfway between an athlete and a ballet dancer: long legs, sculpted at the gym, a flat belly, muscled calves, a perfect ass. He starts strutting down the catwalk, still wearing his mask. The women stretch their arms toward him and shriek. His movements are calm, impassive. He draws close to the frenzied girls, sliding away when someone reaches out to touch him; he gestures at them provocatively, sticking out his tongue and waggling it around like Mick Jagger. He moves toward us and gives us a thumbs-up. “I’ll see you after,” I hear him say amid the din. I smile and clap. He continues his triumphal march down the platform, and a middle-aged woman sticks a twenty-euro bill in his briefs. Other women follow suit, and, as if by magic, his genital area is suddenly swollen with banknotes. All in unison, like they’ve rehearsed it beforehand, the girls start howling, “Take it all off!” and then chant, “Off! Off! Off!” The masked figure imperiously gestures for the music to stop. There’s a drumroll. Zorro stands up tall, takes a deep breath, and rips off his mask. Now I can see his whole face, its familiar expression: proud, distant. We’re all in suspense, waiting for his briefs to come off too, but that doesn’t happen. Iván runs offstage and the house lights go on again.

  “Man, your friend’s a real professional!” Sandra exclaims in amazement. “He made a wad of cash with that little promenade! And did you see how deep in there those girls were stuffing that money? Shameless!”

  With short pauses between each number to allow people to order more drinks, the show goes on. The acts are all pretty similar, though after a while only one dancer comes onstage and the erotic intensity increases. What they all share is the strut down the catwalk. The dancers are often accosted by the alcohol-fueled audience members, who try to kiss the guys on the lips, grope their asses. They stuff cash in the guys’ briefs, taking their time about it, which makes the friends who’ve come with them burst into peals of laughter. The dancers systematically rebuff all of these advances, sometimes visibly irritated and gruff. The only ones not participating in the spectacle are the youngest women, barely out of high school. They just shriek at random, their high-pitched voices getting progressively louder. One of them has vomited on the floor. A waiter appears with a bucket and mop. I want to leave. I’ve gotten the idea at this point, and the show’s starting to drag. But I know I have to stay, not just to say hi to Iván but also because Sandra is having a great time and wants to meet him.

  The MC announces the final act, but he doesn’t leave the stage at the end of his introduction. The lights go out and then come on again, and he’s still there in his ridiculous sparkly, fuchsia-colored jacket. Sexy music. To the audience’s surprise, he starts moving to the beat. He’s nearly fifty, not attractive in the least. I assume he’s going to perform a comical number, but no: his dance grows repetitive, swaying, hypnotic. He’s like an aging orangutan getting ready to mate with his very last female. He removes his jacket and shirt. His torso is tanned dark. Age gives his body a dramatic quality that the young dancers lacked. Slowness is his primary erotic weapon. He’s in no hurry: he dawdles, dallies, weaves, goes into a slow trance. His pants vanish in a single movement. He reminds me of classical statues of Roman centurions: beefy, brawny, Herculean. He’s so wrapped up in his role that he lives it—you can hardly call it performance at all. His face displays extreme emotions: defiance, superiority, contempt, pleasure: “Here I am, bitches. I’ll make you happy for real.” The audience members who had been mocking him and inventing rude chants are now holding their breath. He has the room in the palm of his hand, and he knows it. He’s moving as if engaged in a slow, majestic, ritualistic sort of coitus. He perspires, delights, finds himself in some private, torrid place. He doesn’t range around the stage, get close to people, make the mistake of proximity. I glance at Sandra out of the corner of my eye. She’s rapt. I am too, though I sometimes feel an absurd need to look away, finding the whole thing too intense. The indescribable scent of sex saturates the room.

  In the final moment, as the beat becomes more regular, more insistent, signaling that we’re nearing the end, the MC moves his right hand back and unfastens the last bit of elastic: his briefs fall to the floor. A large penis, now freed, hangs against his inner thighs. His balls are dark, tinted a raucous purplish blue, which gives them an odd, glistening sheen. He spreads his arms in complete surrender. He reminds me of the ecstasy of a person being crucified, a sacrifice recently made. His eyes are closed, and then suddenly he opens them and walks offstage. The mocking, derisive audience now applauds uproariously, as if they had just witnessed a performance by a famous tenor. When the lights go up, the room is pervaded by an awkward unease, like at the movie theater after the screening of an intimate film. The spectators can’t look at one another, seized by a strange prudishness.

  Fortunately, it’s now time for the entire cast to take their bows, and the dancers’ appearance onstage prevents the show from ending with an unsettling anticlimax. The young men are wearing black pants and sweaters, nice, everyday stuff, looking utterly normal. Nothing unusual’s happened here; we hope you’ll come back for another visit. There are twelve of them, including the MC, who’s somehow had time to change.

  The crowd begins to leave, their voices hushed. Euphoria has given way to fatigue. Only a few patrons remain at their tables.

  “No comment,” says Sandra, giving me a sardonic look.

  Quiet music and the final drink orders: bottles of champagne. It must be a sort of tradition among the regulars. We haven’t ordered anything, but a waiter brings us a bottl
e.

  “From Iván. He says he’ll be right out.”

  “How thoughtful!” says Sandra before we toast.

  After a few minutes, some of the dancers start to emerge and sit down at tables with people who are clearly their friends. Finally Iván appears. He’s got the same expression on his face as always. I stand up and introduce him to Sandra.

  “Congratulations,” she says. “You were great. You were all really good. I loved it.”

  “Thanks.”

  It’s a kick-ass show, woman, no shit. The only reason we haven’t taken it to New York is that the boss doesn’t want to. They’ve invited us, yeah, but he wants to keep things simple, otherwise . . . we’d all be there on Broadway, buck naked. Though really it’s better to stay home—there’s lots of competition in America, and here we’re the only ones. We fucking rule the roost. The room sells out every Friday and Saturday. During the week it’s just a dance club. The city is what it is, and we can’t fill it every day. We mostly get groups of women, lots of them. If they had to come alone, they wouldn’t do it, they’d be embarrassed, but when they’re in a group they go wild. Women sure are something, groping you right in front of everybody like it’s no big deal. If things were the other way around, if a guy felt up a female dancer, there’d be a riot. The bouncers would get involved. But we have to put up with it—it’s part of the show. And they say things that stop you dead in your tracks, really crude stuff. “Come here so I can suck your cock.” I bet they don’t talk like that at home. It pisses me off, actually, because they don’t really mean it—they’re just trying to look cool in front of the other women in the group. Though ultimately I don’t give a shit—I just do my thing. My main goal is I want to do a good job. I’ve been rehearsing the new show for a month solid. We change it all up every six months so people don’t get bored. That way if they come back, they don’t see the exact same show. We get groups of older women and a lot of bachelorette parties. The waiters tell us what table they’re at, and one of us will go congratulate the bride-to-be. Then we’re the ones who screw with them: “Touch my thigh, beautiful—once you’re married, your husband’s not going to let you do that.” It’s bullshit, but they love it. There are also groups of women who come in to celebrate when one of them’s getting divorced. You have to be careful with them because they’re bitter and might do something nasty or grope you. And then there are the fucking young ones—they’re the worst. Not even hatched yet. They get trashed because they don’t know how to drink, and they always order the cheapest thing on the menu: beer or wine. Totally hammered. Just today one of them threw up right there in the room. We’ve even had to call an ambulance a few times because of alcohol poisoning and so forth. If they left you a lot of money, it wouldn’t be a problem, but they never give anything. Mariano, the boss, insists they bring energy and says it looks good to have young people in the audience.

  “Do you make decent money?” I ask.

  “Shit, man, what can I say!”

  That’s some question the teacher’s asking. If we did a show every day, I’d be all set, but since they’re only on the weekends, you do OK, but not well enough to buy a Porsche or anything. And we split the money out of our jockstraps with our dance partners. The guy who plays the guard during my act doesn’t stay till the end, so I give him half of what I get. The ones who perform solo make the most. They’ve been around the longest and have the most experience. I’m not there yet. Anyway, with this fucking crisis that’s going on, you make less and less each time. I’ve only been doing this a couple of years, but the older guys say that four or five years ago, women would be slipping fifty-euro bills into their briefs. Now there’s no way. The standard is twenties, but sometimes I’ve gotten tens or even fives.

  “You haven’t told me if you liked it.”

  “It was amazing,” Sandra says. “Especially the MC.”

  “Mariano’s a genius.”

  A genius and a force of nature—the best. He owns the place, and he’s the smartest one here, the one who gets all the money. I don’t resent him for that, for the record. The dude’s a real brainiac. He sets all of this up: he comes up with the ideas for the dance numbers, hires all the performers, keeps the books, and takes care of the rent and décor . . . Shit, he’s the one running all the risk. And he’s a good guy. He pays in cash, and it’s pretty good pay, considering. He doesn’t take a percentage of the tips—that’s all for us.

  “His act is incredible,” I remark.

  “It sure is.”

  It always leaves everybody speechless. During the show he seems like the worst one and nobody’s paying attention, and then at the end . . . at the end he takes it all off, the bastard, and brings the house down. He’s got a gift. With what he makes from the show and then with the dance club the rest of the week, he’s got to have plenty to live on just from that, but he likes performing. His moves will turn you to stone. He drives chicks crazy, all cocky, like he’s saying, “You want me to fuck you, girls, is that what you want? Well, I’m gonna fuck you good.” The chicks get all riled up. He’s the best. He learned it in the States. He was in a bunch of shows there. He played the Latin macho better than anybody, even though he had competition from the Mexicans and Colombians—but he beat them all. He even married an American. Then they split up and he came back to Spain. He also got older, of course—aging doesn’t spare anybody. He’s still got a good body, but if it weren’t his show, they’d definitely have booted him by now. He’s a smart guy, and he gives good advice. He’s always saying, “Think about the future, boys. This striptease business doesn’t last forever. If you’re not careful, your gut goes flabby or you get a bald spot, and then it’s all over. They’ll slam the door in your face. And I will too—business is business, and ladies want fresh meat. They’ve already got their husbands back home if they want a close-up view of human imperfection. The customer is always right, so don’t think this is forever. You can do all the sit-ups you want, but it won’t save you. Save up or look for another job before it’s too late, or set up your own joint, or marry rich.” That’s Mariano, a fucking genius.

  “Don’t even think about paying, Javier! It’s my treat. Put that wallet away before you piss me off. It’s been a real pleasure having you two, I mean it.”

  On our way home, Sandra looks at me, suddenly serious.

  “I can’t believe you’re friends with that guy.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a flaming sexist.”

  “Come on, Sandra, give me a break! So he’s sexist. He grew up on the streets, what do you expect? Who were you expecting to meet, Nureyev after a performance of Swan Lake?”

  Jesus, it’s like she doesn’t have a clue: mother in prison for drugs, father dead of an overdose, raised in orphanages or by his grandmother, trying to make his way in life as best he could. Sexist!

  “He hasn’t robbed or killed anybody. He found a way to make money at the club. It’s commendable. Good for him—I still haven’t figured out how to earn a living.”

  “I’m not saying he’s a bad person. I was just taken aback by the way he talked about women. What do you see in a guy like that?”

  “I’m a loser too, don’t forget, worse than him.”

  Sandra’s a little younger than I am, but it seems like she’s stuck in the past. She doesn’t realize things have changed—they’ll never be the same again. She thinks they’ll go back to the way they were: job, family, social position. Her catechism is carved in stone: don’t be sexist or racist or classist. Practice solidarity. The crisis hasn’t touched her yet. She earns a regular salary, lives a quiet life, goes to visit her parents on Sundays . . . She thinks my unemployment situation is just temporary. She has no idea, doesn’t realize the party’s over—or maybe she’s closed her eyes so she won’t have to face reality, but it’s still there. It doesn’t matter how many academic degrees you have. Nothing makes a difference now. The old mode
l is dead and buried, but there’s no new one to take shelter in. Make do—that’s the only option. There is no path. There is no destination. Everything’s wide open. Somebody tricked us—a shepherd led us up to the edge of the cliff and then disappeared. If you fall off, that’s your fault. That’s it.