by Mary Monroe
“That’s my daughter up there on that stage makin’ a fool of herself,” Rhoda whimpered, giving the bouncer a pleading look.
“I don’t care if that’s yo’ mama. You ain’t comin’ up in here breakin’ the rules. Now, you sit still or I will throw both of y’all dykes out of here!” the scowling bouncer told us. Not only did this creature look like a huge frog, he sounded like one too.
The bouncer left, grumbling cuss words under his breath. People at nearby tables were whispering among themselves and giving Rhoda and me hostile looks.
I felt totally offended by what that bouncer had just said to us. I wasn’t upset about him telling us that if we wanted a lap dance we had to pay for it, but I had a problem with him assuming we were lesbians. There were a few other women in this dump who were not with men. I didn’t assume they were dykes.
“I don’t like this place, Rhoda. I don’t see how anybody could stand to be in here for more than a few minutes,” I complained. “It stinks like hell in here!”
“I don’t like this toilet either. It’s much worse than I expected,” Rhoda complained.
Jade continued to perform her act, glaring at me and Rhoda.
“Well, now I don’t think this was such a good idea. I don’t think you are going to be able to talk to your daughter in this place after all,” I said, gently placing my hand over Rhoda’s. Her hand was shaking so hard, I had to hold on tight to keep her knuckles from hitting against the top of the metal table. “Let’s go,” I begged. “That same mean-looking bouncer keeps giving us dirty looks.”
“I’m not leavin’ this place until I talk to my child,” Rhoda insisted. “If you want to leave, I can’t stop you. I’ll go home in a cab.”
“I am not leaving this place without you. But if you don’t want them to make another scene with us, you’d better stay in your seat.”
By now Rhoda was in tears. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose into the napkin that had come with her drink, which had an illustration of a naked woman on it.
“Rhoda, if you do get to talk to Jade, exactly what are you going to say to her? You can’t force her to leave this place.”
“I don’t know what I’m goin’ to say to her. But I can’t leave her here like this. She’s still my baby and I still love her; so I’m stayin’ until I talk to her, no matter how long it takes. There is nothin’ else that girl can do that’ll hurt me more than what she’s doin’ now,” Rhoda said, making a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the stage. She looked so sad and helpless, but other than me being with her, I didn’t know what else to do to help her.
I knew I couldn’t say what I was thinking, but I didn’t agree with what Rhoda just said. I had a feeling that Jade was going to do something that would hurt Rhoda even more. My prediction would come true a few minutes later.
“Honey, the way Jade keeps glaring over here at us, I don’t think she wants to hear anything you or I have to say.”
Rhoda whirled around to face me. “I want to let her know that she can leave this place tonight with me. I can’t rest until I do everything I possibly can to bring her to her senses. I owe that much to her ... and to myself.” Rhoda mopped more tears off of her face; then she rubbed her nose and sneezed. “But this place is so despicable, I’ll be glad when we can leave.”
“I’ll be right behind you. Just say when,” I said with a sigh of relief as I sneezed into one of those sleazy-looking napkins. Three men had plopped down at the table a few feet behind us. Within seconds they were all smoking cigars, and whooping and hollering as Jade continued to degrade herself up on that stage. Now she was dancing to “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal. Seal was one of my favorite entertainers. He was such a class act that I couldn’t imagine how horrified he would be to know that his music was being used in such a degrading way.
I locked eyes with Jade. The smirk on her face had intensified. I was convinced that if it got any worse, it would melt that metal pole. If this kind of “entertainment” was what the people in this place called sexy, I knew that Rhoda didn’t have a chance in hell of talking some sense into her daughter’s head. And by now the stage floor was almost covered with bills that the men had tossed to Jade. A few moments later, Jade was dancing a jig and giving herself a single slap on the side of her butt every three or four seconds. She was completely naked now; even the boots had been removed.
“Oh, Lord have mercy,” Rhoda moaned, her head in her hands. She looked up, right into Jade’s eyes. Jade gave Rhoda a major smirk. When the song ended, she snatched the pieces of her costume and the pile of tips up off the floor, and pranced off the stage like a drag queen. The last thing I saw of her was her naked ass jiggling like brown Jell-O.
A different waitress came to our table and asked if we wanted more drinks. Except for a short heart-shaped apron, a G-string, and red high heels, she was completely naked. I shook my head. Rhoda beckoned for the woman to lean closer to her and Rhoda whispered something in her ear. The woman whispered something back to Rhoda and nodded toward a door on the other side of the room. As soon as the waitress left, Rhoda rose from her seat so fast her chair fell against me.
“Come on. We’re goin’ to the dressin’ room,” Rhoda told me, grabbing me by my arm. She started moving before I could protest. I stumbled along behind her like a lamb until we were off the main floor. We crept down a dimly lit hallway that smelled like urine, marijuana, and stale cigarettes.
Before we could enter what I assumed was the dressing room, the door flew open. A buxom blond woman almost knocked us down trying to get out of the room so fast. “Move, bitches! I need to get my ass out on that stage!” she yelled in a hillbilly accent. Rhoda shook her head and proceeded to enter the room with me still right behind her.
CHAPTER 46
JADE’S PLACE OF “EMPLOYMENT” WAS MORE DISGUSTING THAN I thought. The so-called dressing room was a sight to behold. The stench in it was worse than the one out on the main floor. In addition to smoke and sweat, I smelled marijuana smoke, cheap perfume, and the unholy stench of stale farts that seemed to be bouncing off the walls. One wall contained a row of gray lockers. Some had padlocks, some had been pried open. Outfits that I would not have worn during my stint as a prostitute, even if I had had a stripper’s body, dangled from hooks in the lockers that were standing open. A large pink plastic penis was hanging like a piñata from a gold chain that had been placed in the middle of the ceiling. Scattered about the dressing room counters were dildos, whips, vibrators as long and thick as my arm, thong panties, makeup, wigs, and hairpieces. And as unbelievable as it was, there was a rosary dangling from a mirror right next to a wallet-sized picture of a man licking a naked woman’s breast.
Jade sat in front of a full-length mirror with a cigarette dangling from her lip and a champagne glass in her hand. Except for a towel draped around her shoulders, she was still naked. She didn’t see us right away, so she seemed to be in a frisky mood. “One of my regulars wants me to give him a blow job without a condom, but I told him like I tell them all, I am not sucking on your joystick bareback for less than five hundred bucks.” Jade threw back her head and laughed like a drunken sailor. “I am no—” She looked in the mirror and froze at the sight of Rhoda and me standing a few feet away from the doorway. Her head whirled around so fast she almost fell off the chair. The cigarette fell from her lips and onto the floor. There was a look of hatred on her face that was so intense it made the hair on the back of my neck rise up from my skin like needles.
“The soup kitchen is next door,” one of the women yelled, looking from me to Rhoda.
“Listen, if y’all are the new cleanin’ ladies, that damn shower is full of water bugs and ants,” another one yelled.
“Shet up!” Jade ordered, her hand up in the air. “This is my mama!” The other strippers started buzzing; some even snickered and shook their heads. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jade snarled, rising from her seat with a hand on her hip.
Rhoda swallowed so hard she had to bob
her head. “I want to talk to you, baby,” she said in a voice that sounded unnaturally gentle coming from her. “You don’t have to do this to yourself. Please let me take you back home so we can talk about what you really want to do with your life.”
“I’m twenty-one. Remember how you reminded me of that time and time again? You wanted me to get out and be on my own. Well, I did.” Jade stopped talking long enough to pick up her cigarette and suck in some more smoke and then blow donut-shaped smoke signals in Rhoda’s direction. Rhoda flinched, and for a second I thought she was going to dismember Jade with her bare hands; or at the very least, slap that damn cigarette out of her mouth. And if there was anybody in the world who could get mad enough to do that, it was Rhoda. I was relieved when she didn’t. All of the other women present, and there were at least a dozen, remained silent and watched this exchange as if they were spectators at a sporting event.
“Jade, I know better. This is not what you want to do. Come home and let’s have a cup of coffee and talk. We can find a school where you can learn a real trade. With your looks, you could even look into a career in TV or the big screen. You are way too good to be involved in crap like this like the rest of these ... these tramps!” Rhoda insisted, looking around the room from one angry face to another. She wrapped her hand around Jade’s wrist.
The other strippers rolled their eyes and snickered. One mumbled a few obscene phrases under her breath.
“Don’t you touch me,” Jade warned, slapping Rhoda’s hand away. “What the hell do you care what I do anyway? You ... you threw me out of the house I grew up in like I was some bum off the street. And now you come up in here trying to talk shit to me? And by the way, you called me a tramp the day you kicked me out, so I guess I’m in the right place.”
“No, you’re not a tramp, and you are not in the right place—” Rhoda declared.
Jade held her hand up to Rhoda’s face. “I know you want to ease your conscience, but I won’t help you. I can do whatever the hell I want to do now!” Jade snapped. “Now take your lap dog and get up out of here! Be nice and go have a drink on me. Tell the bartender to put it on my tab. We got everything you two would like—oops, everything except Geritol.” Jade didn’t crack a smile at her last comment, but the other women guffawed like hyenas.
“I don’t want a drink, thank you,” Rhoda said, using that unnaturally gentle voice again. “Can we go somewhere so we can speak privately?”
Instead of answering her mother’s request, Jade smashed out her cigarette in a heart-shaped ashtray; then she began to drag a brush through her hair. She went on about her business like Rhoda and I had suddenly become invisible. “Lorna, can I have some of that glitter?” Jade said, addressing the woman in the mirror next to her.
“Jade, please don’t do this. For your own sake, you can at least come outside and talk to your mama,” I suggested.
Jade stomped her foot on the floor, grabbed a see-through gown and a pair of clear, open-toed high heels from the counter, and ran out the door. She came back a few seconds later with the same bouncer who had manhandled Rhoda and two more who were just as ferocious looking. “Get these women out of here,” Jade said to the men, snapping her fingers.
“Come on, Heckle and Jeckle! Y’all GIT! GIT UP OUT OF HERE!” yelled the first bouncer who had accosted us in the main room. He grabbed Rhoda by one hand and twirled her toward the door.
The other two bouncers each grabbed one of my arms and escorted me out, leading me by my elbows like I was a lamb on the way to be slaughtered. By the time they got Rhoda and me out of the club, through a back door into a parking lot that was full of men just lurking around, I was overwhelmed beyond belief. My head felt like it was going to spin clean off of my shoulders!
It was a good thing that we had parked two blocks down the street from the club. The brief walk gave us time to breathe in some fresh air and collect our thoughts.
“We could file complaints about those fuckers being so rough with us, you know,” I offered. “We were not doing anything bad enough for them to grab on us like they did.” The two bouncers who had pounced on me had been so rough, both of my arms were throbbing like I had been wrestling with a bear.
Rhoda shook her head. “This is as far as I go. I don’t want to involve the cops. I’m through.”
“Honey, you did all you could. Whatever happens next is up to Jade,” I said.
“Is it?” Rhoda croaked, looking straight ahead.
I was glad that it had stopped snowing. By the time I drove Rhoda back to her house, almost in complete silence, she was so upset I offered to spend the night with her, or take her home with me.
“I’m fine, Annette. I’m just a little shaken, that’s all. I just can’t believe what happened back there. You can go on home.”
“Rhoda, leave the girl alone for a while. When and if she wants to talk to you, she’ll do so when she’s good and ready. You and Otis can’t do any more than you’ve done already. Let it go. Let her go... .”
“I wish I could, Annette. I ... I just want to talk to her ... hold her one more time.” Rhoda put her head in her hands and cried like I’d never seen her cry before. Not even when her baby boy died.
I walked her to her front door and gave her a big hug. I felt so helpless. But I had done all I could.
I took my time driving home. My feet felt like they weighed ten pounds each as I practically dragged myself up onto my front porch. As soon as I made it inside and removed my coat, the telephone rang. I let the answering machine catch the call. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody else tonight unless it was Rhoda.
“Annette, if you in that house, and if Rhoda is with you, pick up this telephone right now!” It was Scary Mary. She was the last person in the world I wanted to speak to at a time like this. I was not in the mood for any of her busybody antics. “Well, when you get this message, you call me back right away. I just left a message on Rhoda’s machine. If you know where she’s at, you let her know that her daughter is at my house and she wants to come home and talk to her... .”
CHAPTER 47
JUST AS I WAS ABOUT TO DIAL RHODA’S NUMBER, SHE CALLED ME. “Annette, I just came out of the bathroom and there was a message from Scary Mary! Jade is ready to talk to me!” The excitement in her voice was incredible. I could just picture the huge grin she must have had on her face.
“She left me the same message. Do you want me to come back over?” I asked Rhoda. “I can be there in a few minutes.”
“No, I’ll call Scary Mary’s place and see what’s goin’ on and then I’ll call you back.”
“Oh shit, somebody’s at the door. Rhoda, hold on.” I was surprised to see Pee Wee standing on my front porch. I didn’t have time to explain anything to him, and I didn’t want to keep Rhoda on hold for too long. I just waved him in. He stood next to me as I resumed my conversation with Rhoda. “Uh, Pee Wee’s here. If you want me to come over, maybe I should bring him with me. There is no telling what kind of thugs Jade might have with her, so you might need some men around. Is Otis home?”
“He’s already in bed. He’s been so distraught because of all this mess, all he wants to do is sleep,” Rhoda told me.
“Well, like I just said, Pee Wee and I could come over there if you want us to.”
“No, I don’t think either one of you should come,” Rhoda decided. “And I don’t want Otis to know about you and me goin’ to that strip joint tonight,” she added. “Tell Pee Wee that right now in case he sees Otis before I tell him what you and I did.”
I held the telephone away from my ear and turned to Pee Wee. I told him as briefly as I could about Rhoda and me going to that strip club, and what we had tried to do. I also told him how rudely we had been treated.
“Y’all ain’t had no business goin’ over there to that place without me and Otis as backup anyway!” Pee Wee yelled, talking so hard the veins on the side of his neck were poking out like worms.
“Pee Wee, with all due respect, those bouncers
are twice as big as you and Otis, and at least twenty years younger. They would have mopped up the floor with you two if you had gone over there with us,” I said. “I’m sure Rhoda feels the same way.” I returned my attention to Rhoda. “You were saying?”
“Scary Mary said that Jade will only talk to me if I come alone. She wants to meet me at that bar across from the nail shop on Willow Street,” Rhoda announced. She suddenly seemed as giddy as a schoolgirl, and I could understand why. It looked like there was some hope for a reconciliation with Jade after all.
“Are you all right to drive your SUV? You can drive it over here and leave it, and I can drive you to the bar,” I offered. “I’ll park around the corner from the bar so Jade won’t know I came with you.”
“Annette, please let me handle this,” Rhoda whimpered. “Now, I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
As soon as I hung up, Pee Wee told me that somebody at that strip club had already called him up and told him about Rhoda and me being there, and the uproar that we’d caused. “I came over here as fast as I could. I am gettin’ real worried about you, Annette.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I snapped. Then I purposely changed the subject. “I’m out of Pepsi. Could you drive me over to the Grab and Go so I can pick up a few liters?”