by Aya De León
Eva was the first older white person Tyesha had ever really trusted. She reminded Tyesha of teachers she’d had back home in the Chicago public schools. Her aunt had taught her to be polite to white people and that it was good to have them on your side. But you didn’t want to get close to them, and trusting them was certainly not an option. Chicago was profoundly segregated, so she didn’t have any white peers until college.
Eva was Jewish, and her parents had survived the holocaust in Germany, so she had a toughness and solidity that Tyesha didn’t often find in white people. Like Jody, she was ready to kick some ass for you if you were one of her folks.
“So I called their lawyers,” Tyesha said to Eva and Lily. “They’re insisting the dancers can’t unionize because they’re independent contractors, not employees.”
“Independent contractors?” Lily said. “I’m a stripper, not an independent contractor.”
Eva was busy clicking on her laptop.
“So,” Eva said, “when you get up on stage, you can wear what you want, dance how you want, and interact with the clients any way you like, right?”
“Are you kidding me?” Lily asked. “They threatened to fire me for wearing braids instead of a straight weave.”
“In other words,” Eva said, “you couldn’t get up on stage and do an interpretive dance to an Audre Lorde poem?”
Tyesha and Lily burst out laughing.
“Only if I wanted it to be my last night working there,” Lily said.
“Then they can’t claim you’re independent contractors,” Eva said. “According to the IRS regulations, one of the main criteria deciding employment status is about whether or not the employer has the right to control what the individual does while working for them.”
Lily sucked her teeth. “They’ve gone as far as insisting we have to have all the hair waxed off our nanny.”
“Doesn’t sound like a contractor to me,” Tyesha said.
* * *
The following day, Eva was yelling into the speakerphone during a conference call with the strip club’s attorney and the owner.
Even though they weren’t there in person, Eva had worn her best navy power suit and a red silk blouse. She had on low-heeled pumps and towered over the phone, a plump fist on her hip.
“So I’m gonna lay out two choices for you,” she said. “Option A: You can either officially change their designation to employees right now, giving them the right to unionize. Or option B: I can call the IRS and report that—since you opened in the nineties—you have been illegally classifying your employees as independent contractors. In which case, the One-Eyed King would be liable for twenty years of back taxes. And then I guess the girls won’t need a union, because the tax bill will probably bankrupt the business, especially when you figure in contributions to social security, workers’ comp . . . shall I go on?”
“The girls have all signed contracts that they understand they’re liable for their own taxes,” the attorney said. “The IRS won’t bite. But file suit. Maybe you can get a settlement in a few years.”
“I hate to do this, but we may have to bring criminal charges for pimping and sexual assault. As you’re likely aware, we have a video and several women who will testify.”
“They’re just disgruntled former employees that got fired,” the attorney said.
“Don’t you mean disgruntled former independent contractors?” Eva asked.
The line went mute for a moment, while the strip club owner and lawyer conferred.
“What do you think?” Tyesha asked, after they muted the phone on their end, as well.
“I think they’re in trouble, and they know it,” Eva said.
“Hello?” the lawyer’s voice came back on the line. Tyesha unmuted it.
“Fine,” he said briskly. “We’ll designate them all as employees.”
“And rehire them,” Eva said. “With a written contract.”
“Sure,” the attorney said. “But the terms will be the same ones they’ve verbally agreed to. And that’s it. No other changes.”
“Not good enough,” Eva said. “I need to know that all the girls will get their jobs back.”
“These girls are at-will employees,” the attorney said. “My client doesn’t have any obligation to rehire troublemakers.”
“Fine,” Eva said. “I don’t have any obligation to avoid calling the IRS to report what I just learned about your fraudulent employee policy or to avoid pressing criminal charges.”
“Hang on,” the attorney said, and the line went mute again.
“That’s right, motherfuckers,” Tyesha said, holding down the mute button.
“I think we got ’em cornered,” Eva said.
“I hope so,” Lily said. “I need my job back.”
“Well, you’re about to have two jobs,” Eva said. “Dancer plus union rep. Here’s the name of the labor activist Marisol got to help.”
Eva handed Tyesha and Lily a sticky note with the name and number of a woman from the theatrical union.
“Marisol knows this chick?” Tyesha asked.
“A friend of a friend,” Eva said.
They were interrupted by the sound of the One-Eyed King’s attorney coming back on the line. “Hello?”
“So are we agreed?” Eva asked.
“We’re agreed,” the attorney said. “The girls can come in and sign the W2 forms and get the new written policies.”
“Perfect,” Eva said. “And the dancers will be sending me screen shots of those policies. If there’s any shady language that isn’t in line with what we’ve agreed to today, I’ll call the IRS and the prosecutor’s office first. I won’t have you wasting all of our time with some bullshit.”
“Trust me, Ms. Feldman,” the attorney said. “There won’t be any need for you to make those calls.”
“Good,” she said. “And that’s Doctor Feldman.”
She hung up, and both Tyesha and Lily high-fived her.
“You a lawyer and a medical doctor?” Lily asked.
“A psychiatrist,” Eva said.
“Damn,” Lily said. “I thought the Jamaicans were supposed to be the ones with all the jobs.”
* * *
The next morning, Tyesha went to the Manhattan One-Eyed King, saying she had left her purse.
She had on a blond wig, a long black coat, and gloves.
“Can I go in and look for it?”
The security guard grinned at her. “Sure, baby.”
As she walked in, she strategically placed a piece of clear tape to keep the front door from closing. After walking noisily on high heels into the dressing room, she took them off and tiptoed across the hall.
She stood in the silent hallway and pulled the lock picks from her coat pocket. Carefully, she picked the lock on the office door.
Her hands shook a bit. A sudden burst of canned laughter made her start, nearly dropping the lock picks. She scrabbled with jittery fingers and breathed to calm her nerves. They had practiced this on several different doors. She was stunned at how easy it was to pick a lock. So easy, in fact, that she had decided to install a chain on her own apartment door.
Finally, she was in. She closed the door silently behind her and texted Kim.
Kim slipped in through the open street door, dressed identically, except with a purse in her gloved hand. She crept through the quiet club, down the back hallway to the emergency exit. She slid a Metrocard under the lock to prop the back door open, then crept back to the front of the club.
“Found my purse,” she called over her shoulder, but without turning her face around. “Thanks, guys.”
As the men turned toward the TV, Tyesha began to search the office.
It was a cramped box of a room, with a small desk and two chairs. The management had turned every possible square inch of the real estate into VIP areas. She dug through ledgers and files looking for evidence. She took a few pictures of different documents, but found nothing seriously incriminating. They were late with th
eir quarterly IRS payment, but so was the clinic. She downloaded everything from the computer onto a jump drive.
In the next room, she could hear the guards watching one of the music channels on cable. “Who’s the best rapper?” a woman’s voice asked. “Thug Woofer versus Big Dane.”
Tyesha groaned inwardly with the mention of Woof.
“Naw, man,” one of the guards said. “Big Dane way mo ratchet. He got a wife in jail and his girlfriend can’t go to his concerts cause she on house arrest. Look at Woof, man. You heard his album from last year? Melvyn: The Real Me? He on some punk-ass shit. We shouldn’t even call him Woof anymore. Call his ass ‘Meow.’”
The other guard laughed.
“This year’s Grammys have a lot of competition in rap,” another female announcer began. “Thug Woofer’s new album, Melvyn, the Real Me is likely to be nominated in several categories, including best album, best song, and best male artist. Remember him from last year? The bad boy of rap? Well, he’s certainly changed his tune.”
“Wait a minute,” one of the guards said. “Who was that girl?”
“What girl?” the other guard asked.
“The one with Thug Woofer on the red carpet.”
Tyesha strained to hear what they were saying, but it sounded like they were just playing a clip from one of Woof’s videos. Damn, no matter where Tyesha went—from her family to a strip club—Woof was always haunting her.
“She looks like that girl we just let in the club,” the guard insisted.
“You’re tripping!” the other guard said.
“Wind it back,” the first guard asked.
“You can’t wind it back,” the other guard said. “This is broadcast TV.”
“I’m serious,” the first guard said. “I’m gonna find the clip on YouTube.”
Abruptly, the audio from the TV program was turned off, and Tyesha felt nearly sick to her stomach.
As she opened the office door, she could hear strains of the theme music from the Oscars the previous year. How many times had she watched that clip on YouTube? Her breath caught.
“Thug Woofer!” one of the reporters had called. “Who’s your date wearing?”
“Dilani Mara,” he called back.
“That does seem like the same girl,” the second guard said. “He was fucking with one of the strippers who works here?”
“I’m gonna Google her,” the first guard said.
“What you putting in for search words?”
“Thug Woofer red carpet Oscars date,” the first guard said.
“These are just pictures,” the guard said. “None of them say her name. Why do you even care?”
“I feel like I seen her somewhere before,” he said.
Tyesha could feel her body tense as she waited for the download of the hard drive to complete.
“Here it is!” the guard said. “Tyesha Couvillier. She’s a graduate student at Columbia.”
“Stripping here?” the other guard asked.
“Tuition,” the first guard said. “Lemme Google her name.”
Tyesha’s stomach seized up.
“Yep,” the guard said. “Tyesha Couvillier. Public health. Graduated. Now she’s an executive director at the Maria de la Vega health clinic.”
“Those bitches?” the second guard said. “Those are the bitches who been fucking with the club.”
“What?” the first guard asked.
“If you saw her before, I bet it was at that press conference,” he said. “Find the clip.”
Tyesha slid out her phone and texted Kim: I think they’re on to me. Get ready to open the back door.
As she sent the text, Tyesha heard Marisol’s voice in the background: “Sex workers have a right to decent working conditions, to safety from sexual harassment—that’s right, sex workers can set limits. If she agrees to a lap dance, she hasn’t agreed to . . .”
Kim texted back: Standing by
The drive still hadn’t finished downloading. Tyesha texted: On my signal
“She must be a goddamn spy,” the guard said. “What the fuck was she really doing here today?”
“You think she took something?” the other guard said. “Planted a fucking bomb? I don’t know.”
“You check the dressing room,” the guard said. “I’ll check the office.”
Tyesha crouched under the desk and held her thumb over Kim’s number.
She heard keys in the lock, then the guard came into the office.
She pressed her thumb down and the phone began to ring silently. A few seconds later, the back door’s shrieking alarm rang throughout the building. As the two guards ran down the back hallway, Tyesha sprang from under the desk, yanked the drive out of the computer, and ran out the front door.
Behind the building, the two guards ran down the alley to see an Asian girl getting up from the sidewalk.
“You see a blond black girl go by?” they asked.
“That bitch knocked me down and ran past me.” She gestured with her shoulder toward the busy avenue block to her left.
The two guards ran out to the street. Kim hustled in the other direction to meet Tyesha.
* * *
That evening, the two of them sat around the conference room with Marisol, Eva, and Serena, the clinic’s office manager. Serena was a pale, petite, transgender young woman with wispy, flyaway hair. Her strong features revealed her Greek immigrant roots.
“I been looking through these files all day,” Serena said. “I can’t find anything incriminating. Unless you count a few sex tapes.”
“I looked at the ledger images, too,” Marisol said. “Nothing.”
“Could they be using the sex tapes as some kind of leverage over the girls?” Eva asked.
“I doubt it,” Tyesha said. “They were raw footage of multiple takes. These girls looked more like amateur porn actresses than girls having sex with a hidden camera.”
“Damn,” Marisol said. “So where does that leave us?”
“Ready for the long haul of organizing a union,” Eva said.
* * *
Later that night, Tyesha stood on the elevated subway platform headed home with a bag of groceries. A train came that was headed in the opposite direction. She stepped toward the tracks and craned her neck to see if her train was coming. No sign of it.
She pulled up her text to Thug Woofer again. She had asked God for a sign. And today she had been recognized and then chased because of Woof. Was it a sign that he was dangerous? That he was inevitable? But she thought of the guards’ reaction to the rapper’s new album. Woof had risked the scorn and ridicule of guys like that, in order to show something more vulnerable. She had heard the lyrics. She closed her eyes and pressed the button.
I been listening to Melvyn. Powerful. Let’s talk.
Tyesha’s stomach seized up. She immediately regretted sending it. Who was she kidding? It had been months. He was a famous rap star. Of course he had moved on by now. Probably wouldn’t even remember her number.
It was getting dark and still no sign of her train. Passengers kept coming up the stairs and cramming into the platform. Another train came in the other direction and helped relieve the congestion.
Suddenly, she had an awful thought: She hadn’t even put her name in the text. How arrogant was that? She might as well have opened with: of course you still have my number in your phone . . . Should she send a PS: it’s Tyesha? Ugh. She composed the PS then deleted it, then was halfway through composing it again when she got a text.
Tyesha! Is this my third chance?
Tyesha laughed out loud.
I think so . . .
Hell yeah we can talk. Call me!
She felt the knot return to her stomach.
Busy tonight . . . lunch tomorrow?
Whenever you say . . . how bout that steakhouse we went to?
Sounds good
They set it for noon.
Tyesha pressed the phone against her chest and wanted to scream. On the crowded
train platform, she held it in, so it came out more like a squeak. She felt excited and mortified.
In the distance, she could finally see the lights of her train coming.
She called Deza. “A certain rapper said yes to lunch,” Tyesha blurted. “We’re meeting tomorrow at noon.”
Deza provided the full-throated scream that Tyesha had been feeling. As the train pulled up with a screech, Tyesha let out her own shriek at half volume, and it bubbled into a laugh.
Tyesha boarded the train listening to Deza howling with delight in her ear. By the time she got a seat on the train and the doors closed, she had only a few minutes to talk before the train dipped into a tunnel.
In the background, Tyesha could hear her sister, Jenisse. “Girl, have you lost your mind? What you screaming about?”
“So get me that demo CD tomorrow morning,” Tyesha said.
“Yaaassss!” Deza crowed. “I love you, Auntie, you’re the best! The best! The best! I’ll burn the demo at your house when I come over to do your hair.”
“I’m not doing my hair for this date,” Tyesha said.
“Oh, yes you are,” Deza said. “I’m not having Thug Woofer pass on my album because you look raggedy.”
Tyesha’s train was approaching the tunnel.
“Deza, I—”
Her niece cut her off. “Are you coming to Amaru’s game Tuesday?”
“What game?” Tyesha said. “Nobody invited me.”
“I’m inviting you now,” Deza said.
“Okay fine,” Tyesha said. “But I’m not—”
Her phone dropped the call.
She began to text Deza that she really wasn’t going to get her hair done.
As the train pulled into the tunnel, she could see her reflection in the window glass. She didn’t look raggedy, just not freshly pressed. It might not hurt to make a little bit of an effort. She could always dress down.
* * *
The next day was Saturday, and when Deza came over, she brought Amaru.
The younger sister was lanky and muscular, with short natural hair, an athletic bra, and basketball shorts.
When Tyesha hugged her niece, the top of her head came to the fourteen-year-old’s nose.