“Isn’t this your dad? Look, it’s your dad. Aww, that’s so cute,” Nixon said, “I wish I had a dad, especially one as hot as yours.”
Since I started nights, my dad had made it a habit to stop in to see me, always acting like he just so happened to be in the neighborhood and he just figured, you know, what the hell, he’d pop in and check on me. I could expect him around nine. Right after my mom would get dinner cleaned up, my dad would grab the keys and leash the dogs and stop by the Kittikat on his way to Giuseppe’s, the neighborhood Italian coffee shop where he’d stand at the bar and sip his evening espresso. He never made it past the lobby and he always left the Navigator running under the valet awning, because his visits weren’t about tits, they were about me. He stopped by to make sure I was ok and when he saw that I was smiling and fine, that no one harassed me, he’d grab my face for a kiss on the cheek and leave to get his coffee in peace.
“I love it,” Nixon said when my dad left.
“I think he’s afraid something’ll happen to me here or that I’m sad. I don’t really know exactly,” I said.
“Maybe he just misses you.”
“Could be.”
“I wish my dad missed me. Fucker. My parents got divorced when I was in the seventh grade and my dad left with his girlfriend and I never really saw him again. He sent birthday cards for two years and then he got married.”
“That sucks. I get it, but what about your mom?”
“She got married too. Stepdad’s a piece of shit.”
“Jeez, it’s always like that. I bet he looks like some guy on Cops or something too, doesn’t he?”
“Umm, no. He’s a partner at Greenberg, Billstein and Kent. So is my mom.”
Greenberg, Billstein and Kent was one of the biggest and most high powered law firms in Fort Lauderdale.
“I’m not joking,” Nixon said, “Yeah, we’re not all trailer trash.”
“Oh gosh, wow, you know I, jeez, I don’t know. God, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. So yeah, I ran away from Valencia Isles and Oakhurst. Ha! I should probably be studying for my AP History exam right now, but hey wanna friction dance in the Champagne Room, Baby?”
Nixon had lived in Valencia Isles? Sometimes when I had nothing to do I’d tool the Saturn around that neighborhood just to look at the Mediterranean villas that sprawled their magnificent lawns along the Intracoastal waterway. And Oakhurst? Rumor had it that couples got their kids on the waiting list for that school before they were even conceived. Graduates were basically guaranteed Iris League admission and Nixon had thrown that away for stripping, which she was terrible at no less? I had to ask why. I’d always dreamed of a life like that, with parents who had prestigious employment and went to charity events. I’d spent years imagining the glamor of the country club lifestyle, wondering how I’d look in Lily Pulitzer at a polo match in Palm Beach sipping an Arnold Palmer. Those people had perfect lives. They shopped at J Crew and went sailing for fun. Why on earth would someone run away from that life when I would have flung myself straight into its pink and green embrace had its gates opened up even a tiny bit to let me in?
Nixon answered vaguely. She hated her stepdad. Her mom was a bitch. She blamed her mom for her parents’ divorce and her mom worked constantly, leaving her alone most of the time. When she saw her mom, she pressured Nixon to be skinnier, to get better grades. She enrolled her in SAT classes in eighth grade. There were riding lessons, Mandarin classes, endless hours in Hebrew school, academic teen tours in the summers.
“I started drinking when I was twelve. Got into drugs. When I first ran away they hired a P.I. to find me. I was in South Beach on the street at fourteen. I started out go-go dancing at the clubs down there. It was a cool gig for a while. I wore a pink wig and a vinyl dress with white boots. I looked like Twiggy. Ha! And I just danced all night on a box to this amazing trance music. They tried to put me in rehab, but I ran away again when I got out. I missed dancing.”
“And then you ended up here?”
“Drugs. Mostly. I came back up to Broward because I had some friends with an apartment where I could crash. It’s ok. Never mind.”
“Do your parents know where you are?”
“My dad, no and he doesn’t give a shit. I don’t know where he is either. My mom and stepdad, maybe. I don’t know. I think they think they’re doing tough love on me. But fuck them. I don’t want to go back to their shit. My mom hates me anyway. She’s ashamed of me. Look at your dad though. So fucking cool. Like who could tell their dad they work at a strip club and then he comes in to check on you every night? It’s awesome. I saw that night when your mom brought you dinner too.”
“I love her roast chicken with rice and gravy,” I said.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” Nixon asked.
“Lucky how?”
“Lucky to have a family, like a real family. That you don’t have to hide from. That loves the motherfucking shit out of you no matter what.”
I looked down at the keys of the cash register and nodded.
“Yeah,” I said, “I do.”
“Did you go on break yet?”
“No.”
“Will you eat dinner with me?”
“Yes.”
“I can pay you back after I sell a few dances.”
“It’s ok, Nixon. Don’t worry about it.”
17
I’d never had a job where no one cared if the employees drank while clocked in. We all got one free drink each shift and if the customers were willing to buy us alcohol, which was highly encouraged, because it meant they were spending more money that went to the house, then we could pretty much drink until we fell out right on the floor, which happened fairly regularly, mainly to the entertainment, though cocktail waitresses were not immune. I could always tell when someone was going down. They’d get that pale, clammy look to them, their eyelids would sag and the corners of their mouth would pull down slightly. I knew to look in the other direction because if they didn’t pass out, they’d be puking. Usually the bouncers could get them off stage before that happened, but on busy nights sometimes the bouncers got too busy and neglected to notice the tell-tale signs of a girl who’d over indulged.
Maybe that’s what happened to Angel.
We had three simultaneous bachelor parties that Friday night and the Boat Show was in town so it was one of our biggest money making weekends ever. Add to that a prize fight on pay-per-view broadcast throughout the club on big screens and we had your perfect storm of titty bar chaos churning. Strippers wait all year for the Boat Show because men wealthy enough to own boats fly in to Fort Lauderdale from all over the world for those three days looking to drop major moolah on water toys. It’s a male dominated event. I’ve never heard of a man bringing his wife along to the Boat Show, so for most of the convention goers, the Boat Show is a “when the cat’s away” kind of situation and that means that the strippers in town seriously bank. The money is so good that sex workers from all over the East Coast come to town just to work the lucrative few days of the event.
Angel was a local girl though, one of our own.
“If she can’t hold her likka, she’s gotta go. I’m sick of it,” Phil complained just the week before.
We hadn’t turned over from dayshift yet and I was doing cigar inventory with my head in a cabinet. Brent and Phil discussed Angel’s drinking problem over my register while Brent switched out my change drawer and delivered some much needed rolls of quarters. The night before Angel’d passed out and fallen off a barstool where she’d been chatting up some Japanese business men. It had been the fourth or fifth time she’d drank too much and had to be carried in the back so the house mother Velouria could make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit, tragic rock star style, while she slept it off.
“I agree with you. I’ll have a talk with her tonight,” Brent said.
I guess the talk didn’t work.
My parents were there when it happened. They’d had dinner with Ra
y and were sitting at one of the cocktail tables on a banquette style sofa with him and Tracey’s boobs. It was the first night they’d come in together since I’d been working and the funny thing was that my mom, who was enjoying both a Blowjob and an Orgasm from the shot girl’s tray, was having a way better time than my dad, who just looked totally bored and ready to go home.
I never wanted my free cocktail because I didn’t drink, but I needed a Red Bull something awful or I wasn’t going to make it ’til three am, so I got Paolo, my door guy, to man the front while I took off for the service bar. Red Bull wasn’t even a part of my vocabulary until I came to the Kittikat. I didn’t even know what it was, but Brent got me started on the stuff. If I looked sluggish he’d slide me the slim blue and silver can, instructing me to recharge. I’d drink it down, and really, Red Bull tastes like ass. I hated it. If you liquefied sweet tarts and threw in a shitload of caffeine and a little fizz you’d get the same thing. And a half hour after I’d drink it, I’d whir back to life, zipping around like a hummingbird organizing all the cigarette cartons, Windexing every millimeter of glass in sight. Red Bull was like a hard drug in my pristine system.
I got my fix and a cup of ice and threaded through the throngs. I stopped to say hi to my parents for a second, but on a night that busy I couldn’t waste time. Middle aged men in Docksiders and Guy Harvey tee shirts pulled at me asking me to dance for them. They were so plastered they figured every female that passed was a stripper and I’m surprised no one asked my mom for a lap dance that night.
“I’m not a stripper!” I yelled back over the whine of “Sweet Child ‘o’ Mine.”
“You should be!”
They were like zombies clawing their way out of graveyard dirt. Hungry for flesh, they’d take anything and the bachelor party guys were even worse. They poured out of stretch hummers and party buses like the vehicles were clown cars for drunk douchebags. When someone rammed into me, not quite knocking me down but sending a sticky, yellow tsunami of energy drink all down my chest, I figured it was one of those idiots. I turned around, ready to cuss someone out for being so rude, and saw Paolo and Charlie doing the breaststroke through the sea of bodies to get to Stage Three.
“What the hell?” I said.
Marty, the barback, had stopped beside me. He’d been on his way to the main bar with a massive bucket of ice. He was a nice guy. A little old to be so obsessed with role playing games, but sweet, if a little creepy.
“Angel,” he said, “I think something happened. She was on Stage Three over there and then all of a sudden I’m bringing the ice and I hear somebody yelling to call 911 and I’m like whoa, what the hell just happened? Is it a fight or what? And then I see Angel down for the count.”
“Again? Please. The girl needs to lay off the booze,” I said.
“Nah. I don’t think it’s that this time. This looks worse. I’ve been here five years and they’ve never called 911 over a drunk dancer. Something worse is going down. Look.”
The club had broken character. The DJ cut off Axl Rose in the middle of his “where do we go-o” and tech froze the strobes so that only the still spot lights shone. The three girls who’d been on song two on the main stage, huddled together, surreally unconcerned about their near nudity. One pointed. The other two covered their mouths with their hands. Friction dances ground to a halt. Bartenders set down their bottles and shakers to crane their necks for a view of what had happened, while confused customers threw up their hands and mouthed “What the fuck?” Over the rustling hum of a crowd of voices, Mr. Haines stood up and yelled for the DJ to turn the god damned music back on. Turn the god damned lights back on. By the time the ambulance arrived no one could hear the sirens over the Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey.”
The medics gave her CPR in the back while the worried staff tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. On their way out, my parents asked me if I knew anything. I didn’t.
“I saw her. It was like one second she was pretty much ok. Kind of tired looking and then she sort of slumped over, slid right down the pole, piss flying everywhere,” my mom said.
We wondered if she’d hit her head.
My parents took a cab home because Mr. Haines had locked himself in the office with Brent to plan damage control. As soon as Paolo and Charlie had carried Angel out of sight, management summoned Marie out of the ladies’ room to mop the puddle of urine from Stage Three’s small, round mirrored floor. When she finished, Phil practically threw Natalya, one of the hard ass, Russian dancers, around the pole to take Angel’s place.
No one told us anything and for the rest of the night our smiles were even faker than usual.
I hadn’t known Angel. She was one of the quieter dancers and little. Even in the shoes she was only my height. She wasn’t a natural blonde and her eyes weren’t really blue. She wore contacts. You can always tell. Her irises looked like someone had painted them over her real eyes. I drove home thinking about her. I showered and brushed my teeth reliving the scene. Every night I’d come home and lie in bed listening to Pearl Jam’s “Black” thinking about Evan and sometimes Adam, but that night I thought more about Angel.
18
Somebody said it was GHB. Pills and liquor, said someone else. She had epilepsy. One of the guys from the bachelor party slipped Roofies in her Bacardi. But it was all rumors and the one person who might have known what really happened, Velouria, didn’t come in, which only added to the speculation.
“She was seizing pretty bad. Me and Charlie almost dropped her. I never seen anything like it and I’ve worked in clubs for years. In the city and all. I’ve seen everything,” Paolo said.
“What do you think it was?” I asked.
“She OD’d on something, but who knows what and who knows how. You can’t mix that shit with alcohol.”
The rumors continued all night. Theories about what happened to Angel spread like warts, cauliflowering in every crevice of the club. Even the customers speculated. Hey, did you hear about that girl that OD’d last night? I heard blood was coming out of her mouth. I heard she pissed all over the stage. A girl died here last night. Did you know that? One of the strippers keeled over.
But we didn’t know if she’d really died or not. Once the ambulance wailed away from the parking lot, no one knew where Angel ended up and then we got so busy with night two of Boat Show weekend that we didn’t have time to worry about it anymore.
The salty teriyaki I’d ordered for dinner made me thirsty so I took a break and went to the main bar to get a drink.
“Red Bull?” Lori, the bartender, asked.
“Hmm. No. I’m just thirsty. Let’s see… what do I want?”
“You should have a drink. You get a free cocktail you know.”
“I know, but I don’t drink. I don’t like it.”
“So do a shot, then you won’t taste it.”
“Definitely not.”
Some dancers clustered at the far end of the bar talking about Angel.
“So these assholes wanted to buy me champagne and normally I’m like hell yeah, but tonight I just let them buy the bottle. Obviously I’m not gonna say no, but, like, I have no desire to drink after what happened last night,” a redhead said. Her name was Sierra. She never tipped me.
The others nodded in agreement.
“Lori,” I said, “Can I have a Shirley Temple?”
“A what?” Lori asked.
“You know, a Shirley Temple. Sprite and Grenadine, in a pretty glass, with a cherry and an orange slice.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? A Shirley Temple, like for little kids?”
“Yeah!” I said.
“All right, whatever.” Lori rolled her eyes.
But she made it and when she handed me my drink, pink and fizzy, complete with the cherry bobbing on the crushed ice, it caught the eye of the strippers at the end of the bar.
“What is that?” Fantasy called.
“It’s a Shirley Temple. I heard her order it,” Sierra said.
“No fucking way,” one of the other dancers said, “I LOVED Shirley Temples when I was little.”
“Me too!” Fantasy said.
And then, oh my God, they all had to have one too and when the other dancers out on the floor saw their mocktails, they all crowded the bar demanding their own Shirley Temples, asking if they could have theirs with Diet Sprite and pretty please could they have two cherries?
“Are you drinking a Shirley Temple?” Paolo asked when I returned from the bar.
“Hell yeah.”
“You crack me up. A Shirley Temple. Man, I love those things. You know, when I was a kid and my dad would come pick me up – he’d come get me from my mom’s every couple months and take me out to dinner. We’d go to this fancy seafood place if he’d done good at the track and he let me order fried scallops, whatever I wanted, and he’d sit there and drink scotch and I got Shirley Temples. Sometimes a Roy Rogers. That’s when they do it with coke.”
“I know! My grandparents used to take me out to dinner when I was little too. It was like this huge big deal and I could order filet mignon and Shirley Temples. I thought I was like royalty or something,” I said.
“Oh man, the memories. The memories. I haven’t seen my dad in seven years,” Paolo said, “He’s back up in Connecticut. Assisted living. Mind’s going. Now he only talks in Portuguese. My sister tells me. You know what? I’ll be right back. Two minutes.”
Paolo came back with, guess what, a Shirley Temple. Charlie was next. Even Big Mack. Our fourth bouncer Sean, a South Boston, Irish skinhead with a leprechaun tattoo on the back of his neck, got in on the Sprite and syrup action too. I looked over to where he stood under Stage Two, arms crossed menacingly, brow furrowed and jaw set, just daring some errant customer to start some shit. He picked his glass up from the edge of the stage, sipped through the skinny stirrer, closed his eyes and smiled a wide, close mouthed smirk.
“Did you start this?” Brent asked me later.
“What?” I feigned innocence.
“The whole club’s drinking Shirley Temples. We’ve been through three bottles of grenadine already. I had to send Big Mack to the Walgreens liquor store to get more.”
Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat Page 12