by Dee Simon
“You’re tripping. I don’t hear that at all.”
“That’s because you’re not a manager. Care to wager $20?”
“You want to bet $20 that the girl in the booth next door is sucking a dick right now?”
“Exactly.”
“All right. I’ll bet.” We shook hands, and Casey leaned forward and finished the last line on the desk.
Staring up at the ceiling, he said, “You’re right. This stuff is shit. It fucking burns. Now I want my $20.”
We walked out of the office and stood in front of the velvet curtain door of the pirate-themed lap-dance booth. I could hear shuffling noises and muffled movements but nothing that sounded like a blow job. Casey stood there with his index finger in the air and mouthed the words “listen.” I still couldn’t hear anything. Without warning, he threw back the curtain to reveal a stark naked dancer standing above a crouching man who looked Mexican. She was straddling his face with his mouth buried between her legs. He was naked from the waist down and furiously stroking his penis. Once the curtain flew open, the dancer shrieked and immediately jumped off of him.
“I wasn’t doin’ nothin’. Just dancing. Nothin’. Seriously,” she pleaded.
Casey, pointed at the girl and said, “You’re fired. Get your things and leave. Now.” He moved his finger in the direction of the crouching customer. “You. Put your pants back on and get the fuck out of here.” He then turned towards me and said, “And you owe me $20.”
“Well, technically, she wasn’t sucking his dick. He was eating her out. So, I think you owe me $20.”
“Fuck you. Bet’s off.”
The dancer picked up her outfit and ashamedly slipped by us, muttering to herself that she “wasn’t doin’ nothing” and that this was “some bullshit.” The customer fumbled for his pants while yelling, “Yo, you can’t make a ho a housewife. You can’t. It don’t work like that. You can’t.”
“Would you just get the fuck out of here? Goddamn. Fucking perverts,” Casey said with disgust.
The guy shuffled past us, buttoning his trousers, still declaring the contrast between hos and housewives. To this day, I still don’t understand the meaning of his statement. So, it was methamphetamine and illegal blowjobs that marked my entrance into the perverse, sordid, and financially rewarding lifestyle that I led for the next five years. Sometimes I wonder if I had hastily exited that establishment and found a job at a place like Kinkos, would it have saved my relationship with my ex-fiancé or kept me from a drug addiction that took several years to get rid of? Honestly, I doubt it.
Frustration McLonelys
Human existence is motivated by sex. Blame it on the media, if that’s what justifies your misdeeds. They force-feed sex to us. They shove spoonfuls of sex down our open and eager throats. We need it. We crave it. We can barely live without it. We are constantly barraged with sexual stimuli. In our culture, sex is ubiquitous. But, here’s the rub: not all of us are having sex on a regular basis. In fact, there are many of us who have never had sex and probably never will, or others who are mired in decades-long monogamous, sexless relationships. And thankfully, for those people, there are strip clubs. I once read a caption in Vice magazine’s Dos & Don’ts that stated: “If strip clubs were honest about what lay behind their doors…they’d all be named Frustration McLonelys,” and I’m at a loss to think of a more fitting appellation.
I’ve never considered myself to be a “strip club guy.” Sure, I’d go for a bachelor party or birthday, but I never frequented a strip club. I’ve always felt that strip clubs are a waste of money and a needless source of sexual frustration. As a patron, it’s rare to get laid at one, unless you’re a celebrity or a drug dealer. That being said, on those occasions that I found myself at a strip club, I’ve always enjoyed the show. For anyone who has not been to a strip club, “the show” typically involves a woman disrobing to two songs and then stepping off the stage and making herself available for private dances. All human beings love exhibition. From gladiator battles and public executions to rubbernecking an accident and watching reality television, we are all voyeurs at heart. We’re intrigued by other people’s relationships, their mishaps, and most of all their misfortune. I equate strip clubs with the traveling sideshows of the early twentieth century. However, instead of lobster boy or the bearded woman displaying their grotesque appearance on a wooden stage in the middle of a soiled tent, we have an attractive twenty-year-old woman seductively removing articles of clothing on a brightly lit stage in a lavish nightclub. People attended these freak shows in search of the “other,” something that differed from their ordinary lives. Typical strip club regulars rarely associate with beautiful women in their daily lives, let alone see them nude. The strip club is their escape, their gateway to that other world. One may call a visit to the strip club the ultimate fantasy or an erotic escape; but to me, strip clubs are essentially sideshows with young, attractive women in lieu of the monstrous oddities. And I can attest that the line between the two is oftentimes quite blurred.
Since the early twentieth century, a visit to the strip club has been a necessary rite of passage for all American males. Despite its size, every small town in this country either has a local strip club or is within twenty miles of one. And every kid in that town knows exactly where that strip club is located. For me, it was a dilapidated Déjà Vu on a remote exit off I-75 near Saginaw, Michigan. Every Friday night, my family would pass it on our way to the synagogue for Shabbat services, and my twelve-year-old self would stare out the car window, imagining the drug-fueled orgies that went on behind its blackened glass doors. Wistfully, I’d scrutinize the Déjà Vu sign that displayed their logo of crossed legs in fishnet stockings and their curious slogan, “1000s of beautiful girls and 3 ugly ones.” The rest of the drive I’d sit in the backseat lost in thought, pondering the meaning of that slogan. Why would they need three ugly girls if there were thousands of beautiful ones? They must have to do special chores, like bathe the beautiful girls or prepare their meals. And how is it possible to fit that many women in such a small building? They must be very tiny women. One time, as my father and I drove past the Déjà Vu, I asked him why they needed three ugly girls when they had so many beautiful ones, and he sternly remarked that I had more important things to think about, like learning how to chant my Torah portion because my bar mitzvah was only a few months away. But I preferred to think about the thousands of tiny, beautiful women in that mysterious pink building. My father was the rabbi of three small congregations in Michigan: Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland, locally known as the TriCities. He’d usually have to head to the synagogue earlier than the rest of us, as he had to set up for the night’s service, which meant my mother would drive my sister and me there. On occasion, I’d hitch a ride with my friend Brandon and his perverted father, Dennis. Brandon’s parents were divorced, and his father never remarried. He was one of those effeminate dads who spoke with a slight lisp and creeped little kids out. Needless to say, it didn’t help much that he was an alcoholic and prone to uttering inappropriate comments. One Friday night, on our way to services, we drove past the Déjà Vu, and Brandon—who was sitting in the front seat while another friend of mine, Daniel, and I sat in the back—asked his dad what went on inside.
“Dad, what goes on in there?” I couldn’t believe he asked his dad that question. Sure, we thought about that place all the time, but none of us would have the chutzpah to ask an adult about it. Usually, we’d pretend that we didn’t notice the run-down pink building as we drove by. Daniel and I were on the edge of our seats, leaning forward to hear Dennis’s answer.
“Which place, son?” he asked casually, knowing full well the building his son was asking about.
“That pink building right there. The Déjà Vu.” Brandon pointed to it.
“Oh, that one. Ha. Don’t worry about it. You’re too young to go in there.”
His response was less than satisfying. “What do you mean too young? Why? What goes on in there?
”
“Bubbelah, I said you don’t want to go there. Jewish boys don’t go to places like that.”
“Why not? I want to check it out.” Brandon was upset that his father called him “Bubbelah” in front of his friends, and I could tell by his grimace that he wasn’t about to let this interrogation rest.
“Because there are nasty women in there, okay?” Dennis was getting annoyed. At this point, Daniel and I were captivated, our chins touching the edge of the front seat so we could hear every word.
“What do you mean by nasty? What do they do?”
Dennis frowned and shot a disapproving glance at the two kids leaning forward in the backseat. “If you kids go in there right now, at your age, those women will chop your little penises off,” he replied sharply, lisping on the first “s” in “penises.”
I was shocked and utterly confounded. We all were. Our young minds were reeling from this revelation. What type of community did we live in that would tolerate an establishment of this sort to exist just outside its borders? It was criminal. Daniel and I sat back in our seats, pondering what this disclosure meant, our minds deluged with unanswered questions. Why would these women want to chop our penises off? What do they do with our penises afterward? Are these women members of a Satanic cult or something?
Yet, Brandon was the skeptic of our group. We had barely driven by the place when he pounded his fist on top of the dashboard and yelled, “Bullshit!” Daniel and I were stunned; never before had we witnessed such audacity. Dennis was also a bit taken aback and suddenly slammed on his brakes and pulled over to the side of the road.
“How dare you say that? Are you questioning me?” he shouted in his effeminate tone, casting a sidelong glance at the two of us in the backseat.
“Dad, I don’t believe you. I don’t think there are women in there who would do that.” Brandon spoke with impressive defiance in his high-pitched preteen voice.
Dennis sat there for a few moments, hands clenching the steering wheel, before suddenly shifting the car into gear and pulling a U-turn across the two-lane highway. He drove towards the Déjà Vu and made a sharp right turn into its graveled parking lot. Daniel and I sat motionless in the backseat, frozen in fear. He put the car in park, shut off the engine, and we sat there in silence for about two or three minutes. I noticed that there were only two other cars in the parking lot. Finally, Dennis let out a protracted sigh, looked over at his son in the passenger seat, and said, “Well then, let’s find out.” He then turned his head towards Daniel and me in the backseat and asked, “What about you two? Do you guys want to find out what goes on in there?” He had a cruel, sinister grin on his face.
“No, sir, I don’t need to know what goes on in there,” I said, my voice quavering with fear. Daniel just shook his head.
“Okay. Well, I guess it’s just my son and me. Come on, Brandon, let’s go.” This was the first time I’d heard Dennis speak without any hint of a lisp. He stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut. He then walked over to the passenger side and threw the door open. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Brandon looked back at his friends in the backseat and mouthed the word “pussy” as he slid out of the passenger seat and exited the vehicle. Dennis grabbed his right elbow and pulled him toward the black glass doors of the faded pink building. Daniel and I stared out the rear window at the two figures making their way across the parking lot. Initially Brandon walked with pride and a sense of defiance, but as they came within twenty feet of the entrance his will started to crumble. It was demoralizing. He began to fall back, yet his father with a vise-like grip on his arm pulled the boy towards the glass doors underneath the pink neon Déjà Vu sign with the letters “e” and “v” burned out. They were about ten feet from the door when Brandon fell to his knees sobbing. His father released the boy’s arm and stood there watching his son crying on the ground. After a minute or so, he crouched down and lifted the boy’s head up, wiped the tears from his face with his handkerchief, and whispered something to him. To this day, Brandon never told me what he said. The two walked back towards the car, Brandon’s dad with his arm wrapped tightly around his son’s shoulders. Daniel and I sat in the backseat paralyzed with fear. Dennis floored it out of the parking lot, his Lincoln Continental spraying gravel over the two cars parked behind him, and drove to the synagogue for Shabbat services. For the next hour and a half, I sat in my felt-covered chair not paying the least bit of attention to my father delivering his sermon about the weekly Torah portion. Rather, my thoughts were focused on the demon women who hung out in that mysterious faded pink building waiting to chop my little penis off.
Fast-forward a few years later to junior high. I didn’t have to go to services anymore, and my parents would leave me home alone on Friday nights. I’d invite a couple friends over, and we’d steal a bottle of my parents’ Manischewitz wine and drink it on the roof of my garage, sharing stories of what we heard happened inside the Déjà Vu strip club, or simply the “Vu” as we called it. We were obsessed with that place. Our primary source of information was my friend Jason’s older brother, Brent, who claimed to have received multiple blowjobs on every visit. We truly believed all of Brent’s stories because we didn’t know any better. In our adolescent minds, we envisioned the inside of the club to be a bacchanalian den of depravity where all of our sexual desires would be fulfilled. It wasn’t till ninth grade when I got an opportunity to find out what went on inside the enigmatic Vu. My best friend Kessler came over to my house and shared with me a discovery that transformed our lives. Earlier that day his mother forced him to go to Kmart to get his portrait taken for his grandmother’s birthday. While he was watching the photographer struggle in vain to get a toddler to smile, he saw a stack of plastic portrait identification cards lying on the photographer’s desk. He pocketed a stack of the cards, took his portrait, and rushed to my house to show me his find.
“Dude, you’ll never believe what I have,” he said, breathing heavily from running up the staircase to my room. Kessler weighed about 250 pounds in the ninth grade, so running about twenty feet was physically exerting for him, let alone a flight of stairs. When he caught his breath, he reached into the pockets of his black Vision Street Wear jeans and tossed the blue plastic cards on my bed.
I picked one of the cards up and examined it for a few seconds before throwing it back on the bed. “What the fuck is that? A library card?”
“No, man, that’s a fucking fake ID.”
“Are you serious? It says it’s a Kmart portrait identification card. Shitty Kmart photographers use these, so they don’t forget a kid’s name. That’s not a fucking fake ID.”
“Yeah, it’s a fucking fake ID. Think about it. We might not be able to get into a bar with it, but I bet we could use it to get into the Vu.”
He was onto something here. I was skeptical about using it to buy beer, but you only had to be eighteen to get into Déjà Vu. “I don’t know. They look pretty shitty.”
“All we have to do is put a picture in there, type out our address and date of birth, and we’ll be set. The fucking Vu’s door guy probably doesn’t even look at your ID. He just wants to make sure you have one.”
I wasn’t convinced. “I dunno, man. A retard would know that this is a Kmart ID. I don’t think it’s gonna work.”
“We might as well fucking try. What’s gonna happen? They don’t let us in and then we go home. Big deal. We won’t know unless we give it a shot.”
When it came to pussy or buying drugs, Kessler was a perpetual optimist. He had a point though. We didn’t have anything to lose. The worst that could happen was that they threw us out of the place. Maybe knocked us around a bit in the parking lot. But it was worth it to get a few bruises if we were able to see naked breasts for the first time.
“All right. I’m down.”
We spent the next three hours trying to make those shitty IDs look as authentic as possible. I used a passport photo for the picture and typed a fake name, a
ddress, and birth date using my father’s typewriter. My name was Roy Stevens, and the year of my birth was 1971, which made me barely eighteen yet old enough to get into the Vu. I was also from Windsor, Canada, because Kessler felt that the door guys would think our IDs looked strange because they were foreign. After folding it a few times and rubbing it on the driveway to make it look a bit worn, I surveyed my new fake ID and had to admit it looked pretty damn good. It was Saturday night, and my parents let Kessler and Jason sleep over at my house. My room was in the basement and had its own entrance, so it was an easy place to sneak out at night. I helped Kessler type out his address and add the finishing touches to his ID. His looked more credible than mine, but he also looked quite a bit older than me. He was fifteen and already had facial hair. Fat kids always appear older than skinny kids. Jason was also a big kid, weighing in around 200 pounds and 6’2” tall, but he had a youthful face, which always gave away his age. We played Sega Genesis games till my parents went to bed around midnight, and then changed into our club outfits, which consisted of a black dress shirt and a pair of black slacks. It would work to our advantage to look as mature as we could. My plan was to borrow my mom’s ‘89 Chrysler LeBaron and drive to the Vu. Even though I was a year from being able to drive legally, my mom often let me use the car to deliver newspapers on my route, and I was confident behind the wheel. We snuck out of the house in the cover of night, slipped the car into neutral, and pushed it up the driveway and onto the road. Cautiously, I turned the keys in the ignition, and we headed towards the mysterious pink building that we had been waiting so many years to enter. We arrived at the Vu just after 12:30 AM, and I made a sharp left into the gravel parking lot. I had not been in this parking lot since that fateful day with Brandon and his father. After all these years, I was still scared shitless. Though we tried our best not to show it, we were all scared shitless. I shifted the car into park, and we sat there mustering our collective willpower. We listened to The Doors’ “Touch Me” playing on the radio as we summoned up the courage to go through with our gambit. Finally, Kessler spoke up.