They Were Human Beings.
The building next door to Paul’s Place looked like a giant block of cement. There were no lights, not even over the door, and no signs indicating its contents.
One night I saw three men coming out of the primer-gray door, all carrying bottles of beer. Suddenly I couldn’t withhold my questions any longer.
“What is it?” I asked Larry. “What’s in that building?”
“You don’t want to go in there,” he said.
“Why not?”
Larry laughed. “It’s a fuckin’ strip club!”
“No it’s not,” I said. I had seen strip clubs in movies, and they were larger, brighter and more interesting.
“Yes it is.”
“Then I do want to go in there!” I was more intrigued than ever. “Are women allowed in a strip club – women who aren’t strippers?”
“Sure!” Larry said. “Chicks get in free!”
So we parked in our usual place and walked over to the pitch black building. Just inside the first heavy gray door was a second, with a bored guy in a chair and a sign scrawled with “$5 COVER.” Larry handed a guy a five; I hesitated, waiting for permission.
The man stared blankly at his money and gestured toward the club using only his head. Larry pulled open the door; inside was even darker than outside.
After my eyes adjusted, I saw a bar – no tables – with ten stools nailed to the floor, two men sitting three seats apart, staring at their beers.
The wide bar doubled as a walkway for the strippers.
I saw feet first, on the bar as I sat: a pair of ragged, stubby heels in the dark. As I lifted my head, I realized that both women were otherwise completely naked, pacing back and forth in their confined area like zoo animals.
They did not dance. They did not smile.
Unlike the strippers I saw on TV, these women strolled lethargically: back and forth, back and forth. They were rail-thin with simple hair and zero props. There were no strobe lights, no poles, no g-strings, nobody hooting and hollering for more. The music was just one long song with no words, no pumping beat, no inspiring melody.
The old guys stared forward as though a black hole hung over them. If anything sexual – or even seductive – was happening, it would have been only inside their heads.
When I finally got the nerve to really look at the women’s make-up-smudged faces, they were staring at the walls. Upon closer inspection they looked not only bored but desperately, achingly, crushingly sad. Heartbreaking despair poured from their eyes.
I’d been so fascinated by the idea of strippers that it had never crossed my mind that they were human beings.
I looked down at my beer, then up again to be sure: yes, sad. So very sad.
I was dead silent, watching their feet pass.
Sipping.
Even the beer felt wrong here.
Larry had his arms on the bar, shaking his head at his beer and laughing immaturely under his breath, like we were teenagers doing something illegal.
After a minute, Larry leaned over and loudly whispered over the musical drone, “Your tits are nicer.”
He thought he was being reassuring.
For the sake of Larry’s five dollars, I stayed as long as I could. I made it about ten minutes.
Finally I whisper-croaked: “Can we go?”
“Sure, Baby.”
I walked out fast, the neon lights beckoning next door.
In the future when I considered that building, I wanted to cry.