Spent (6 page)

13

“T
hat was close.” A
man in scrubs leaned over me. His head was brown and fuzzy and he smelled like cinnamon. I wondered what this snickerdoodle was talking about, and then I saw black hairy stitches crawling across my wrist. “Were you trying to kill yourself, Miss Crane?” He asked.

“Umm,” I said. It felt like a war in my stomach. I recognized something I hadn't felt in a while: hunger. I craved donuts.

“Was this a suicide attempt?”

“Where's Bianca?”

“Do you have a relative we can contact?”

I thought about Mom. I thought about her phone calls. I thought about the last time we had spoken, how proud she was “to have her daughter back.”

“When you come visit, you won't believe these tomatoes,” she'd said. She was right. I couldn't believe the tomatoes. I wanted to camp out in her greenhouse and tug her tomatoes off the vine and squirt seeds all over my white shirt and taste the sweet juice. “Chris finished the barn last month,” she'd said. She had two horses so far, boarded by neighbors. She fed them apples from her tree every day. I couldn't have them call her. I couldn't disappoint her like that. Especially now that she had horses.

I said, “I wanted to feel…different.” A chubby nurse arrived and told me to sit down in a wheelchair. She pushed me through the corridors into an elevator and across a pathway to another part of Davies Medical Center.

“Are we going to get something to eat?” I asked her.

“They'll answer your questions at intake,” she said. A weary couple was watching Oprah in the waiting room. I wondered if I was being held prisoner. I wanted to go home but realized in that moment that I couldn't, not to Bianca's house, not with the mountain of meth on her desk. I could go to Wasteland and find a co-worker to crash with. I woke up to my name being called and walked up to the little window.

“Down the hall, second door on the right. Knock on Dr. Beemer's office.”

I smelled meat and heard furious laughter. I hoped for food: pancakes, muffins, fruit.

A puffy, tan guy
wearing all white with a long, scraggly beard and silence beads around his neck answered the office door. There was a Bob Marley poster behind him. He was dressed in all white.

“Have a seat.” I sat down. There was no way in hell this hippie had food for me. There was a rose quartz heart on his desk. Sandalwood incense burned. I wrinkled my nose.

“What's going on at home?”

“Nothing. I got in a fight.”

“With a serrated knife?” He fingered a rubber ball and laughed softly.

“I didn't want to die. I just wanted to feel something else.” There were several books on chakras on a shelf.

“Hold this crystal. When you feel angry—have you tried yoga?” I took the rock. It was cold and slick. I wondered how many dirty fingers had caressed it.

“When can I go home, Dr. Beemer?”

“You want to go home?”

“Yeah. I want to eat. And sleep.”

“That's a good place to start. In seventy two hours, you can go home.”

I didn't go home to Bianca. I crashed on a friend's couch and borrowed her clothes. I was petrified to be alone. Even though I wanted to, I knew I could never go back to that speed hut. I could never see Bianca again. I didn't trust myself, and I knew I'd never be the same.

Part 3

“Looks like fun.”

14

I
nside The Lusty Lady,
a baby-faced punk boy with a blue Mohawk sat at the front desk and sketched with a black pen. I was damp from walking up Kearny street with my heavy bike messenger bag on my back. I placed it at my feet. He looked up when I approached.

“Hey, what's your name again?”

“I don't have one yet.” He scanned me. I hoped he wasn't staring at the white plastic hospital wristband, poking out from underneath the leather-studded black cuff where my fresh stitches itched. The phone rang once. He picked it up, still looking at my face. I smiled stiffly. How could I have forgotten to snip off the ID bracelet?

I started to panic. I really needed this job. I'd overstayed my welcome on my friend's couch and needed to scratch some cash together to move in to my own place. Bianca snickered when I told her I'd gotten sober and powder-free, that I was moving on.

“I have to at least try,” I said. I owed everyone money. Not forty bucks here and forty there, but hundreds to friends, creditors, the IRS, and the DMV. My driver's license had been suspended.

Word was The Lusty Lady wasn't sleazy, risky, or competitive. The Lusty Lady was where I could dance sober and rebuild myself into a person Mom would be proud of.

But first they had to hire me.

“I have an audition here. Can I send her back?” His voice was cheerful and casual like he worked in a record store. He handed me some papers to fill out and a blue pen. There was nowhere to sit so I leaned on his desk.

“Is it okay to do this here?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said and returned to his drawing. The forms were the exact same generic job application I'd filled out to work at caf
é
s and clothing shops, except The Lusty Lady wanted to know my dancing experience instead of my retail experience. When I got to the “who to contact in case of an emergency” line, I hesitated. I hadn't told Mom about the psych ward, the stitches, or my decision to start stripping again sober.

The Bic pen I'd borrowed dangled from my mouth and spittle leaked out. The Mohawk boy saw me wipe it off. “Shannon, the show director, will be up in a sec,” he said, like it was a done deal.

I figured he was just being polite to the drooling girl. It was his job. No way would she hire me. I was sweaty, puffy, and out of shape. A tall, big-boned blonde with wavy hair appeared from the snaky, black hallway. She waved a long-sleeve-bloused arm to point to the wall behind me which had at least twenty Polaroids of pretty, well-groomed girls in lingerie with names like “Princess,” “Star,” and “Cinnamon” sexily posed. “Stand right over there so I can get a picture of you. Then you can audition.” I didn't feel remotely sexy or attractive, but Shannon snapped the shutter and out slid a photo that was placed in my employment file.

The new sober weight bulged out of my cheeks and hips. I'd been eating nonstop since my hospital stay at Davies and looked like hell, but I signed the contract anyway, agreeing to work at least three shifts a week. I was so chubby that my first stripper name should have been Donut, but I wrote down Lolita and decided to burn the black tips off my hair with bleach later.

Shannon was peppy with expensive-looking highlights. She pointed to the hallway and said, “The dressing room is up those stairs. Take everything off and get onstage on the next song.”

I walked down the dark, narrow hallway carefully dodging the crumpled Kleenex on the ground and opened the red door. In the mirrored room girls stood around naked brushing their hair and reading books. It was a well-mannered vibe, much different than the cigarette smoke, rolled up dollar bills, and tiny booze bottles on the counters of the full contact clubs.

In the strangely tidy dressing room, I froze. I had never stripped sober. The mirrors were clean. The counter tops had boxes of Q-tips and makeup brushes. New curling irons were plugged into outlets—like a spa.
What kind of strip club has clean mirrors and un-scummy carpet
? I reached down to unfasten my brown, flared cords and paused. I felt like I might die from over exposure right there. I didn't have the buffer of speed or the warm, casual compliance of alcohol. I felt wrinkled, puffy, and ashamed of my nudity. I wanted to disappear into one of the silver lockers and slam it shut.

Forget it, I can't do this
. I didn't know what I was supposed to wear—or not wear—onstage. I had brought a crumpled vintage slip and an old black lace bra. I was holding both when Hole's “Doll Parts” started. Maybe the bra would work. Courtney Love moaned “I am doll eyes,” and all I could think was
I'm not doll anything
. I pulled off my pants and shirt, grabbed a white boa that was hanging off a hook, and wrapped it around my neck. I fumbled with my scuffed platforms and climbed the stairs to the stage, a big box surrounded by way too many mirrors. I noticed the other girls were totally nude so I wiggled out of my underwear and tossed them onto the dressing room. I tried to ignore my obvious fear of the mirrors and moseyed to the corner booth where Shannon was watching with her clipboard. I jerked, startled by the chorus of girls singing, “Yeah, they really want you…” then moved my hips in circles in rhythm with their voices.

I heard, “Hey, that's my boa.” The sugary voice belonged to Marya's ex-girlfriend, Rhea, whose golden bob and tall, perfect, pizza-whenever skinny bod glistened next to my drab sausage thighs in the mirror. Marya had told me Rhea worked there, but I wasn't expecting to bump into her onstage that day. Rhea was a flirtatious and gorgeous mash-up of Uma Thurman and Ren
é
e Zellweger, except smarter, with natural D-cups.

“Oh shit. I'm sorry. I just grabbed it for my audition,” I said and then regretted saying anything at all because I had an audience.

She danced over to me and curled her arm around my waist. “My boa looks great on her, right?” She was talking to the dark moustached face in the glass looking back at her like she was an ice cream cone. I followed Rhea. She lifted her svelte leg and said, “This is Hole.” For a moment, I forgot all about being nervous and fat. I laughed, lifted a thick thigh, and placed it on the window ledge. She used the pole as leverage to slide up and down and teased the customers while also mocking them and manipulating her beguiling doll parts for me. Rhea was also an artist, whose sculptures of pussies had been shown in art galleries in Santa Rosa. Marya had told me all about her and how they stole down comforters from a shop once and slept in her black van when they were between apartments. The song ended, and I blew her a kiss and walked offstage, elated.

“You're a little thick for us, but you have the moves,” Shannon said. I left The Lusty Lady relieved to work someplace with women who seemed stable and clean. Though The Lusty would be far, far from Stripper Utopia, I'd dance next to beautiful, empowered women like Rhea— smart chicks who could joke around onstage. Men weren't allowed to touch us, so we had more control over our show. I wasn't expected to touch dick, and I could work with my extra sober weight and still make money. There was less urgency because we didn't have to dole out exorbitant, random stage fees. We'd dance shoulder to shoulder, and I'd piece my life back together. I'd get a place. My wrist would heal. I'd stay away from powder—and I meant it this time. I'd call Mom and tell her about the great, clean club where I danced with women who were sane and friendly. I'd tell her it was safe and clean. The San Francisco wind swirled around my legs like a cat as I walked down Kearney to catch the bus.

15

“H
ow are you getting
by, honey?” Mom asked. I hadn't called her since my stunt at the hospital. I could tell she wanted to come visit and see for herself that I was still sober. I could picture her sitting by the phone, thinking about what I'd looked like last time she'd seen me, obsessively cutting her toenails. I hadn't told her about stripping at The Lusty Lady yet.

“I'm dancing at a really safe and clean place,” I said.

“Go-go dancing?” She asked.

“Nude dancing. Behind glass.”

“Huh,” she said. It was the kind of huh that could be disgusted or curious, depending on what facial expression came with it, but I couldn't see her face.

After a long pause, I got my answer. “Is this something you plan to do forever?” I don't know if she felt conviction in her disapproval or if she thought it was one of those things moms are supposed to say. Regardless, I wanted her to come visit to make sure things were okay between us again.

Mom showed up a couple weeks later, so I brought her to The Lusty so she could check it out, herself. She'd never been to a strip club in her life. I wondered how she would feel there, surrounded by young, naked girls, knowing I wiggled in my birthday suit onstage instead of working a respectable nine to five in an office. She sent me to the liquor store on the corner for rum and coke. I mixed her a drink. She guzzled it.

“Don't worry, Mom. The girls I work with are in college,” I said, selling her on the idea.

“Hmm,” she said and raised her eyebrows.

The women in my family were not promiscuous show ponies. The women in my family grew vegetables, sold houses, rode horses, knew shorthand, and typed sixty words a minute. They didn't talk about sex. They married the first man who fucked them. They were presidents of women's organizations and chain-smoked cigarettes. They drank rum and coke and got loud and demanding. They snorted when they laughed, held college degrees, were cheerleaders and Valedictorians in high school, had kids by the time they were twenty-five and knew how to shovel dirt, fish, can peaches, and bake rhubarb pie. They had spectacular legs, big noses, and preferred angry men over gentle ones. They collected local pottery, took out the trash, and wore hippie jewelry.

The women in my family were not bisexual strippers with a tendency to cut and an appetite for speed.

Mom and I locked
arms and walked past the blue-haired punk security guard, through the dark skinny hallway to a large corner booth. I chose a booth where the dancers could see us, too, and slid some wrinkled dollar bills into the machine. Mom flashed her Dentyne smile at Star and Decadence who waved their lotioned limbs at us. I mouthed the word “Mom” at them and they gave me a knowing look that meant “We'll keep it tame.” I waited for her to be shocked and appalled. I was ready for her quick disapproval—which is why I always hesitated to tell her when I dated girls. She just walked in one day and found me curled around Bianca and later, threw her arms around her and sipped her whiskey rocks. Mom's flexibility with regard to me was special. Others fit into two categories: winners or losers; I somehow skated on the perimeter of her harsh judgment. It was the same with stripping. I didn't want to disappoint her, but I didn't want to lie to her either.

I tried not to stare while Mom watched tall, goth, Decadence grin and play with her nipple ring. Certain things I didn't mention. I didn't tell her about my regular customers in the Private Pleasures Booth down the hall where I gave private dildo shows to guys by request. I didn't tell her about the full contact clubs I'd worked at before, or the S & M relationship I had with my girlfriend, Marya.

Years later, I wouldn't tell her about Rob, who'd drugged me, or the couple who paid my rent in Los Angeles for years. I didn't mention the boob job or tattoos. It's not that she didn't notice any of those things or that they didn't disturb her—they just didn't matter because her love was more vast than that. Her love was not contingent on my activities or hobbies. It was like floating in a maternal galaxy of warm stardust.

Mom's bright blue eyes darted around the mirrored stage. “It's silly,” she said, chuckling bit. “And, it looks like fun.”

She was right, and she was wrong.