Strip (29 page)

The evening show felt similar to trying on an old, out-of-style, too small, never-to-fit-again pair of jeans. And we performed with less enthusiasm than corpses, with barely anyone in the audience to witness the dirge. Sugar's beau from Montreal, a machismo Latino who made his living as a lead drag queen in a big Montreal club, had come to watch. I made the mistake of thinking her guy was the miniscule hairdresser friend he had brought along. This put Sugar off.

If Bichon were a woman, I would have said she was on the rag. And the other girls were speaking in an angry, fast Québécois about a girl who got the boot for letting a client touch her. There was also an outbreak of “box rash”—severe goosebumps on anyone whose bum had come in contact with the boxes we used when stripping. At one point, all bent over, it looked like we were searching for a lost contact lens, when in fact we were examining each other's
derrières
. It was definitely not a love-in that last night.

Patrice hadn't talked to me for about a month. He'd long given up hope of a fruitful encounter and our drives had been silent, moody and dutiful. He made sure he got me home for the good of the show, that was it. He was the only performer not losing his job; he would continue to pull fake rabbits out of top hats while some new topless assistant posed like a deer in the headlights and held his props.

By the end of the third show, we were drunk, sad and forgiving, and after we'd all hugged for the nine hundredth time and a very patient Kent was looking exhausted and drunk, it was time to go.

Being drunk made this next part easier.

“What next?” Kent asked.

“I'm not sure. Maybe thinking of moving,” I said.

“So you've thought about it? Maybe you could have shared it?”

“You've been busy.”

“So have you. Where to?”

I had to swallow against a huge lump that was forming in my throat. “Toronto seems logical.”

“I thought so.”

“Really?”

“You'd be crazy to stay. I figured it was a matter of time. I ran away. You have to run, too.”

“You want me to go?”

“Of course not.”

“I've pretended all along that it hasn't gone to shit.”

“Me, too. I should have put your ass on a bus way before now.”

This bond was odd. What had brought us together, and made it not matter that his bed was now in my kitchen, or that I loved his fingers entwined in mine on the cab ride home?

“There are decisions I have to make on my own.”

“So, what will you do?”

“More of the same, I guess.”

“Strip or dance?”

“Only until I can get ahead…”

“Really?”

“It's what I am.”

“Then it's a waste.”

“Of course I want back in. But I may never be able to do it on the same terms again. It's hard. I've lost the keys to the kingdom. It may be too late.” I was trying to get him to realize what the odds were, but my own words terrified me.

“I was locked out of something,” he said.

“Your roommate beating you up doesn't count.”

“You knew?”

“I figured it out.”

“Well, not that.” He swallowed, trying to stay on track. “Once upon a time I had been a pretty boy, someone's date. Some called me bumboy to the big city's finest.”

“Finest?”

“Actors, dancers, writers, musicians, artists, you name it, politicians, too. Am I bitter and old?”

“No, of course not.”

“You bet I am.” He laughed.

“God, dancer's years and gay years—and dog years—have a lot in common. I have got to get a move on. I mean, we both do.”

“So it's still about the career?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You still have your eye on that one thing.”

“I'd like to find it again if possible.”

“There's no room for inconvenience?” he asked.

“Depends.” I felt his grip tighten.

“On?”

“Well, you could be an inconvenience and that might be okay, if you…”

“I?”

“Never mind.” I tried to make out his expression as the streetlight and shadows flashed across us.

“I think I understand.”

I couldn't bear the ensuing silence. “And?”

“We could be inconvenient for each other,” he said.

“I guess that's what I meant.”

“So I could come, too, when I get my things in order here.”

“Why not now?”

“Henri's sick.”

“You talk to him?”

“Real sick. Don't know if it's the clubs, the poppers, too much fun or his trip to New York—but now they're calling it gay cancer. I told you. It's not going away.”

“The girls have chattered about it, but it seems as real as giant alligators in the sewer.”

“It's real. It's very, very real.”

“Are you scared?”

“I don't know. I don't understand it.”

“I've never even met Henri.”

“You might never.”

“So you'd come back to Toronto, if…?”

“He's moving home. He wants to die with his family. There's not much I can do. He has friends. Real friends. And I don't want to stay. I think I'm finally ready. I could go back if you were there.”

We ended up sitting shoulder to shoulder in Kent's bed, in the kitchen. At four in the morning he showed me his photo album. Pictures of people he knew in Toronto and New York. Some he'd heard were already dead from the mysterious disease. But he was optimistic, as though my decision had given him hope to start out again. “It's time to go back.”

“How long has it been?”

“About six, seven years.”

“Who's the cute blond?”

“Me.”

“You're joking.”

“Don't sound so surprised.”

“I meant, wow.”

“Thanks. Anyway, one of the reasons I'm not there—mileage—sun—cigarettes—cigarettes especially—booze—partying. All the things that make life fun.”

“You're still a knockout.”

“To you. I was hot then. I'm not now. That's okay. That photo is about ten years old. I was such a bastard back then. A real bastard.”

“A heartbreaker?”

“A fucking bastard. Still would be if I had your looks.”

 

Louise and Bertrand came
by the next afternoon. Kent was looking in on Henri and I was trying to catch up on sleep. The bell rang and out on the street Bertrand and Louise were looking up at my window. We met in the café. I ate my Québécois favourites, haven't had them since—
tarte au sucre
and
chocolat chaud
. I could tell this was going to be one of those conversations where everyone sits and bitches about Madame, but I had nothing left for Madame. “It's time to move on,” I said. “I'm leaving, soon.”

They sat with their mouths open, just staring. I wasn't sure if they were going to punch me or hug me.

“But you must,” said Louise. “That is what I told Bertrand from the moment I met you.”

“That I must move on?”

“It's her spirit. Madame's spirit will eventually crush someone like you.”

“You think I'm weak?”

“Not at all. She is just incapable of recognizing your talent. You have so much to offer, but somewhere else.”

I wondered about her scene in the studio lunchroom, but at that point none of us were behaving well. I didn't mention the end of the Chez Moritz, just let them believe I'd had it with Madame, half of the truth. I counted on my comments getting back to her. Louise held my hands. Bertrand squeezed Louise's hands. Through it all Bertrand had been so sweetly innocent and so focused. I regretted not spending more time with them in their uncomplicated lives. If Madame had paid us, then there would have been time for talking and tea and beer and sleep, I suppose.

Louise told me that Madame had hired the old English woman who had been teaching the beginner children and adults to teach company class, until things blew over. It was useless. Chantal and Maryse had refused to return. Then the new ballet mistress put Jean-Marc's nose out of joint by pointing out that he was cheating his technique. It was true: he muscled his way through lots of things and looked great doing it, though too athletic, but that was why Madame liked him as a dancer. So Madame returned but, Louise said, had changed—from cruel masochist to indifferent victim.

“She made it clear from the start that she wasn't interested in me,” I told them, but there was no look of surprise. “Look at me, je suis
Le Maudit Gai Grand Blond
. I remind her that she can't manipulate every single man.” Bertrand didn't understand a word I was saying, but Louise laughed. Then Bertrand laughed and Louise and I laughed at him laughing and then we were all laughing at everything that struck us as absurd, which was everything. It seemed to me that I had single-handedly destroyed a young ballet company. Bertrand babbled like he had months before, when he was excited. Louise translated that Madame never had much to offer. She was a performer at heart, and didn't care about the true formation of a dancer. Then they dropped their small bombshell.

“We are thinking of leaving, too. Come with us. Edmonton has almost promised us places with their new company.”

I'd heard about the new start-up in Edmonton, but being so close to my father's universe meant no margin for failure. “I'll think about it.”

“Then Vancouver?”

“Haven't you heard of the green death? People don't go to the theatre when the sun shines, and when it rains they go shopping. If you have nothing original to say, Vancouver is fine. But you two are true stars. Why don't you come to Toronto?”

“Too many dancers.” Bertrand mumbled and Louise continued. “He says it's either the National or something obscure and not very good. Edmonton is ready to offer us something good. It's a young company.”

“What will Madame do?”

“She'll have Maryse, Chantal and her Jean-Marc. Though I think he won't be far behind.”

“So much for her dream.”

“It could have really been something. We both believed that.”

“You will go far. If nothing else you have enthusiasm, and commitment, and you are so talented.” It's strange but I wasn't jealous at all. I was genuinely happy for them. We hugged long and hard, and I went back upstairs.

When Kent got back he was drunk and weepy at me leaving. He climbed into his bed. “I drink too much,” he said from under the covers.

“Too much what?”

“He's going to die. Henri is going to die. We all are. It's a gay disease.”

“Henri's not going to die.”

“It's too horrible to talk about.”

“He has people to take care of him. He has his family. You're coming to Toronto if I have to drag you.”

“What will I do?”

“You'll get a job. It sounds like you've got some connections.”

“That's not funny.”

“It wasn't meant to be. Look. I'll take care of you.”

“I don't want you to go,” he bellowed. I pulled back the sheets and kissed him and held him and we fell back to sleep as if that day had been one long, bad dream.

The next morning we had coffee and talked with the kind of optimism that gives a big move the momentum it demands. Kent told me about the friends he wanted to introduce me to. He bitched about the Cabbagetown queens, raved about Church Street, Bemelmans, the Beaches, the Island, Hanlan's Point, Buddy's, the Barn and the bathhouses—names of places that meant nothing to me at the time. And he insisted on being the one to give me that first-hand taste of the big city, after he settled things for Henri. So I packed my stuff and left Kent to deal with a flat full of furnishings.

 

I called Dennis, of
the famous group I'd met down south, to see if his
If you're ever in town
…
was still available. He ended up offering me a room in his house, and that's where I decided to park my stripper's ass.

 

 

Nine

The heart of the
dancer has four chambers that drive him from one side of the stage to the other, to each corner, into the air and onto the ground, force the dancer to catch up with the choreography, find the music, make the impossible possible, the earthbound ethereal, the fantasy a reality. It is the dancer's heart that becomes infected at some age. Catches the disease of dedication, addiction, of complete enveloping joy that blinds the dancer to any other way of being, and binds him by way of vibration within his limbs, to his dream. It can be a blessing that only finds its way out through steps danced, or a curse that finds its way out through tears cried, years later, at what might have been. Meanwhile the heart sets the rhythm. And in the end it's the heart that can be broken—not by hand, arm, leg, shoulder or knee—by less than a whisper.

 

Will I find my
clothes after my twenty-flight stumble down the stairwell? Will someone run off with them once they crumple into some sad clump? Will I be forced to wander the streets of Toronto clad in a sheet, pleading my case: Toronto, the first part of it spent sorting out the Quebec months. I had a lot of time to think as I walked down Woodbine to the snow-and-sand-swept beaches and along the boardwalk where a painful wind whipped off that bleak stretch of Lake Ontario. Through Kew Gardens on a brief walk back to Queen Street, where overhead wires sang as the streetcars lumbered back and forth to the heart of the city. It became a regular circuit. I wondered, for a moment, about Daniel, but there was so little; no tears, no sentiment, nothing that would make sense in these new surroundings. A little resentment? Possibly. But all the Daniel feelings disappeared when I wasn't paying attention.

There was no Café Latin with
tarte au sucre
. No Belle Époque for a Brador, a glass of bubbly or a cup of tea at the Clarendon. No Kent smoking in my hallway.

No money, either.

I stayed at Dennis's house, a partly renovated little detached box. Other than the deafening squeal of the streetcars short-turning across the lane, there was nothing but a silence that had grown between us. He was seeing me at my worst while, I'm sure, hoping for a drunken romp. But it became a stilted life of suppressing coughs, silently opening and closing kitchen cupboards, and occasionally borrowing his food. I spent most of my time in my room, another mattress on another floor and rolls of wallpaper waiting to be glued to the bare walls. I stared out at the mess of wires—streetcar, phone, electrical—against the grey sky. God it was ugly. Was there any other choice for me? Did I just have to keep taking the path of least resistance?
Was this
the path of least resistance? How long would any of this last? Funny, the golden boy I was on the beach was now a pale, drawn, brassy-haired, petty, food-I-wouldn't-be-caught-dead-eating thief, no longer too good to be true.

I also spent lots of time and not much money at a donut shop near the racetrack, a stone's throw from Dennis's place. The backs of the tabloids that people left behind screamed sleaze. There were no ads for feathers, tits and sequins. Art was either highbrow or low. Ballet or bawdy. No burlesque.

Since my stripper skills exceeded my waitering ones, late one winter's day I finally decided to pursue an opportunity to start doing my
art
again. Open audition night at the Sultana was one streetcar ride, to the other end of the line, away. As I collected my crap strewn across the floor of my unfinished bedroom, the phone rang. It was Rachelle. She had gotten the number from Kent. She wanted an update. She sounded hurt. How could I begin to tell her? “I wanted to see you dance in Quebec.” She told me she had moved to Toronto as well, and in the time it took me to become
Le Grand Blond
, she'd gone from soloist hopeful to a chubette, sewing costumes for the corps of the National Ballet. I told her my underwhelming news: “I've become an exotic dancer.”

“Looks like we have some catching up to do,” she said.

“You don't sound shocked.”

“It's a popular choice for quitters. But you seemed more focused.”

We arranged to meet at whatever coffee shop might be across the street from the Sultana. I didn't recognize her at first. She was right; she had traded her career for food. She had rosy cheeks instead of the standard sallow ballerina look, and there was a little double chin she was hiding with a scarf. She had given up the traditional bun tied tight enough to beat out a tune on her forehead. There she was, making it on her own in the big city. When I hugged her I realized how much I missed those who knew an earlier version of me. I knew I was starting to miss Kent, too, and the prospect of him moving here was my only mental escape. After the hugs and tears, and more hugging, she spoke. “We've separated. I left the bastard.”

I figured this. “My God, you have tits; they'll make you top-heavy.”

“You too, I feel biceps. Whoah,
quel horreur
. Destroy your line.”

“My money-makers.”

“Don't you love mine?” she said. “I never knew they were there. It's great. Guys look at me, I mean guys look at them.”

“Me too!”

“I even have periods! But they're murder, I don't know how women do it—the rest of you looks like shit, by the way.”

“I'm even worse in the daylight. I need a tan, someone to fix my roots. I feel fat. Doesn't matter. Funny thing is everyone flatters when they think there's a blow job in it for them.”

“I've never seen a guy strip before. Not in public anyway. It's mostly the baby ballerinas who go down this nasty path. But you, my dear, are an original.”

“Well, apparently you won't see any cock in Toronto the Good, I mean penis.”

“Toronto the penis? Listen, cock's one thing I have seen lots of. Now penis, that's another story. God bless me.”

 

The Sultana wasn't in
any way like Quebec. It was childish. Naughty. Sleazy in an impersonal backroom kind of way. No Mer
la
dropping by with costumes. No girls talking about broken hearts or love. No class, as in taste. No connecting. No cock (not legally anyway) to see in Toronto the Good. Rachelle looked bored sitting out there in a venue that looked more like a converted high school lunchroom than a nightclub. Everyone who danced that night seemed to have a pull-away tux, and they all looked like they were heavily into steroids. I suppose it made up for not being able to get completely naked. The lights hid the acne on their backs, but it couldn't hide the disproportionate Neanderthal shoulders that were the giveaway. And since steroids shrink the family jewels, it was just as well that the guys stayed clothed.

The night didn't go over well. I was distracted because I was sure something of mine would get stolen in the dark backstage. I had too much of an act. Too much dancing, too many tricks, and a very nice costume thanks to Brittany. I had come to rely on being naked as well, so the tease seemed pointless and contrived, kind of feminine. I had also lost confidence in my physique, and it showed. I couldn't pick my music and was stuck with Irene Cara singing “Fame,” which made it downright comical, ironic and pathetic. Rachelle, God bless her, was the only one paying attention, so I went through the motions. Even so, the zipper stuck and I had to conceal the pain of quick hair removal. “You look like you had ants in your pants. Did they teach you that in Quebec?”

“Someday I'll tell you about that costume.” I joined Rachelle and we drank, and bitched loudly about the old days until we were on the verge of self-indulgent crying. But something in that past didn't seem to matter anymore, for either of us.

“Why did you really leave?” I asked her.

“They kicked me out,” she said. “Said I could come back if I started eating. Trouble is I did start eating.”

“Coffee and cigarettes—the dancer's friend.”

“And that Madame Kozachenko—‘Eat red meat girls,' while I'm sure she's never had an honest-to-God bowel movement in her whole life. Screwy place. Her and Kharkov, Fric and Frac. Fuck. A dancer's age should be measured in light years.” She dragged on another cigarette. “Our lives are so fucking short.”

“Said Martha Graham.”

“Well, they feel short.”

Rachelle had ripened way too early. She had everything going for her—strength, flexibility, proportion—and like most people with all of those gifts, she took it for granted.

We ended up talking to this cute young guy. He had shown up, like me, to audition. He'd had a bad night, too; he was predictable and pretty featureless, physique-wise.

“I think they liked me.” I couldn't believe he spoke these words. “This is the place to make it.”

“I don't know. This place gives me the creeps. I've seen nicer church basements.”

Up close he looked way older.

“This is my manager, Raquel.” I looked at Rachelle, she immediately sat up, shoved her tits forward. I rolled my eyes. But then, why should I have assumed he was gay?

“Biltmore's is opening a backroom with male strippers only, for women—secretaries and working girls in the neighbourhood, open for lunches and after work.” I could smell thick, old smoke on his breath.

“Thanks. Raquel, make a note of that.”

“Don't forget to pick up your cheque.” Then he left.

“The big city will finish him off,” Rachelle said.

“It already did.”

“Either that or he'll grow up real fast, end up working in…”

“The post office. I think he liked you,” I said with a note of defeat. “Too bad we couldn't check out his weenie.”

“He showed absolutely no interest in either of us. Very odd. Now you, my friend, have got to get back into class or you'll end up looking like him.” Then she laughed, because he really did look like his only exercise had been walking to the bus stop.

“Give him a month on the juice and the city will be beating a path to his door.”

“I'm not talking to you until you get back to class. Do you hear me? You did it before. Do it again.”

“I'm having doubts.”

“About?”

“Class.”

“Oh brother, here we go. You can't not want to dance.”

“What about you?”

“I had it too easy. I just did it. I mean I started when I…”

“I know, I know. Right out of the womb. Everything is done from birth if it's going to matter.”

“Not my point.”

“Baby ballerina.”

“I was a baby ballerina.”

“I just want more. More than playing a role in someone else's ballet, you know. I'd like a bit more control over things.”

“You want to be an artistic director?”

“Of course not, but something…”

“Choreographer, like…”

“Like?”

“Sorry.”

“Sure. Maybe. Although the term has seemed so tainted recently, that I've tried not to consider it.”

“Give yourself a chance. At least see what this city has to offer. This isn't it.”

Rachelle was getting teary and drunk and I knew she wanted me to sleep over, wherever she happened to be living. Before we left I got the cheque, got the “Don't call us, we'll call you,” from an indifferent bartender, and got out. We kissed on the sidewalk. She whined a little as I shoved her up the steps of the streetcar. She tumbled into a seat and
ding ding
, she was gone.

 

I weighed Rachelle's sage
advice, and then I headed off to the Biltmore Hotel. The guy was right about a male show. The banner above the back door announced the Shuter Street Shooters. The interviews were held upstairs in a dingy hotel room, curtains drawn, twenty-five-watt light bulbs, cigarette smoke suspended in layers like silken angel hair. For my audition, the obese manager watched me change
slowly
out of and into my costume, and after that he tried kissing my tight lips. It was like being blindsided by a mattress. He didn't get his hoped-for blow job and I didn't end up getting any decent weekend shifts. I had to laugh when all the other humpy applicants—full of themselves—showed up in the bar, post-tryout, looking like they had stomach flu.

I stripped for secretaries at lunch. We served them their food and then did our tease. They ate their burgers and fries while I slid around in my black scallop
g
-string, pretending it wasn't midday, trying to ignore the bright glare that shot through the room every time someone came in. There was no table dancing, but the customers could come up to the stage to stuff the lucky ones' pouches with bills. But every move by a spectator was weighted with self-consciousness. Unlike Quebec, which was reckless and intense, Toronto seemed to thrive on some kind of naive scandal. The audience was prudish; the customers watched us as if we were circus freaks. It felt as though we would all be carted off to jail any minute. It was the same looks I got from those English exchange students from Laval I danced for at the Chez Moritz,
How can they do this, compromise themselves, exploit themselves
? But we weren't even showing anything! I soon found out there was more showmanship in the men's shower at the
ymca
. And any closet-cases who came in with their co-workers jumped hoops to pretend they didn't notice me. Meanwhile my neediness probably scared everyone off. One customer, equally as desperate, offered me a hundred bucks to have sex with him. But he wasn't my type. Too pretty. Too precious. Too petite. It would have been like sleeping with a lawn ornament.

One lunch hour I hadn't made a nickel. Meanwhile cheers were coming from the big front room where the females stripped, on the other side of the kitchen. Brigit Bar-None, a queen-sized stripper, was featured. The front room was usually packed with construction workers having liquid lunches watching a series of dancers who looked identical, from their big hair and waxworks features to their perfect tits. I called them silicone bombshells; nothing like the variety there had been in Quebec. Once the hollering had died down, Brigit Bar-None, cleverly held together by a fishnet body stocking, strutted into our backroom. She pointed to me and then waved me to the side of the stage. I shimmied over, and she shoved a five dollar bill down my pouch and gave my nuts a healthy squeeze and smiled, wrinkling her nose like she'd done something naughty, then looked back at the audience. What a talent. Some customers followed her lead, and I cashed in that afternoon with a bunch more bills around my waist.