Tripping on Tears (2 page)

CHAPTER
Three

IN
Life
we all want to think that in some way we are special; it is a healthy conceit, just as long as one doesn’t get too carried away and enter the rarified world of the narcissist. My Father was outgoing; a brilliant salesman with a personality that made him larger than life. Dad was the type of guy who could enter a room and within a short period of time, know everyone in the room, and have them gravitating towards him - and not in a bad or obnoxious way. There was just this quality about him that was lovable, and probably stemmed from the fact he genuinely liked and loved people. He wasn’t making an effort to be popular, it just came naturally to him, and I admired that.

Mom on the other hand had a quiet dignity about herself. She could be as fun loving as Dad, but wasn’t quite as gregarious. Like Dad, she truly liked and loved people, and when you won her over and had her in your corner, you had yourself a personal champion - a person ready to fight to the death for you. Dad was also like that; if he was on your side, he was on your side, and my brother and sister and I knew we could count on him – count on them. I always said that if I went out and shot someone and the police showed up at our door, my Father would argue that I shouldn’t be arrested for shooting that person, but that that individual should be arrested for stealing my bullet. I’d say about the only thing my Father couldn’t abide, and wouldn’t have backed either me or my brother on was if we were to in any way physically harm a woman. My parents didn’t condone hitting, but put up with the fact that for a while my brother and I thought we were each other’s personal punching bags. This tolerance did not extend to my sister when we were growing up. She could whack the hell out of us, but if we were to even threaten to retaliate, the look in my Father’s eyes said it all. Of course, when we got older and more mature, my brother and my fights also became a thing of the past; verbal jousting became the weapon of choice and much to our surprise and happiness, my sister wasn’t excluded from this.

As I said earlier, Dad was a salesman, selling wholesale to large department store chains; he specialized in candy, which, of course, made us popular with the neighborhood kids growing up; we all learned very quickly that salesmen get samples, and a considerable amount of them. Dad was the Candy Man – sure Sammy Davis sang about it and took it to the top of the charts, but that was just singing, Dad actually had the goods to back up the title and wasn’t shy about passing them out.

Despite his success in life, Dad had not been very good at school. I believe, and I can’t be completely sure this is accurate, that he was thrown out of every high school in his neighborhood, and may only have gotten his diploma by the skin of his teeth – if in fact he ever got it (we never asked and he never said). He was a big guy, known as ‘The Ox’ by his classmates, and quite the athlete, although he did admit in later years that his role on the lacrosse team was as more of an enforcer than a finesse player. Our Mom encouraged us to read, but in all the time I had to spend with my Dad he never cracked a book. Sorry, he did try reading a baseball novel called
Ball Four
, but never got past page one hundred. That’s not to say that Dad was simple or stupid; quite the opposite. Dad devoured newspapers and magazines like they were going out of style; anything from the current news of the day to history magazines. In his own way he was well read.

Mom was the reader in our family; a very intelligent woman who excelled in school. She devoured books and encouraged me and my siblings to do the same. Reading for us wasn’t a chore, but enjoyment. Mom instilled a love of the written word in all of us and encouraged any signs of creativity we demonstrated. I’d seen friend’s creativity cut down by their parents, especially during their later teen years when their parents were hoping their children would start focusing on a practical career choice after high school, rather than pursuing some crazy dream. We didn’t have to deal with this. I can’t say for sure, but something deep down tells me, my mother could have been a writer—a novelist. She had the knack, but never pursued it, as far as I know. After she passed I almost expected to go through her personal things and find a half-written manuscript amongst them, or even several completed manuscripts that she had finished and simply filed away. Like I said, I’m guessing here. At the same time, she never once expressed any regrets in her life and her decision to become a stay-at-home Mom, raising the three of us.

I bring all this up, as a way of pointing out that it was this encouragement that led me into the life of a writer. My younger brother went into banking and my sister into nursing, leaving me the only member of my family to pursue the arts or as my brother pointed out to me, the only member of my family who was willing to accept or pursue a life of poverty.

“Who the hell is going to read anything you write?” he once asked me. “Mom and Dad can only buy so many books and not enough to put you on the New York Times Bestseller List.”

I believe, “Bite me,” was my response.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, not all that creative a response for someone who fancies themselves a writer. At the same time, who wants to waste any of their good material on their little brother? Actually my sister came to my rescue pointing out to my little brother that as long as he was successful in the financial community I’d know where I could go for a loan whenever I needed it. Strangely, this didn’t seem to please him, although it did give me a solid game plan.

Up until the end of high school I had written a lot of short stories, none of which were published anywhere of any renown. I took a stab at a novel, but came up short; who knew it took that much effort to actually write professionally?

Like most aspiring writers, I decided to study journalism. What better way to become a writer than to be making a living writing while trying to achieve that dream. Journalism, of course, is supposed to be about the facts and getting them right. That kind of training is not conducive to the art of writing fiction, as I found out, and many of my college classmates, who had the same idea as me. At the same time I found an outlet that seemed to agree with me. I graduated and started working for a small regional newspaper, doing everything that was required of me; it wasn’t glamorous, and the pay certainly confirmed my little brother’s predictions about my seeking out poverty for a living, but I liked it. I didn’t know how far I was going to take it, but I felt I’d found my niche in life. Maybe writing fiction wasn’t for me; maybe my talents lay in non-fiction; exploring the world and relating it back to my readers.

And, yes, I can say readers because believe it or not I found them, or should I say they found me? Back to the concept of thinking we’re special. Why me and not someone else in my journalism class? Or one of the many journalism graduates around the world? I sold a book and it became a substantial enough hit that I was able to pursue writing books full time. Was it because I was more special than everyone else, or just dumb luck? It was the latter, even though if Mom were still alive she’d say the former.

I had a good friend in college who had scored what every guy thinks is the jackpot in a girlfriend—a stripper. I’ve never been one for adult entertainment and the so-called ‘Men’s Clubs.’ Yes I’m being diplomatic, but I’ve never liked the term ‘Peelers’ when talking about strippers.

I’d been in clubs before. All young men at some point or the other find themselves drawn to the establishments. I mean you can have a beer and watch women get naked on purpose. The draw is pretty simple to figure out. I went a few times with some buddies, only to discover that these places were quite boring. You drank overpriced alcohol, and watched the standard three-song rotation of dancers. The first song, she just dances in a sexy outfit; the second song, she might take off her top; the final song, she goes completely naked—over and over and over again. The funny part is that having been a film buff for quite some time, my impression of strippers was that they performed on stage. What I discovered was that half the time the girl on stage looked like she was going through the motions, absolutely bored with the whole routine herself. We referred to these girls as
walkers
, as that seemed to be the extent of their dancing—they were mailing it in, waiting to get off stage and try to make some money with the private dancing. The only individuals who seemed to be having a really good time were the guys who were drawn to
perverts row
, the seating around the edge of the stage on which the stripper danced. I never paid a visit to the row, preferring instead to keep my distance.

The strip club world is all fantasy. That is one of the reasons why I found it so boring. I didn’t believe for one second that any of the dancers who sat down at our table and paid special attention to me were in fact really that interested in my life. This was usually proven true when they finally got around to asking me for a private dance; the second I turned them down, and they realized I wasn’t willing to drop my hard-earned money on them, their interest in me didn’t dwindle, but simply died. Guys don’t realize that the minute you walk through those strip club doors you are entering a world of fantasy where nothing is real. To the dancers you are a giant dollar sign—their means of making a living. And to me that is fair. That’s the unspoken contract that exists between men and dancers within that world. Unfortunately not all guys got it, and some of them fell in love with the dancers, spending a fortune on them. When some of the dancers realized this, those who had lost their humanity and only saw men as dollar bills, they were able to take the fantasy out of the club, stringing these guys along for vacations and other ill-gotten gains. I know one dancer who took a guy, an executive from a bank, for leather furniture, a big screen TV, and an allowance worth thousands of dollars for at least four months, before he realized she wasn’t going to sleep with him. She’d pulled the ultimate con, because she didn’t have to engage in sex to get these items. She also liked to test her admirers, who were hopeful of one day getting into bed with her, by calling them up in the middle of the night and saying she wanted a coffee. Surprisingly, many of them would get out of bed, go to a coffee shop, buy her a coffee and deliver it to her apartment, where she would promptly take the coffee and close the door on them. They were hoping for a late night booty call, based on their considerate actions, but were just played and used, this particular dancer defining her power and reveling in it. Nonetheless, they kept coming back for more abuse, at least for a while.

My friend wasn’t like these guys. He was actually dating Candice before she decided to become a dancer to help pay for her college courses. She was actually a nice girl who danced for a reason and kept it clean, which probably accounted for the fact that amongst the girls at the club she worked at, she was probably the worst earner. She did make enough to look after her needs, and that was all she cared about – that was adequate. It was when I got together with them that she would regale me with stories of what went on behind the scenes of the average strip club. The stories were fascinating; it was like Dorothy pulling back the curtain in T
he Wizard of Oz
and realizing the Wizard was just a man. Her stories stripped the strip club of its illusion and presented it as a dreadful place where dreams went to die, and where many women/dancers lost their basic humanity after dealing day-to-day with men who had an unhealthy view of women and their place in our world. No matter how you stacked it up or tried to spin it, strip clubs and the relationships formed in them, are dysfunctional and serve no purpose in society at large. I found all of this fascinating.

Looking to pay off my student loans as well, and supplementing my meager journalist pay, Candice got me a job at the strip club, first as a doorman and then as a bartender. It was here that my first book was developed. I realized that no movie or TV show had ever accurately represented the environment of the strip club, so I set out to do exactly that, showing it in all its ugliness. An honest - and because it was honest - harrowing depiction of a world that served no purpose in society; a world that I witnessed really did destroy souls. And that’s what
The Sinful Delusion
, my first book, written in the style of the New Journalists like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, was about.

I was as surprised as anyone when I found a publisher who was willing to publish the manuscript; I was equally surprised when the book performed really well; I was pleased when it performed well enough that I was able to call up my little brother and tell him he could take that life of poverty crack of his on a long walk off a short pier. I think his response to me was, “Bite me.” For someone as creative as him, that
was
his best.

The only problem with writing a book such as
The Sinful Delusion
was the fact that many readers automatically assumed I wrote about it because I was a strip club patron—a long-time fan of the art of exotic dancing, which, of course, I wasn’t. While I took pride in the book’s success, it did bother me that some would think that, so when my publisher asked me what I wanted to write next, I gave it some thought and figured I’d focus on a subject matter that was as far from strip clubs and stripping as I could get; a subject matter that if I handled it right, would earn me some respect and demonstrate my scope as a non-fiction writer. What is that subject? Funny you should ask.

Growing up in my household, religion was not a big topic. When we were little, my Mother would dress my brother, sister and I up and take us to Church for Easter or Christmas Mass, or something like that. Dad never came, and none of us ever thought to ask him why. As we got older it seemed the only time we were in Church was when someone died or someone was getting married. That’s not to say my family didn’t believe in a higher power, a supreme being or anything like that, but that we didn’t feel it was necessary to frame that belief in one particular religion or need a Church to cement it within our hearts.