Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America (4 page)

One can list a hundred reasons why our relationship could work, and a thousand more why it shouldn't, but what remains is that it does. It works. We're both always ready to charge at the world, yet we've managed to hollow out a restful pocket to retreat to together. This is the real deal, even if to the rest of the world we just look like two souls joined at the attitude problem.

Now it's mid-January, six months postproposal and four months since I gave up my Manhattan life. Randy and I live in an old railroad flophouse. The entire building was moved off the original foundation, put on a flatbed, and trucked into town from its site by the tracks. The house is confused—it was designed and added upon so haphazardly we can't tell whether it was meant to be a miniature Victorian or Mission-style bungalow. Perfect for us.

We sit on the living-room floor together as I make plans for my trip. With the atlas and a dog-eared copy of the Exotic Dancers Directory open before me, I'm trying to put together a workable itinerary. I don't want to dance totally nude, so Georgia is out of the question, along with Washington, D.C., Oregon, Montana, and Alaska (I will have to reconsider the "no nudity" rule for Alaska. God, I'd hate to have to skip it). I'm past the point where customer contact seems worth it, so I'll aim for places that don't get any more extreme than table dancing—which eliminates a large percentage of clubs. Thankfully the strip-related media has advanced to the point where I can look this stuff up in a guide, or consult Web sites, which list everything from club hours, to levels of physical contact and exposure, to directions from the nearest airport. I don't know how I would have planned this trip if I'd wanted to take it ten years ago.

When I circle a club in the guide, Randy slides the book around to see what I've picked. "Why there?"

The answer varies: I want to see that state. I've heard a lot about this club. I like the name.

Randy focuses more intently on my list.

I ruffle his freshly cropped hair. "Are you okay? Do you not want me to go?"

"Of course I don't want you to go! But I understand why you feel like you have to. I can't stop you."

"Would you try to stop me if you thought you'd succeed?"

"No," he says, ruefully. "I trust you. I have to. I have to or I'll lose you."

I know Randy well enough to tell the difference between his separation anxiety and his genuine despair. If I sensed that he truly objected to me going on this trip, I wouldn't. But then, if he were the type to object to such a thing, I doubt we'd have hooked up in the first place. We share a bone-deep understanding of each other's daredevil streak, and we both know that sometimes satisfaction must be wrested from risk. Between the rodeo, the kick-boxing, and the stripping, neither of us has ever had to ask the other, "Why?"

But understanding doesn't ensure ease. Even though Randy would never stand between me and my aspirations, he worries what the pursuit might do to me, to us. And while I wouldn't sacrifice what I need to do just for his appeasement, sometimes I worry about losing him nonetheless. I close the atlas and push my notepad aside for a while.

The road trip is traditionally the undertaking of those on the cusp, people who have nothing to lose. I myself have everything to lose; I need to take this trip and at the same time I need to make sure it's all still here when I get back—mate, house, career. After some negotiation with Randy, I decide it'd be best to break the journey down into brief jaunts, maybe ten days at the longest. A drive here, a round-trip flight there, spread out over the course of a year.

Randy is the main reason why I'm being careful about this expedition, but he also helped confirm my decision to make it in the first place.

I asked him once, "Why do you think guys go to strip clubs? Not the ones who go every once in a while, but the ones who are there day after day?"

"Well, usually a guy gets all hung up on a certain dancer, and he thinks that if he comes in to see her often enough he might have a chance."

"What do you mean, 'a chance'? A chance that she'll go out with him?"

"Well, yeah!"

"You are
kidding!
"

His illumination, this insight that hope, of all things, is part of the engine that drives the strip club economy, really gave me pause: Man, if I didn't clue in to something as simple as that, what else have I missed? I can wax rapturous about what makes a woman take off her clothes for money, or break down the rudimentary political ramifications of topless dancing. But beyond my own defensive analysis, I really don't have any idea how it works. There are gaps in my consciousness you could drive a truck through. If I expect to get any smarter about this business, then I'd better get out there. Now it seems less a pipe dream than a mandatory assignment.

Is it even remotely possible to figure out the personal and professional complexities of stripping, while at the same time being back in the game to see how they play out in different areas of the country? And can this be accomplished in the course of a single year?

What will it take, I wonder, to lay this matter to rest, once and for all?

Somewhere in the atlas lies the answer.

THREE

The real scandal in my working as a stripper is that I can't dance. It's just not a talent I've ever possessed. When I was in grade school, I took an afternoon course that offered instruction in all the dance steps from the movie Grease, and I struggled in vain to learn a basic cha-cha. As an adult, I made a point of avoiding aerobics classes after grapevining the wrong direction into an entire row of classmates one too many times. But lacking terpsichorean skill never hurt me that much. The first time I auditioned at a bona fide strip club—not a go-go bar or a peep show where you stand and shimmy, but a place where you have a stage to yourself and are expected to use it with style and sex appeal—I was nervous to the point of nausea, memories of childhood stumbles and aerobics class carnage in my head. I sat on the staircase backstage at San Francisco's notorious Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater with six other auditioning hopefuls and tried to steady my knees. The manager came back to where we were hiding behind the curtains, propped one foot on the lowest step, and rested his elbow on his knee so he could lean down to talk us. I'll never forget his shoes, cobra-skin moccasins with the heads still attached. "Got 'em for twelve dollars American in Thailand last year," he said, flexing his toes to make the snakes' heads weave back and forth. "They make them while you wait." But more incredible than his shoes was what he told us about our impending audition: "Don't worry about how you move out there. Ninety percent of the women who work here can't dance." That wasn't exactly true—in fact, his assessment was as rudely unjust to the veteran dancers as it was meant to be reassuring to us wannabes—but I felt a little more at ease. When my turn came in the amateur contest lineup, I got up on shaky legs, loped around the stage for the length of Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator," and took first place by an audience-applause vote. I won a little trophy and twenty-five bucks. And a job. Which is pretty good winnings from a dance contest for somebody who can't dance.

But now, several years and a career coda later, I'm no longer comfortable with being barely competent. If I'm to return to dancing, I want to be as good as I can—or at least better than I was. So what does a woman do when she wants to improve and expand herself in an area of study? She goes to school. Stripper school.

The Pure Talent School of Dance in Clearwater, Florida, is the nation's only academy for professional exotic dance. There are plenty of personal enrichment courses that will teach you how to strip for your lover—Learning Annex-type evening classes where for two hours you can practice twirling a silk scarf and rolling your hips in a conference room with the table and armchairs pushed to the walls. But a real stripper can't properly practice footwork on industrial-grade carpet. She needs ample solid flooring, a floor-to-ceiling mirror, poles, and, if she has any pride at all, a light source other than a bank of fluorescents glowering overhead, exaggerating every pore, lump, and ripple. She needs professional help in professional surroundings.

The Pure Talent School brochure promises to aid students in every area I'm hoping to improve:

• Dance Instruction
  
• How to Be the Star in Your Club
  
• Costuming and Music Selection
  
• Pole Techniques
  
• Stage Presence
  

The last week in January, I kiss Randy goodbye at the curb at Denver International. I land in Tampa, hauling with me a small carry-on bag of regular clothes and Randy's hockey duffel stuffed with costumes. The duffel almost wrenches my arm out of the socket when I throw it over my shoulder at the baggage carousel. While I wait at the rental car counter, I keep the bag on the floor and move it along with me by nudging it with my foot.

In line behind a dozen harried businessmen in wrinkled suits and tourist families with mountains of luggage, I'm fidgeting foot to foot, nervous because the Journey Has Begun. But I'm glad, too, to get under way after planning for so long. I grab the keys and drag my bags across the paved parking lot to my nerdy economy car. The evening is soft and warm, like the breath of a child—a welcome relief from the dry cold of home. The Wyoming winter is an endurance test—winds gust at night with such force they wake me out of a dead sleep and the storms fell trees, overturn semi trucks, and make a mockery of any snow fence. There is no Currier and Ives cuteness, very little to charm you through the long dark months. I'm so pleased to be in some friendly air for a change. Driving across the Courtney Campbell Causeway at sunset, my eyes move toward the horizon as the sky goes baby blue to pink to purple to the blue-black water of the bay.

While in Florida, I am staying with my friend Jeanette's parents, who moved down from New Jersey eight years ago. Jeanette and I met in gym class on the first day of our junior year in high school. A world-traveled Bronx girl, she had just transferred from Memphis, Tennessee. As a spectral white, six-three redhead dressed in head-to-toe black with three earrings in each ear, she stuck out like a sore thumb among the Jersey girls, buffy and blonde-highlighted from their days down the shore. So did I, having spent the last day of summer vacation on my friend Laurie's bedroom floor, bleaching out my hair. We sat down next to each other in the stands and became instant allies. For the next two years, we were the ringleaders of our school's small band of freaks, salving each other's wounds, shaving each other's head, and trying to stay out of trouble. We succeeded. Most of the time.

Jeanette flew in from Los Angeles to meet me at her parents' house, where she and her mother, Cathy, come to the door and fold me into a huge hug. Cathy is the quintessential cool mom—her home has always been a refuge, noisily exotic with Indonesian shadow puppets, carved fruitwood screens, and a continuous march of far-flung friends dropping in for dinner, dessert, or a poker game. I knew I could state my Florida business without fear of judgment or pesty inquiry. When I told her about the school for strippers she thought it was hilarious, and rolled out the red carpet.

"You don't get to wear a hot-pink sequined cap and gown at the graduation, do you?" she asks hopefully. I wish.

The first day of school, I drive across the causeway with an escort of pelicans circling overhead.

Tampa Bay—famous for its beaches, famous for its strip clubs!

That's the station I.D. of a local classic rock station. Florida has the third highest concentration of strip clubs in the country, and the Tampa/St. Pete area is particularly dense. Amidst the well-groomed subdivisions with names like Harbor Woods and Grove Estates, the strip malls, and the beaches with powdered-sugar sand are more than twenty-five clubs. Down on Dale Mabry is the most famous of all—the rather appallingly named Mons Venus. Mons' notoriety stems from a unique blend of world-class babes and nasty action— two elements that are generally mutually exclusive in the strip club universe. These gorgeous girls do totally nude, full-grind lap dances with ample fondling privileges, making a visit to Mons something of a rite of passage for the adventurous club gourmand.

The school is held at a much tamer place—a tony gentleman's club right off Route 60 called Scarlett's. Class starts at noon, and the club doesn't open until five, so we'll have the run of the place while we study.

Twelve of us sit in fancy armchairs placed in a semicircle around a far corner of the stage. You'd never peg us as exotic dancers, in our sweatsuits and street wear, sipping from paper cups of coffee or drawing deeply on cigarettes. We greet each other nervously, then take out our pens and notebooks as a very pregnant woman sits down on the side of the stage and introduces herself. She is Ann Marie Hayek, the owner of the Pure Talent agency.

School is in session.

Ann Marie, a wholesomely pretty blonde with an easy, deep-dimpled smile, used to be a dancer herself, touring the country with a dance revue she booked and managed called the Dream Girl Centerfolds. Now thirty-five, she minds the careers of sixty feature dancers who travel all over doing week-long guest stints at various clubs.

"I want to congratulate you on being committed to your careers and coming here," she says in a measured, kindergarten teacher voice. "I'd like you to introduce yourself, tell us where you're from, whether you're working now or not, and what you hope to get out of attending this school."

There are two classes of stripper—the house dancer and the feature entertainer. House dancers are the bread-and-butter girls of stripping. House dancers (or house girls) typically work in one club for a six-to eight-hour shift. Some clubs pay house dancers a nominal hourly wage; however, most dancers are treated like independent contractors and work only for tips. Sometimes house dancers, like me, turn into "road girls" and move between clubs, but most stay put. Features are a more exotic breed of exotic dancer. Most start out as house girls and evolve into features when they hear the call of the road—and the money. Features travel the country booking into clubs for limited engagements—from three days to a week. Features receive special publicity, perform choreographed and costumed theme routines, earn a weekly rate which varies depending on their professional profile, and can earn extra money by selling promotional merchandise like autographed Polaroids taken with customers, videos they have appeared in, and posters. A top feature earns much more than a house dancer; however, her initial investment in costumes, props, and merchandise is much greater, and the travel can be exhausting. The Pure Talent class is evenly divided between house dancers and working and aspiring features.

Veronica and Page are two young girls from North Carolina— both corn-fed, with long, wavy light brown hair. They've only been dancing for six months, they drawl out slowly, and they both want to learn better stage technique.

Angela, a local, is married with two kids. Pushing her blonde bangs back with one hand, she shyly tells everyone she's never danced professionally before, but plans to start once she's through with the course.

Dark-haired Alisha worked for six years at Jill's in Wheeling, West Virginia. She says she loves dancing.

"Why?" Ann Marie wants to know.

"Because it's like a party," Alisha replies. All eyes are upon her while she speaks, as she's so uncommonly lovely. With wide, dark blue eyes set deep in her demure, heart-shaped face, she has the quietly devastating beauty of Vivien Leigh. She now works in Fort Lauderdale and hopes to learn new dance steps.

Thumper—"Yes, it's my real name"—has worked as a dancer for five years. She's transitioning into being a feature entertainer and wants to learn how to be more theatrical. This coltish, twenty-three-year-old redhead will also be our pole tricks instructor.

Lexus, lithe and blonde-bobbed, took dance classes as a child. In a rich, husky voice that's quite startling coming from her pale, cheerleader-cute countenance, she says she started dancing in Philadelphia and now works in central Pennsylvania. Her goal is to learn the basics of transitioning from house dancer to feature.

Anna, like me, is one of the older girls in the class. Her gypsy-green eyes are lined in smudged black kohl, giving her the desultory look of a veteran rock goddess. After clasping her small lips carefully around a menthol cigarette while lighting it, she says she's been dancing for eleven months in Kentucky. She wants to increase her self-confidence.

Teresa, a shy and curvy brunette, speaks so softly we can hardly hear her. Ann Marie takes pains to smile warmly at her and coax her to speak up. She danced four years ago in Tampa until her daughter was born. She's not dancing right now, she says, but hopes to return to the business.

Holly, seasoned as a house dancer, is just getting her feature career started. She's a classic spitfire—long red hair, tiny on the bottom and bodacious on top. She's a thirty-year-old married mother of two and her husband, a cheerful, stocky Mexican in thick, black-framed glasses, is sitting by her side. They drove here from their home in Texas, and can only stay for four days of school, because Holly is booked at a club in Flint, Michigan, next week.

Gabrielle is a very thin woman with matte black hair and piercing blue eyes. Feature dancing is in her sights. In her four-and-a-half years in the business, she has worked in Texas, Michigan, and Florida. She now lives in the area and is chauffeuring Lexus around for the week.

My turn: "I'm Barbie. I'm going to spend a year dancing my way around the country. I used to be a house dancer, and now that I'm getting back into it, I decided to come here because when I was doing it way back when, I was never very good."

When we're finished, Ann Marie introduces our dance instructor, Jade Simone Sinclair. Jade, deeply tanned with rippled abs smartly showcased between white hip-slung sweat pants and a yellow jog bra, has an irrepressible boingy quality. Her brown bushy ponytail bobs as she addresses her students. "I just want you to know that I was once a house girl just like y'all."

(She's from Texas.)

"I have made all the mistakes you can make. I have fallen flat on my butt onstage. I have tripped. I have nothing to hide from y'all, because we're in this together. We're going to have a lot of fun this week, and I'm here to help you in any way that I can." She smiles as she speaks, the corners of her mouth pinched and straining in affable flexion.

We go over the different types of dances:

Strip-o-grams and bachelor parties—
usually a choreographed routine done either solo or with another dancer in a private setting. A set fee is usually charged for a certain predetermined amount of time (half an hour to two hours). Then dancers can take tips from partygoers for additional acts, such as whipped-cream shows, lotion shows, or lap dances. Contact and specialty shows should be discussed up front. Dancers often hire their own security for parties.

Stage—
dancing on the stage in a club, either solo or with other dancers, for one to three songs while patrons watch. Customers may or may not be able to tip dancers personally. If they can, rules vary as to where they may put the tips (on the stage, in your hand, in a garter around your thigh, under your g-string, between your breasts), depending on the club's policy.