“It’s two blocks, you could walk faster than…”
“I could. But I don’t hafta. I have cash, see? Cash? So, I don’t hafta walk. I don’t want to walk two blocks. I don’t want to walk one block. I’m paying you, so just drive….” I settle back into the seat making myself comfortable, two blocks or twenty, it’s all the same to me. “Sonofabitch,” I mumble under my breath. I’m a loud mumbler.
Piper and I have some version of this conversation every time we cab it from the Lollipop to Paul’s Mardi Gras. It’s a quick two blocks, well, two if we walk, which we don’t. We won’t. It’s six blocks when you drive.
I can walk. I’m not a cripple. But goddammit, why would I walk when I can be driven? I’m making all this fucking money, isn’t this exactly why? So I can do whatever I want, whenever I want and don’t have to take shit from anyone about it?
And Piper is simply not the kind of girl who walks, but rather she is escorted places. And, to be honest, the conversations with the cabbies are much nicer for everyone involved when I let her do the talking. That goes for almost all conversations involving men, and except for talking to Pipes and my mother, all my conversations are with men. And, if I’m going to continue being honest, I have to tell you I cannot remember the last time I spoke to my mother, certainly not since that night.
Piper is better at charming than I will ever be, especially these days. She is more about the batting of the eyes, where I come across more like a bat upside the head. I’ve tried it her way, but it’s like putting a party dress on a monkey. The monkey looks pretty, sure, but you’re not actually going to take the monkey home to meet the family.
The new Mardi Gras, Paul’s Mardi Gras, is to the Lollipop what Vegas is to Tuesday night Bingo at the VFW hall. It’s like drinking inside a Christmas decoration the size of a football field wih live djs sending music pounding out of speakers as tall as goalposts. Everywhere you look, cash registers, balloons, streamers, mirrors, men in suits, women in nothing or almost nothing. Photos of dancers and celebrities line the mirrored walls. New Year’s Eve streamers give a festive illusion of privacy to the tables and alcoves along the walls. An endless river of dancers, waitresses, floor girls and barmaids sardine-can themselves in and out of the two stall bathroom and call it a dressing room. It’s a really BIG Christmas decoration, with vodka. Endless bottles of vodka.
We’ve been coming here to relax and drink here for a couple of weeks, whenever we need a change of scenery from the little Lollipop with its eight barstools, rinky-tink flashing jukebox and ten foot ‘stage’.
I slide on to the first empty barstool and hustle drinks I’ll get no commission on. I could pay for them myself, but why, when I can get a customer to pay $20 for my $2 vodka and help one of the barmaids make her bonus at the same time? The vodka’s the same no matter who pays or how much. I don’t care about making money or spending money tonight. I’m here to drink, the music is good, and it’s not work. These are my people.
The Lollipop has Myron’s crew of wiseguys, some middle management office drones and a few frat boys, but everyone comes to the Mardi Gras: cops, on duty and off, New York and New Jersey; wiseguys also on duty and off, also New York and New Jersey; street hustlers, doctors, pimps, loan sharks, bookies, lawyers, psychiatrists, couples, off duty dancers, nude models, live sex show performers from ShowWorld relaxing in-between their live sex shows, celebrities, newscasters relaxing in-between casting the news, and a dancing dwarf who claims to be the real money behind the bar and demands blowjobs from each of the new girls.
A month or a week from now when I find myself dancing on this very stage and he sidles up to me, his face level with and pressed up against my barely g-stringed crotch, I will threaten to drop kick him across the bar. Dwarves freak me out. Sue me, sorry, but they do.
And while there may or may not have been a Robbie at Robbie’s Mardi Gras, which has since disappeared, there is most definitely a Paul at Paul’s Mardi Gras.
There’s guinea money behind the bar; there’s guinea money behind all of the bars, but Paul’s name is on the liquor license. He sits with me while I drink. He escaped Auschwitz with his parents when he was a boy, but he doesn’t talk about it much. Instead, he tells me I’m a good Jewish girl. He complains about his kids to me, worries about them, they make him crazy. He says Teddy is hard-headed and angry, always getting into fights; Fern is unmanagable, she’s dating a schwartze for God’s sake, a schwartze!; Elliot, the baby, Elliot is a good boy who helps him run the bar at night. Paul strokes my face, watching me with rheumy eyes, he tells me how I look just like his wife, Paula, when she was my age. At first, I think she must be dead. She’s not. She manages the day shift and hates me on sight. So although I find myself in need of a new job and it would be ever so nice to work days and sleep nights like a semi-normal person, I’ll get no help at all from the wife.
Wives are rarely, if ever, helpful to me.
Paul, however welcomes me. The Mardi Gras is a family business, he says. And I’ve always wanted a family.
This entry was written by , posted on March 16, 2010 at 4:47 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1982, drinking, Paul's Mardi Gras, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
JJ doesn’t come around the Lollipop, like he didn’t come around the Butterfly. He sticks to the big joints – the Mardi Gras, the Metropole – where you don’t notice so much who’s where doing what because there’s so many people that everyone blends into the crowd; or the afterhours like upstairs at 366 8th Avenue where it’s dark enough for a nigga to not be noticed no matter what he’s doing.
Other pimps look to be noticed, but JJ’s all on the soft side with his grey flannel and his whispers, all on the downlow. Even so, even though I don’t see him except when I’m hanging out at the Mardi Gras or the afterhours, everybody knows about him and me.
They know I got my name from him, that we’re connected. They know even though he’s not pimping me, they know they don’t have a chance to either, cause he’s got my back, he hipped me to what was the what when I first showed up and he’s still looking over my shoulder, keeping a big brother, cock of the walk eye out for me.
That thing in the motel?
…with Lockey
and
Lightfoot?
…and the broken window?
That was nothing.
That was just
a mistake.
That wasn’t supposed
to happen.
I’ve got the Ice Man, too. So, the guinea wiseguys like Junior and Joey Two Shoes, they know they can only go so far. The Ice Man’s looking out for me.
I’m covered. I’m a year past my expiration date, yeah sure, but that just means I’m untouchable now. I’m cool like that.
This entry was written by , posted on January 28, 2010 at 2:57 pm, filed under the diary and tagged 1981, Butterfly, Lollipop, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras, wiseguys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I didn’t grow up in a house that said nigger. I knew people who did, of course. I grew up in Levittown where you can’t buy a house unless you promise never to sell to a non-white family. Seriously. Even so, in my a house we didn’t say things like kike, or spic or nigger.
“Jus’ give the niggers their drinks, take their money and walk. Ya spendin’ way too much time talkin’ to ‘em. I didn’t hire ya to talk to niggers.” Ralphie’s jowls vibrate as he yells at me, again.
The bosses were worried about their own pockets. Pimps don’t drop for the champagne hustle, they’ll sit on the same fancy drink for a whole shift. They don’t put money in the cash registers if they can help it. But I work for tips. The pimps were waving a lot of green at me, most days I go home with six times my shift pay in tips—that’s more in one day than I’d had in a week working a straight job. I wasn’t about to bite the hands that fed me, no matter what color.
“Well, Ralph, who you want I should talk to? I got no other customers. Switch me up. Put me on nights.”
“Then I got niggers at night. You know I ain’t putting you on nights. My ass is awready on a line causa you.” The Mardi Gras had a lot to lose. Days the risk wasn’t too bad, but there was like two, three, four times as much money at night. Putting a seventeen year old on a night shift was asking for trouble from the Vice Squad, from Public Morals, from the State Liquor Authority . I could lose their liquor license for them. No license, no money. I’d heard the speech every time I asked. Probably for the best.My family lie had me working the lunch shift at some restaurant. No one’d believe I was good enough to be offered a dinner crowd.
“Ralph, no one’s gonna tip me just for opening a bottle of beer and walking away. Who’my gonna talk to, huh? You?”
“I don’t pay you to talk to niggers.” He runs a thick hand through his hair, greying, slicked back and greasy, then across his mustache, also going grey. And now it’s greasy too.
“Well, who’re you paying to talk to ‘em, cause really, I’m perfect for it. C’mon Ralph. You barely fucking pay me at all. Fifteen bucks? C’mon. I get almost a hundred from them. I’m here to make money. Like everyone else. Do the math, Ralph. Do the fuck-ing math, seriously, what would you do?”
Ralphie stands, adjusting his pants and belt around his paunch, he stares down at me.
“Ya got a real smart mouth, kid. That don’t make ya real smart though. Ya like spendin’ so much time with these jungle bunny muthafuckas, spend ev’ry goddamn day ‘n night wit ‘em then. Getcha crap. Get outta here. Take ya nigger pimp witchoo.”
“So, no night shift?” I rush out the door, mouth still running. He’s this close to pulling his belt off and walloping me, I can see it in his eyes. I don’t know when to shut up,but I know when to duck.
JJ was a pimp, but he treated me with respect, unlike Ralph. He never cursed. He showed me how to survive in Times Square, how not to get eaten alive. I’d heard ugly stories, girls who were so far in they couldn’t find a way out. That wasn’t gonna happen to me.
“What’s happenin’ Little J?” he whispered. The music pounded me, louder than usual. JJ’s voice was like a hot knife through butter. He was the heat. He was the butter too.
Anger danced in my head, shattered my thoughts, sent them flying and crashing into the walls as I gathered my stuff from behind the bar. I bumped into Ralphie as he was closing out my register.
“I’m fired,” tossing my head at Ralphie, “for talkin’ to NNNIIIGGGERS,” loud enough for everyone to hear over the throbbing disco beat.
“Get da fuck outta here.” Ralphie shoved me roughly down the bar.
“Hey,” I turned, “my shift pay, Ralphie?” holding my hand out, smiling sweetly.
“You don’t work a full shift, you don’t get paid, that’s my math.” He smiled back at me and puffed his chest out.
“Fuck you Ralphie, I don’t need your stinkin fifteen dollars.”
We walked out of the darkness into the glaring afternoon sun on Broadway, both wearing our work clothes. JJ, quiet in his three piece bankers grey pin stripe suit and me, with smart mouth & my big ass bobbing along, in a leotard shiny and red as a fire truck, legs bare, a pair of heels and a very bad attitude. Times Square roared around us.
It was a long day. I was too tired to roar back.
dirtygirl wonders: Do you know when to shut up? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 23, 2009 at 8:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1976, dirty money, JJ Huntsberry, Levittown, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
If you’re in the house, you’re on the bar, on stage or working the floor. On stage you’re untouchable, but on the floor you have to be pleasant, seductive. Tell him how handsome he is, how desirable, run your fingers down his arm, tell him what a piece of shit he is, say what ever it is he needs to hear, how you’ll leave your man for him if only if…as long as there is a glass of champagne in front of you. No drink and it’s just a smile tossed over your shoulder, an eyeful of your ass walking away. He can take that into the bathroom and jerk off. Or he can buy you a drink.
The drink is champagne even when it’s not. A $20 nip buys a short five minutes at the bar. More time means more money. The girls are friendly, time is fluid, the champagne endless.
Every champagne glass comes with a chaser, an empty frosted “spit” glass to dribble the champagne into after each sip.
Dancers spit, they don’t swallow.
Drunk girls are accidents waiting to happen. They wake up next to men they never meant to fuck. For free. Drunk girls get sent home, they’re not earners. And cheap champagne is the worst hangover ever. Trust me, I’m a drunk girl.
Most days though, I “restock” the bottles, taking the ones with good labels, that don’t look too battered, filling them with ginger ale from the soda gun and twisting the caps back on.
Twist tops. Classy.
I put one or two spit glasses aside, unwashed, for assholes. I leave some spit in there.
I do my best to work the champagne hustle, but everyday brings new displays of feathered hats, sherbert colored polyester pimp suits and matching patent leather and alligator shoes – orange, lime green or grape. Pimps don’t buy titty bar champagne. They buy Golden Cadillacs and Grasshoppers. Cocktails to match their outfits and coat their stomachs. Cocktails that need to be shaken. They come to see me shake, to see the new girl JJ Hunstberry is grooming. JJ is top dog, if someone can grab me away from him, I’d be a feather in their cap. No one knows he still sends me home untouched at the end of every day.
The pimp parade leaves less and less room for the middle class white guys–incredible shrinking men in white short-sleeved button downs and two dollar ties. The scotch & soda, gin & tonic boys. The ones who buy the champagne. Meal tickets are afraid of pimps.
The girls complain to management. The meal tickets complain to management. Management complains to me.
Ralphie’s got me in the office, again, in the middle of a shift. His jowls shake as he yells at me for the thirty-first time. “Jus’ give the niggas their fuckin’ drinks, take the money and walk away. Ya not here to talk to niggas.”
But no one else talks to me, I think…
I’d never gotten the hang of making friends in my old life either.
dirtygirl asks: Do we choose our friends, do they choose us or is it all just proximity and circumstance? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 20, 2009 at 9:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1976, dirty money, JJ Huntsberry, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m here for the money I say. For the first time my body is an asset. The white guys don’t notice me, but the black guys, the brothers, pimps and players, they do. They tip. They want me, want me to want them. I want their money. But outside of turning tricks, here in the go-go bars the real money, the long green is on stage.
The dancers are glamorous, so far beyond what I can even hope for. (My mother will one day say I wasn’t burdened by having to be pretty. She had always been, after all, the pretty one.) They’re the dime everything turns on. Barmaids, like me, we keep the booze moving. Booze loosens a man’s wallet and care-free is care-less.
Men come to watch, to talk, to sit with, to forget their own lives. Some come to make money, like the owners and managers who don’t seem to like any us. We’re just a means to the money and they hate that we get paid just for having tits and ass. The men who drink here hate us for having tits and ass too, hate us for making them weak with wanting. They just don’t know it, yet.
Only the punch drunk bouncers, old pugs with no where else to go, only pimps and thieves take us out in public. Everyone else wants ass, or head or bragging rights and that’s as far as it goes.
I don’t want anyone to marry me, anyway. Men don’t marry girls like me.
I have nothing to lose.
I borrow a g-string. A cheesy scratchy blue number. A small triangle of coarse material that shimmers, barely, held together, barely, with three strips of black elastic. Someone else’s cooch stain taunts me as I change in the bathroom. I cover what I can with this swatch of blue and march out into the bar, pubic hair exploding from all sides.
Center stage, teetering on heels borrowed from Lisa for luck, I dance around and everyone watches. Everyone. Suddenly, I’m that woman men want to touch, to own, to be with, my body is buzzing. My nipples are hard, my skin jumping with electricity, my mouth dry, the world spins faster and faster. I’m free. I’m powerful, there’s a big red S on my chest. I’m out of control, out of my body. My shattered reflection dances with me, two of me, three of me, dozens of me jump from mirror to mirror, jerking, spinning, twirling in a trance of pounding disco. Smiling back at myself, I’m the pretty one now.
Fuck that shit. I’m beautiful.
I matter. And I’m the only thing in the world that matters. I’m untouchable.
Ralphie throws a brick through the plate glass window of my world. “Let’s see some floor work! Pretend you’re on top”, he barks.
I’m 17.
I’ve never been on top.
The spell is broken, I’m slammed back into my skin, just a chubby girl in someone else’s shoes doing naked push ups on stage. Everyone is watching.
Ralphie never asked me to dance again.
I never want to be in my skin again. Ever.
dirtygirl wonders: If you only had two choices, would you rather be the center of attention, or be completely invisible? Why? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 16, 2009 at 9:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, dirty boys, dirty money, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
JJ the pimp, my JJ, wants me to be a lady, to have some real class. So we go to nice places, not like Tad’s Steak House, which is what passed for nice growing up. I’m learning how to talk to maître d’s & sommeliers, to get respect & service in return. We order fine wines. Honestly though, I don’t get beyond white is chilled & red isn’t.
I go through the motions of letting a wine breath without knowing why, or caring for that matter. If I play my part well, I can be silly and get Perrier Jouet just for the flowers. I don’t know if it’s better than Cristal or Moet, but it’s better than the crap champagne we hustle at work, I know that much. I order Stolichnaya because I like the way the word feels in my mouth, but really, I’m happy to drink Georgi and when no one is looking I swallow the crap champagne at work instead of spitting it out.
JJ says there’s a fine line between sleazy and sexy and teaching me to walk that line is an uphill battle.
I’ve discovered charming, but can’t master demure. I’m better with funny or tough but he says there’s no money in funny and tough is for street girls. I mingle when we’re out, drinking enough Stolichnaya (chilled or not, I don’t care) to shut the voices up when they start to blabber, everyone knows, everyone knows you’re a fake, you’re just a kid, just a chubby kid from the asshole of Long Island. When the voices start, I don’t care if the bottle has flowers or a skull and cross bones, as long as it’s there.
JJ starts to teach me the truths about men. What they think they want, what they really want. He says check the way a man dresses, walks, speaks, even the way he sits matters. This part is easy. Daddy was a con man at heart and long before Times Square, my father was teaching me how to size a person up with a glance. Did a man’s shoes need resoling? Missing buttons? Shirts frayed at the collar or cuffs? Nails manicured or ragged? Was there a ring of pale skin where a wedding band should be? What does he drink and how quickly or slowly? I need this edge to win, to get men to part with their cash. If you’re not pretty, you have to be smarter. This is all vital if I’m going to work for JJ. I’ve seen Sharon’s life. I want what she has and I want it with JJ. I don’t need any vintage Greta Garbo underwear, but I want that sleep ’til noon cash business is nobody’s business kinda business. I want to be fancy & desirable.
I want to feel wanted.
No one at home asks about the hours and hours I’m out of the house. They think I’m working the lunch shift in a restaurant in the city. No one asks much anyway, but life is easier with a lie. The lies I tell my family makes it easier for them to sleep. The lies I tell men make it easier for them to like me.
I don’t tell anyone the truth. I’m not even all the sure what it is.
dirtygirl wonders: What exactly is classy? Is it the way you dress, the way you act, something you’re born with? Is that whole Eliza Dolittle transformation even possible? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 13, 2009 at 7:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, dirty boys, dirty money, JJ Huntsberry, partners in crime, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’ve arrived. Robbie’s is the largest topless bar in New York City, maybe in the world. There are fifteen cash registers making a horseshoe around three stages. Bottles & bottles of glittering gem toned liquids, sequins, feathers, balloons, mirrors, streamers. Broadway, jammed with cars, taxis, police sirens, sidewalks overflowing, the world screams outside our door and Levittown is a million lifetimes away. Times Square is neon, flash and glitter, crowds and then more neon. As long as I don’t mind working in a skimpy leotard (I don’t), smile big (I do) and charge high prices for short drinks, I have a job where I make more cash money in one day than I did in a week at an office job. No taxes. No paperwork. No bullshit.
Okay, a little bullshit.
The other girls are mostly friendly, mostly glamorous. There’s one, older, maybe even thirty, with dyed jet black hair. She’s covered in tattoos and calls herself Raven. Everybody’s got at least two names. One for here and another for real life. Raven takes me under her wing and teaches me to mix drinks. Rye & Ginger. 7 & 7. Scotch & Soda. White men’s drinks, she says. The brothers, the pimps, they go for fancy drinks involving cocktail shakers and milk, like Grasshoppers. Milk drinks are a pain. You have to clean the shaker & change the rinse sink water each time. But pimps tip better. Raven tells me to start thinking what name I’m gonna use, that I can’t use my own. You use your own name, she says, anyone can find you.
Lisa used to be a Rockette. Her tits are famous. One was on the cover of High Times, covered in chocolate syrup, her nipple the cherry on top. She brought in a copy for everyone to see. Lisa does tricks, like dancing while standing on her head. She’s teaching me how to suck a long neck Budweiser off and make it come. Guys love that trick.
The guys are okay, mostly my father’s age. Mostly white. The brothers sit with me or Raven, the other girls don’t want them around. I don’t mind, they tip, they’re friendly. There’s one in particular.
His name is Jasus. J. Huntsberry.
JJ was there from day one with his sleepy gray eyes hiding behind gold wire rimmed glasses and that velvet voice you need to lean in to hear. He is the color of dusty pecans. Dark blue suits, tailored. Leather shoes, handmade. He’s a subtle suggestion, a gentle mood. JJ’s silence screams next to the flashy moves and garish peacock colors of other pimps. When he’s here, I feel cared for, looked after. Safe from the reaches of other pimps and street daddies looking to turn out the new fish.
I need a name, I take his. And so, here, I’m “little JJ”. Together we’re black JJ & white JJ. Big JJ & Little JJ. JJ the pimp & JJ the girl.
For now, everyone steers clear and leaves us alone.
dirtygirl wants to know: What makes you feel safe in the world, okay in your own skin? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 9, 2009 at 10:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, JJ Huntsberry, Levittown, pimps, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I wasn’t a pretty girl. Growing up in Levittown, I was a cute kid, sure, but by the time I was in sixth grade it was over and I knew it. There’s a photo, a group shot of all of us kids just come back from caroling, crowded into someone’s mother’s kitchen having hot chocolate. All the other girls look like regular happy kids. Me, my hair is going in every different direction looking like I cut it myself, which I probably did. I’m wearing black octagon framed glasses and clenching my teeth, straining directly into the camera — all my teeth show and my gums. I look….maniacal, but it was what I thought a smile was supposed to look like. I had no idea how to be in my own skin. I was a chubby, wierd kid with no idea how to fit in, what it meant to be a girl, how to make other people like me. To top it off, I looked like a middle aged school teacher most of my life. At least that’s what I saw when I looked in the mirror.
Robbie’s Mardi Gras changed all of that. The first time I was pretty, it was behind the bar at Robbies.
I was seventeen years old and there was a line of middle aged men at my bar that wanted my attention. They saw me, not the chubby weird kid I saw, and they wanted me to see them.
The first time I was beautiful, really beautiful, I was on stage, in a borrowed g-string, a scratchy glittery piece of blue fabric held together by two strips of black sewing elastic with someone else’s pussy stains on the crotch. Probably more than one someone.
The women around me were gorgeous and glamourous. Cocktails were served in sparkling stem glasses. Everything glittered. The music was loud, there were mirrors everywhere and I was pretty. For the very first time.
I knew then, I was never going to leave.
dirtygirl wants to know:…about the first time you felt desirable. Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 6, 2009 at 10:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, Levittown, lonliness, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Life might’ve been different if Frankie hadn’t killed himself, if Cowboy hadn’t left town, if I hadn’t gotten fired. I’d have a ham sammich if I had some ham, if I had some bread.
But Frankie died and I don’t think it took three days before we started calling him Dead Frankie. So, I woulda been Mrs. Dead Frankie if we’d managed to get it together before he managed to fall apart.
The police called me in the office to tell Frankie was dead. That’s not the kind of thing you should be telling a person over the phone, ‘hey girlie, your fiancee killed himself so you better start making other plans’. Really, that’s the kind of thing you should tell a person face to face. I said, when you tell his moms, tell her to her face. Then I ripped the phone outta the wall and threw it across the room.
The ripping the phone out of the wall, the howling and flipping over of furniture – they can say that’s why they fired me, but really, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was time. I wasn’t cut out to be a file clerk.
Cowboy was my best friend, my back door man, which was all he could be. He’s out of commission with the Clap most of the time. I guess it all got to be too much for him, the funeral, the Clap, the whole downtown hustler thing. We went up to Port Authority and I put him on a bus back to wherever it was he called home.
Suddenly, I am unemployed and extraordinarily single having gone from a boyfriend and a fiancee to nothing. The ad in the back of the Village Voice said “BARMAID – NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY”. I have that, no experience, and plenty of it.
I’d had dreams of being a criminal lawyer, not a $90 a week file clerk. That’s what the law firm was paying me before they fired me. That was before taxes. My first day behind the bar at Robbies Mardi Gras I made $85 in cash. No taxes. No paperwork. No experience necessary.
Yeah. That’ll work. I’m not going anywhere for a while….
dirtygirl wonders:
Can men and women be friends if they’re attracted to each other? Can you be “just friends” with someone you’re having sex with?
Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on July 2, 2009 at 10:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, death, dirty boys, dirty money, hustlers, love, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The ad in the back of the Village Voice said ‘BARMAID – EXPERIENCE PREFERRED’. What I saw was no experience necessary and I was all that and almost eighteen. I’d been in topless bars before, small places out in Long Island, but nothing that prepared me for the Mardi Gras.
The double glass doors opened onto an insanity of mirrored walls, lights, sequins and more mirrors. I’m busy staring, mouth hanging open, trying to take it all in and I feel someone staring — at me. He had a face made from the soft sweat stained leather of an old catcher’s mitt, and I’d swear I’d seen that face in a hundred gangster movies. He says his name is Ralphie. I tell him mine.
“‘S’a boy’s name. Ya mudder wanna boy’n get stuck wit chu?” Snort. “We’ll come up wi’sumpin’. You a dancer or bartender?”
“Uh, bartender?”
“Can ya mix drinks?” I shake my head no. “Can ya open a bottly beer, little girl?” When he talks, only one side of his face moves, one side of his mouth, so’s if I was standing on the other side I wouldn’t know it was him talking at all. I’m mesmerized, by him, by the whole huge glittering place. It’s like being inside of a Christmas ornament. Ralphie bends down to look me in the face, like I’m the town idiot, or a small child. I feel like both, but opening beer bottles, here was something I had plenty of experience with. I shake my head enthusiastically up and down. Yes, I shake, struck speechless
“Good. Now, can ya close ya mout ‘n folly me?”
I close my mouth and folly.
dirtygirl wants to know:
Have you ever stepped through the looking glass? What was the first time you found yourself someplace you had no reference at all for and what the hell were you doing there in the first place? Post your thoughts below. C’mon, talk dirty to me.
This entry was written by , posted on June 29, 2009 at 10:00 am, filed under the diary and tagged 1975, Robbies Mardi Gras, Times Square. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
