THIRTY-SEVEN
Two nights before Christmas, our party consists of a giant punchbowl in the dressing room and no tree. The club will be open for the holiday. Lucille’s stays open three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I’m glad I got out of working that night, but I hope I can find something to do instead. I don’t want to spend Christmas alone.
It’s the middle of the shift. I’m slightly tipsy. I’ve just done several table dances and been in the champagne room. Arlo, the cokehead floor manager, now knows to stay clear of me while I’m pitching customers. I’ve been having more success without his “help” than I had while he was butting in. Things are going well. I’m making money tonight. I decide to grab another cup of punch to celebrate my success.
Sharon is on her knees on the floor of the dressing room, still wearing her street clothes. I still don’t know her well, so it takes a few moments before I realize she’s totally intoxicated. Her ass crack is hanging out of her pants. She giggles and slurs while her eyes light on nothing in particular and then flit to something else just as quickly. A couple of the girls snicker behind their hands at her, but otherwise, nobody’s paying attention.
“Honey, what’s up with you?” I ask. My gown rides up my legs as I sit next to her on the floor. “How you feeling?”
“Hee,” she laughs.
“Yeah, that good, huh? Speak to me. Say something I can understand.”
“You godda purdy mouth,” she garbles. Then she cracks up for about a minute and a half. I watch her carefully.
Joy, the club’s owner, is on hand tonight. She’s a Dominican woman of dubious stability who used to be a dancer herself, quite a long time ago. Many of the girls are afraid of her because they say she can be extremely vindictive. I rarely deal with her at all, preferring to stay off the radar of anyone who has that sort of reputation.
Now Joy enters the dressing room, takes one look at Sharon, and says, “Oh, hell no. She got to go home. Somebody got to put her in a cab. She can’t work like that.”
“I’ll take her down there,” I say hastily, because it’s clear no else here gives a shit.
“You got this?” Joy looks my way, noticing me for the first time. Her eyes are predatory.
I nod my assent and change into my street clothes as quickly as I can. Some of the other girls have begun to congregate around Sharon. Their jeers are growing louder. In her current state, she doesn’t know the difference. Still, I’m embarrassed for her. I want to get her out of here sooner rather than later.
Just as I’m getting my shoes on, Sharon farts loudly. “Ha, ha, ha! I pooted!” she announces.
“Aw, nasty!”
“Get that stank bitch outta here!”
“Day-um!”
I glare at the girls as they back away. Then I turn around again to face Sharon.
“Come on, honey. Up,” I tell her reassuringly. I reach for her hand.
It takes a few tries before I can get her onto her feet. Sharon’s not fat, however, she’s broad. And she’s much heavier than I am. She slumps, but she walks along clinging to me until we get to the middle of the staircase that leads to the main floor. Then she sits down at the landing.
I groan. “Come on, Sharon, don’t do this to me!” I whisper fiercely. “Joy will fire us both!”
Her eyes are pinned, and she’s grinning from ear to ear. I’m not sure she’s even heard me.
“Jesus, Sharon, what the fuck did you take, anyway?” It’s sort of a rhetorical question at this point.
She gets up again and begins walking of her own accord. We make it to the elevator, where she curls up in a corner and starts to nod.
At the ground floor, I enlist Buddy’s help. He leaves his post to collect Sharon from the elevator.
“Come on, girlie-girl,” he says, letting her lean on him. “Let’s get you a cab.”
He’s able to flag one down easily. But first Sharon won’t sit down in the backseat, and then she can’t speak coherently enough to tell the cab driver where she lives. The driver looks at her in disgust and speeds away.
“Okay, very well. Maybe she can walk it off,” Buddy says.
Each of us takes an arm. We start to walk down the street with Sharon between us. It’s bitterly cold out here. I barely feel it.
“Damn, that bitch is to’ up,” I hear a pedestrian in a hoodie saying to his companion as they pass by us on the sidewalk. “She done.”
“Buddy, this is bullshit. I’m driving her home,” I say.
“Joy’s gonna let you do that?” he wants to know.
“Joy doesn’t have a choice,” I retort.
We bring Sharon back into the club’s vestibule, and I take the ride upstairs in the elevator to talk to Ritchie, who is the club’s general manager.
“Absolutely not. I don’t have enough girls. I can’t let you leave in the middle of a shift,” Ritchie scoffs. “There are plenty of cabs out tonight.”
“She’s in no condition to be in a cab by herself,” I say. “She could wind up anywhere.”
“Well, she shouldn’ta come to work all messed up, then,” Ritchie says.
“You know what?” I’m getting pretty heated listening to his self-righteous crap. “Give me any fine you think you need to give me. Hell, fire me if that’s what you want to do. This isn’t up for discussion. That girl is not safe by herself, and I am driving her home. Now, I can be back here in an hour, or not at all. Your choice.”
Joy emerges from somewhere and catches the end of my speech. “What now?” she asks.
“This one wants to drive the stoney girl home,” Ritchie explains, pointing at me.
Joy fixes that serpentine gaze on me again. “You know where she living?”
I nod.
“How long it take to get there?”
“I can be back in an hour,” I reply.
Joy waves her hand in the direction of the door. “Do whatchu got to do.”
Ritchie looks cowed. “I’m short two girls now, not one,” he complains.
“This one be back in an hour,” Joy says. “Right?”
“Right,” I say.
I turn and leave, stopping to collect Sharon, who has passed out completely. Buddy helps me lift her into the car. She’s like a giant sack of potatoes – dead weight.
The drive up to Sharon’s house is an ordeal. Her head falls on my shoulder. It’s so heavy that my arm and neck both feel strained. But I don’t want to push her head off me because there’s nothing else supporting it. So I drive this way for a few miles, feeling a new twinge of dull pain every time the car hurtles over another pothole. Finally, I turn onto her street and pull up in front of the building.
I ease Sharon’s head gently off my shoulder, and allow her to crumple in the passenger seat. Then I ring the bell I know is hers.
“Who is it?” Willy says through the intercom.
“I’ve got Sharon here. Can you come outside?” I pant.
When he opens the front door, he looks angrily past me and over at her. This is not how I expected him to greet us.
“Oh, that’s just fuckin’ great. Now we’re gonna be sick,” he says.
He picks her up and carries her into the building without offering me so much as a “thank you.”
I grit my teeth and get back behind the wheel.
In the end, it takes over an hour to complete the journey back and forth. I run upstairs to the dressing room as fast as I can, so Joy and Ritchie can see that I didn’t take any liberties with the time.
Trying to make any more money tonight is useless. I do a few dances and I pull a bit of stage cash. But I’ve missed the better part of the shift. And from what I can see from the cashier’s log, I’ve missed a good night.
I cash out at a hundred and fifty bucks, worn out and ready to skip dinner so I can get home and into bed faster. When I get to the club’s front door, I almost fall over in shock.
Sharon and Willy are outside the club. She’s wide awake now and looks damned close to sober. As soon as she sees me, she rushes up and wraps an arm around my neck.
“Please let me borrow sixty bucks,” she says. “I swear I’ll get it back to you.”
“Sharon, I didn’t make money,” I tell her.
“Please?” she begs. “We’re both really sick.”
She’s serious. I can’t believe this.
“You know I’m good for it. I’m working tomorrow. Are you working?”
“No,” I say.
“Then I’ll come to your house with it after work. Just for tonight.”
I sigh and reach into my pants pocket. I made decent money all week before this, so it’s not a giant loss for me. I can already tell she won’t leave me alone until I give her what she wants.
“Forget it,” I say. “Get it back to me when you’ve got it.”
“Are you sure?” Sharon wheedles, already pocketing the cash.
Fuck it. Nothing matters these days anymore, not really. Sixty bucks out of a hundred and fifty just essentially means that this night never happened.
I offer a sardonic little half smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I don’t know where you live.”
* * *
There are 14 more chapters in Servicing the Pole. If you’d like to read the final chapters, please email lauri AT laurishaw DOT com. I will send you a PDF of the whole book. Thanks again for reading my work!
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May 20th, 2009 at 7:11 am
You had to prove me wrong about Sharon ;(
Oh well…I liked her at first…
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:33 am
i’m thinking sharon is the ghost of christmas future. how things will turn out absent emily’s radical departure from curent practices.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
@ Fiona – Ah, I dunno. I still kinda like her.
@ fucen
May 6th, 2011 at 3:57 am
Noooooooooo I was ready to finish the whole thing and just skip work ahahaha! Hmmm… 2011, huh. I’m definitely sending you an email, I hope you get it! T_T
September 23rd, 2011 at 4:46 am
HAHA! right behind you, Maria XD