The Mysterious Go-Go Girl That Never Stopped Dancing

One of the many wild stories I have about my life.

That Mysterious Go-Go Girl That Just Keeps Going

A ‘Writing Writer’ Production

For Jason; wherever you may be

20110924 Louisville Kentucky

 

The room seems to rattle within the vibrations of music and the movements from the people here, as if it were a cradle being rocked back and forth. Jason is lost in the crowd, somewhere, somehow yet again. I walk through a dark and luminous tunnel of flashing lights, me being the only man in a black suit. Jason would have been the other guy wearing one. I had learned well from my experiences with the Japanese Mafia on the day I met that ominous man in leather that seemed so many years ago that if you were going to wear a suit in a place like this, you had to do it the right way. None of this nonsense of walking around with the blazer fully unbuttoned and without any cufflinks. If you couldn’t take the heat, you had to get the hell out of the kitchen, or the club in this case.

As I walked through the crowd of people, I made my way to the main center of the facility- just an average Joe nightclub- and what I saw will forever haunt my mind: the go-go girl.

                The night usually started off with me and Jason getting a couple of drinks in our system to get amped up for whatever the night had in store for us. I met Jason several months ago at a dead beat up job that had me busting my a*s with 7 days a week transporting and bundling steel parts to whatever company wanted them. The usual drink was some cheap Popov Vodka worth about 6 bucks for a fifth, mixed with grape juice (or sometimes straight if we was hurting for cash enough). The night would then usually end with me being totally smashed behind the wheel, risking my reputation with the local authorities every time I so much as turned the ignition on. ‘Why take the risk of driving?’ is a pretty good question to ask before you go out, but it always slips my mind; slips Jason’s mind too which is probably why I’m his roommate.

The weeks leading to this particular night had been a series of unfortunate events- the first one being (you named it) getting in a car wreck. Nobody was hurt except me. I was facing a little jail time if I didn’t pull my head out of my a*s and get a good lawyer to back me up, which was yanking my pockets by the balls. So I’m probably not gonna do it. Next thing that happened was I got denied a very good position with the Metro Police Department, which ironically, is probably a good thing; never seen a drunk cop do a chase before but I’m sure it’s something you wouldn’t forget. They never called me back for a status update so I got fed up, called the station, and got informed that I had not gotten selected for the position. I began to get upset with the lady on the other side of the phone and demanded some answers. First one was why I wasn’t picked when I was told I was in the top 10 out of a class of about 50 or more applicants. The second is probably more important to me though; just when was you going to tell me I didn’t get selected? Well, I get that people, especially government employees are busy, but it certainly wasn’t putting icing on the cake that was beginning to get made.

                Last thing was I got denied from another position the day of my birthday that I was really looking forward too; it was an office job. Nothing fancy or anything. Didn’t have to be a computer geek to annotate data. The task simply required filling out a spreadsheet. Jason offered me a free admission handout to get into this big shot strip in the city as a B-day present- so I took the offer. Now here I was, me and him dressed in suits and drinking on a poorly mixed combo of cheap vodka and grape juice.  One thing about Jason is that although he is sentimental, the guy cannot get enough of the yams (that is, the a*s, the girls, the booty, whatever they call it nowadays). The guy practically lives off the thrill of just finding a woman. In other words, he goes out to get a*s while I go out to escape my problems; only temporarily of course.

The nights usually end up something terrible, like the time I had to throw an oversized black man out of our van because we was dumb enough to give him a lift. Another time is when I chased down a Mexican kid half way across the block because a fight had broken out and he took off his belt and snapped it at me and no, I wasn’t a part of the fight; I was walking back from the convenient store. I’ve told I look like an a*****e and back then, I always wore suits out so maybe it was true, who knows. I just know I had to buy new loafers from how hard my heels went into the ground chasing the kid. Another time I had a transvestite rip my shirt off on some freak show stage and cram my face into her (or his) fake breast. I could go on but I think you get the picture. Its weird s**t like that that actually keeps me sane in a time that I wasn’t doing well financially (or legally for that matter). It’s the small things that we laugh about later that gives me reason to move forward in my life: but why if it keeps me sane? Because obviously I don’t wanna be the guy getting hit on by transvestites all day or chasing kids around the block- which is why tonight was going to be just a little different.

                After taking back to back shots of Popov, we was ready to roll out- in a white Dodge 93 Caravan. I own a luxury vehicle myself, but the damn thing eats up so much gas that I always end up rolling out in Jasons van anyways. The first time I drove it out to one of the night clubs, he had to damn near constantly hit me to get me to stop laughing the whole trip there. Guys are supposed to drive sports cars or luxury cars to the clubs- not minivans just in case you didn’t know. I hear dad bods are the thing right now so maybe it’s different I guess. Jason did have 6 kids to get once a month in the thing so I guess I understood where he was coming from when he told me ‘I don’t give a f**k’.

After a while, I got used to driving it and soon enough, I was saying the same thing- it’s a ride, isn’t it? Of course it is, so who cares if it’s a van, despite the happy meal toys and 4 child seats scattered in the back? As long as it doesn’t break, It wouldn’t be an official night out until the minivan is included. Anything else just wouldn’t be the same.

               

Right when I got home (which is Jasons house) I got caught off guard as to what I was exactly seeing. Jason was standing in the kitchen in his underwear (tighty whitey’s) drinking from the bottle and it wasn’t even 10 yet. Turns out he got dressed in the kitchen while simultaneously mixing his drink so he wouldn’t kill any time doing so. I’m thinking this is a bad idea when all of a sudden he takes a shot, slams it on the kitchen counter and screams to the gods “I DON’T GIVE A F**K!’ with his white face getting all red with protruding veins out his neck. That’s what he always said before he’d go out, Jason did. That was his thing but it certainly wasn’t my slogan. Mine would have been “Put on your pants for Christs sake.”

 That’s what I liked about Jason though, no matter what obstacle is thrown against the guy, hes still going to do whatever the hell is wants to do. At first, I was hesitant to go out but after seeing him in his underwear, I knew he was going to need a designated driver and besides, he did get me free admissions to this place, which I can’t remember for the life of me what the hell it’s even called now or if it’s even still around. In addition, I would have probably gotten drunk anyways upstairs in my room on a Saturday night and even that’s getting me depressed thinking about it. So the plan was this:

                ‘

According to Jason, his niece was having a birthday celebration at a place called “HOTEL”. Now the hotel is a place I have never been to before, and so Jason recommended me going there for my birthday too. Hotel just so happened to be connected to a wide variety of different clubs and bars on a street called 17^th street. As if there couldn’t possibly be enough clubs and bars to pass around, 17^th street was just around the corner from another famous place called “Konnections”. This bar in particular is where Jason wanted to end the night because he had arrangements with some girl from the weekend before. Konnections unfortunately is a very disturbing place for me. Jason explains that it is a place where women come to escape a******s like him, but I refer to it as something else: simply put, it’s a gay bar. Not homophobic or anything; I just feel like a raw piece of a*s in that place from all the stares I get. Not only is it a gay bar, it’s a drag queen hangout. Actually the drag queen shows are the biggest attraction in this place, and it’s also the place were Miss Jenner stuffed her chi chi’s in my face in front of a crowd of 150 or more. Whatever happened in this place, stayed in this place but as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have to tell him it was definite I’d be walking in there again.

 

                As Jason is telling me all of this, I can only think in my head that I was going to leave him as soon as he went to Konnections. Shaking my head and lying through my teeth, we shook on it, got dressed and headed out in the Caravan. Let me explain something before I continue with this story: Nothing ever goes according to plan when it comes to Jason and me-nothing at all. How this night was going to be different though was beyond me because I tell myself it will be, but it never does. I blew fumes from a cigar out of my nostrils as we headed down the highway leading into the rigid edges of the city. We had stopped and picked up some beer along the way too and I was already on my second one, driving with one hand on the steering wheel. I stare into the road as if had defied who I was as a human being and I began to feel exasperated with tension. Jason puts his hand on my shoulder and I began to startle a little, trying to regain focus on the highway leading to a life of being incognito and god knew what else. He tells me to lighten up and to make this night a night to remember, because we are only getting older, never any younger. Still taking puffs off my cigar, I nod my head and agree with him- hes right. Hes so right in fact, that it begins to scare me but I think of how many days are in a year and I begin to relax again, this time putting the cigar out and sipping the brew on his side of the cup holder.

 

“Your right” I tell him unconvincingly. “Your right!” About that time we began to hit the bridge into a world that never sleeps.

               

                After what seemed like an eternity, we finally found a parking spot about two blocks to where we was headed. Brushing the ash off my suit, I reach around to take another swig of the beer just to find out that the damn thing was empty.

                “Dude what the f**k” I say to Jason, but he had already taken off into the streets, getting lost amongst the people of this strange place.

 

                I glance at my watch and sigh at the reflection I am receiving through its lenses: 10:46 the watch says- how extremely aggravating.

 

“Its only ten forty six!” I yell out. Some groups of people passing by turn their heads in curiosity at me. Since Jason drank the beer, I’m guessing and hoping he didn’t take the last swig of the other stuff (the stuff that tastes like dirt water with a splash of 2 girls in 1 cup in it because knows he brought that out too). I search around in the caravan and I find it about half way full- a quart sized Gatorade bottle that was mixed with the Popov and grape juice. The name we had for this drink was the warrior, which is now what I am going to refer to it from now on. I close my eyes, say a silent prayer to God, and chug the bottle until my body realizes what I’m intoxicating myself with is something very close to engine coolant and put the warrior back in the caravan. Never had it crossed my mind that some random cop could arrest me for a PI right now. This night isn’t gonna be any different I thought and continued on my way.

                I look around to try and figure out where it was we had parked, got a good idea, and locked the caravan completely. Shortly after I started to walk toward 17^th street, my phone begins to vibrate and it was Jason. He tells me he’s waiting in line to get admitted into 17^th street and tells me to haul a*s. So I told him I would but I didn’t- I just continued to walk like normal because when Jason drinks, everything needs to happen fast and now, now, now. I take a look at the scenery before I begin to cross the street into the mouth of the opening to 4^th street.  Nothing but a lot of yapping, a lot of laughter, and definitely a lot of honking from passerbies. On the other side of the street, I saw at least 3 limos and at least 2 party buses ready to have its occupants mounted off. Beautiful young women would come off of these things and start to do what women love to do most: talk s**t.  I also seen a lot of guys wearing tuxedos and things of the sort, but out of all this, it was the lights that had me dumbfounded. Something about the way the lights of the city moved with vibrant ease with such an essence of never ending life, I could only begin to think of back home with moms. Poverty was all I have ever known and to be dressed better than any of these bums out here really hit me in the heart. It hit me, because I was dressed like I had already achieved success where I was from, although it was a major break of pockets just to take my suit to the damn cleaners every other week. I began to feel something I have never felt before; a sense of accomplishment even though I had accomplished absolutely nothing. As I walk pass the limousines, the party buses, the jocks, the bachorlettes, I can feel them all watching me as I inhale slowly on my cigar. I can almost hear them murmuring to each other ‘who’s this guy think he is?’ and I began to smile.

 

                I see Jason halfway through the line, doing his little whistle gesture with his fingers on both sides  of his lips. He whistles to me when its apparent that he already knows I see him- a country white guy in a gray pin striped suit. I will pause here for a minute to further explain exactly how 17^th street operates. For those of you who know, just bare with me for a moment here. As I said before, 17^th street is obviously a street somewhere in the city of Louisville. Now, when you get to 17^th street, you will see a large opening (or gateway as I call it) towards the entrance- this is where you see all the limousines, the party buses and sometimes there’s some hot dog guy sailing hot dogs to poor slobs that ended up getting hammered and wanting to sober up. Upon entrance to the gateway, there’s two lines, and beyond these lines is where you will see clubs upon clubs with 2 balcony’s full of nothing but music, techno, drunk or sober people, smokers, non- smokers and a s**t full of stands and tables. In order to get to this galore of paradise, first you have to wait in line that leads you to some guy carding you and charging you with an entrance fee- which is usually accompanied by a cop. Like I said before, one line is for in, the other line is for out. Once you’re in, then it’s a different ball game. Just because street is in the name, does not mean any vehicles can enter this place- actually, NO cars are allowed on this street! There’s simply way too much going on that if somehow, if a guy decided to take a short cut right to through it, hed probably hit at least 10 drunk people…or the hot dog guy I guess.

 

“Where the f**k you been?” Jason says to me, the breath from his mouth is reeking like a distillery at this point.

I shrug my shoulders and tell him to take a good look at me. Jason is a little confused at this.

 

“Well, what the hell are you getting at?” Jason finally says. I simply look up and down myself and explain to him that I currently work for the FBI and that there’s no need for me to run anywhere.

 

“That’s what my subordinates are for.” I tell him, with my index finger pointed directly at his chest. After we laugh at this, it’s soon for us to get carded. Jason flips his wallet and shows the lady checking his ID, then he was in with the rest of the crowd. When it was my turn however, my eyes were all on the cop that was next to the young lady. I saw the rank he held which was a corporal, and wanted to laugh because of his age. Coming from a military background, a corporal was only an E-4, so to see the insignia on a guy that obviously looked like he was old enough to be my dad made me think this was pretty hysterical. Of course, I know the civilian department for rank is somewhat different than the military’s but still, the concept was still a bit funny to me. I get the ok from the chick checking for ID’s and proceed to follow Jason to the HOTEL club.  As we sat in yet another line, Jason begins to explain that admission for HOTEL is admission for 2 other clubs connected to it- one called Angels Rock Café and another called Te Tengo (or some bizarre name like that). When Jason finally gets his stamp and pays up his five bucks, I couldn’t help but notice he got a purple bracelet on his wrist along with the stamp. Staring the girl into the eyes, I lift my hand to get my stamp and informed her that Jason was paying for my admission. She told me that was fine, but to get the bracelet would be an extra five bucks. It turns out that the bracelets was for V.I.P. throughout all 3 clubs so being who I am, I had to get it- only thing was, I didn’t have any cash on me. When I turned around to look for Jason, he had vanished into the crowd yet again, leaving me stuck with a mouth full of unpleasant words. I couldn’t help but think in my mind at that point in time just what exactly is this guy up too this time?

               

I was left alone again; a feeling that I was quite used too and I began to climb the stairs that would take me past the admissions, unto the 2^nd floor balcony and into the HOTEL club. That feeling that you sometimes feel- the one were you just cant help but think you are the only thing that is black and grey flowing into a current full of vibrant colors- begins to sink into the back of my mind. The environment around me was just as I had predicted it would be: Mostly young guys and girls my age just trying to dance and get an honest f**k. Isnt that what this was about? It wasn’t about being bored and finding something to do to kill the time, It wasn’t about the experience of night life or the values of the city, it was about one thing and that one thing is what can really get you in a jam. The music never seemed so alive though, as if it were flowing directly into the drums of only my ears to hear and the bass vibrating and rocking the very bones that held my body together. All kinds of women you could imagine were occupying my field of vacancy- fat, tall, short, skinny, black, white, poor, high-class you name it: All in my line of sight. I look down at the first floor leaning dangerously over a rail while taking a puff off a cigar that I had forgot I even had in my mouth. I look down below me to see amidst a crowd that to me, had no meaning in society- the night junkies- people that slept during the day and crawled out of whatever hole they dwelled at the break of dawn. Staring into this crowd, I reopen my phone and try to dial Jasons number to try and get some idea of where he ended up at. I call. No answer. I shoot him a text and begin the chase through the entrance into HOTEL that awaited behind me. I walk with a smoothness that seems to make my sobriety begin to question the laws of physics. I feel as even though the world is in color and I am black in this picture, it still revolves around me. The bullet my grandfather gave me before he passed that I had kept so close to me during my times in the service swing freely off of my body with every movement I make to let the world know who I am (or to give them somewhat of an idea). The entrance into HOTEL begins with a long hallway that is somehow lit by the hotel insignia emitting within the middle of the floor, with the lights from inside the stomach shooting blankly towards its visitors with such an intensity it resembles something of an SKS Russian Automatic Assault Rifle. Light reflects on and off me in mystic forms and patterns of all colors, making me feel as if I were above and beyond all those and anything around me. The tunnel begins to make its end mark with a stand and a young beautiful white woman with a piercing hooked around her nose. She wore highlights that were blond maybe, with a mixture of brown and black and her eyes met mine as I slowly approached the table.

 

                I walked up to the stand and leaned my right forearm on top of it and began to smile briefly at her. I then offered my hand out and told her what my name was. She smiled back with dimples that for some reason reminded me of two pillows glued to her cheek. She had an extraordinary aroma that extracted off her body. She told me her name was Heather, and I began to make quick conversation. I told her I was looking for a friend dressed somewhat similar to me and that it was imperative that I find him.

 

“Would you know anyone who represents this description?” I ask her in the nicest voice I could muster.

 

She said she didn’t and I thanked her anyway and walked past her into the stomach of the HOTEL. Describing this place isn’t at all that difficult as much as it is easier for me to sketch it out for you.

To make things as blunt as I can, you have a bar area, a V.I.P. area, a bathroom with a side bar close by it, and a dance floor. The only problem with the dance floor is that by what I saw, there was really no need of it. Practically the whole damn club was a dance floor so why all the extra space? The V.I.P. is the first place I decided to head to search for a friend in need, who was probably drunk as a fish right now. As I pass through a sea of faces that expressed joy, drunkenness, and perhaps stupidity, I freeze before attempting to ascend into the V.I.P. section. On the table by a booth occupied with some guy dressed in business casual and a lady dressed as the same, I see something I cannot believe I missed while I sat there at the front counter with that girl with the piercings.

I stop thinking rationally and stare at this goddess on top of the platform before my eyes. The flashing lights seem to coalesce with her skin, almost as if she were the one controlling all of the light throughout the facility. I watched as she danced to herself on top of that platform, watch how her body moves to the music with perfect symphony. Her skin is brown but somehow tanned permanently to her body and face. Her hair swings back and forth as she drops low to the ground with her hips and then slowly rises back to standing with no trace of gravity slowing her down. She goes back and forth, left and right, up and down; with every rhythm the music could somehow offer she followed. The way that her body moves, the way that her eyes flow past anyone standing nullified, glaring at her. The way that she made my heart begin to pound a little harder and made my hands tremble. Her eyes were dark, but I could tell that they were brown hidden behind all of the lights surrounding her presence. She had a tribal below her right cheek that glittered a sliver like color with every continuous movement that she made like some sort of beaming chandelier.

                I stood in awe of her, dancing on the way one of those battery rabbit commercials just kept on going and going but never stopping. Did I have what it took to approach her? I scan down at myself as if to answer my own question. Every button was where it was supposed to be, my shoes shined slightly with the patterns of the disco lights and the bullet stood out proudly off of my chest. I straightened my tie and began to casually approach this extravagant woman. Walking toward her, I heard some type of hollering that sounded like my name and I turned towards it just to see Jason dancing with some random white woman. I watch in shock as I feel I am currently witnessing a doggy style dry humping session. Jason, now with no overcoat on, pounded back in forth the woman he was dancing with, who I assume was enjoying every minute of this. Both of Jason’s hands clenched tightly around two double shots of clear liquor and he gestured for me to come grab one. I grab it from him, almost snatching it as if he owed me one (which in my mind I thought he did- the son of a b***h left me out of nowhere, didn’t he?) and I drank it without a cheers to anything.

 

I wanted to drink to get the shy out of my body and to grab a pair to once again approach the goddess that danced before every human being in this place. Jason stops dancing (or dry humping) his girl and introduces me to the broad. Turns out, that the dame he was dry pounding was his cousin and they were just being utterly promiscuous and stupid out on the dance floor. Country people do the darnest things I thought. She reaches to shake my hand and I in return, grasp it as if it were a fragile vase, but wondering in my mind if I can catch anything this way. Before long, I find myself at the bar in the center of the facility, pondering on about the goddess that never seemed to stop dancing; wondering if somehow, the clock ticked the wrong ticker and the girl shut down and left this hell of a place. Jason being Jason, a couple of shots later and he disappears again like magic within the debts of the city- where he wandered, I’ll never know (for now) so I concentrate again on the dancing goddess. I began to think it’s funny as I get so warped around my mind, that for a second, I actually thought I could hear Jason yelling inside the inner walls of my head to ‘whip, whap, wham, thank you maam’.

               

                The whole reason we was even out here though was because of me right? Right. But of course, it never ever goes that way. For some reason, it always ends up like this, and if this is all I am ever going to know, then I’ll be damned because I am somebody and I want the prize. I am exhausted at how I notice these others look towards me; because I wear these garments? Because I have a fade? Because I look Hispanic or maybe black perhaps? I don’t know, but I brush it off and begin to make my way back to the dancer after 2 double shots of Grey Goose on the nothing. I had told Jason that 1.) to spend some money for dissing me and 2.) because it was my birthday and this is my time to shine, not yours. It wasn’t until after I took the two shots of Goose did I understand that my body cannot keep up with it. I begin to approach the young go-go girl yet again except in a stumbling and awkward like manner. I feel my knees begin to shake slightly. My words and my thoughts feel more hesitant as they were before and my suit feels like it’s about to melt into my skin. The Japanese would be ashamed of me right now I thought and a part of me did feel ashamed but now wasn’t the time.

 

She continued to move and drop her hips towards the ground, defining the law of gravity as I walk up to her. Her eye catches me as she moves back down to the ground and at that moment, all of my being screams at me to leap the leap of faith to say something, anything. My lips move to utter something but she could not hear me, so she spoke to me and I had the honor of hearing her voice.

 

                “What did you say?” She asked, face to face.  She stopped dancing and was now crouched down towards my face, and I could now see those eyes and they were indeed, brown; almost black I should say. I almost had to walk away before the pride in me practically forced me to cough up the words, louder and more prestigious this time.

               

                “I said I’ve been watching you since I’ve been here! What’s your name?” I could feel a slight burn in the sides of my cheeks, which meant that my face, was beginning to flush a pure red. I hate being mixed sometimes. She stood up and said her name was Veronica. Not thinking, I took my hand to shake hers and surprisingly, she took mine in return and I felt her hands as fragile and gentle as a flock of feathers and as smooth as a freshly polished piece of marble counter top. I felt a doorway open up for conversation and I began to speak to her, telling her I admired everything she has been doing on top of that black box. I told her things like ‘she’s so consistent and her body reminded me of something of Greek mythology’. Smiling back at me, she wiped a layer of sweat off her forehead and told me how hard it was to do what she does. I smiled back and told her how foolish I was to think she did all of this out of pure compassion for dancing. Then I asked if I could have the opportunity to dance with her. Maybe it was me, but I believe she blushed through all the flashing lights before telling me ‘that she would love that opportunity’. I could only keep smiling and let go of her beautiful grasps before leaving briefly for the restroom. And this is where things go to complete s**t.

 

                Upon pushing through the crowd to get to the damn urinal, I notice a group of highly dressed white guys giving the guy passing out towels a hard time. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, because so many were talking at the same time. One guy in particular, was saying thing the most in this poor old black man’s face, just taunting this fragile little guy. I wanted to go up and say something but I kept my peace and went to take a leak. By the time I was done, they had all left and I walked over to wash my hands, where the towel guy gave me some cloth to wipe with after greeting the time of day to me. I asked him if it was necessary to stand kind of close to him next time in case those a******s came back but he told me it was cool.

 

                “Yea man, those white boys love me- aint no thing partner” Is what the little old black man said to me, so I walked off. Now, back to that go go girl that can’t stop dancing…..

 

Seeing her again for the second time was just as marvelous as the first time. I thought I could watch her body move the way she did all throughout the night�" the only thing missing were the skies along with the shooting stars�" otherwise, this night would have been perfect. I broke contact again and I felt my hand reach into my pockets and give her a twenty dollar bill. If the boys in the mafia were to see this, they probably would have rejected me from the organization but then again, I feel as if she deserved something. If not a new Porsche Turbo, then at least something as little as a twenty dollar bill. Before she took the money, she looked at me and asked me why. I only replied calmly.

 “Because I can.” I told her. Well it was more of a shout because of all the music but you get the idea. She took the money and looked around the club as if some boyfriend was watching her, and she told me gently but clearly:  “Thank you, sir.” I shrugged my shoulders and began to talk to her like nothing ever happened. And to me, it didn’t.

 

“I just want to say.” I pause to stare at her eyes before she looked away shyly. “That I would really like to get to know you.” She sort of froze, but smiled, before telling me she was beginning to get tired and her break would be coming before long. I took this as an opportunity to further emphasize ‘when and where’. She pointed towards the entrance and said she would be there in an hour or so. I looked back at the girl I spoke with earlier at the stand and she starts to wave in acknowledgment. We both look at her for a minute�"which now feels like an awkward moment�"before I tell her I want to buy her a drink. With her face blushing she tells me something that had never crossed my mind before: she was only 18. I started to feel a strange feeling within me, an almost disgusted feeling, and I bit my lip and forced to tell myself ‘f**k it, you only live once’.

 

                “That’s alright.” I said politely, lying through my teeth. I told her that drinking is only what you make of it. Yea, words through a true alcoholic I thought. I saw how she giggled at that, pressing me to enter into a new set of questions.

 

                “You must get a lot of guys like me in here.” I tell her, not smiling now. Puzzled, she asked me what I meant. So in a sort of comedic way, I bluntly reply back to her bemused and bedazzled curiosity.

 

“You know, guys that walk in here with black suits and throw money around to entice you- you get what I’m saying right?” I checked my watch thinking what the time was now. I had another f*****g hour to wait on this girl and it was already 1 am. She told me she still didn’t know what I was talking about, this time with a confused expression.

“I really want to see you, sir.” Now that should have been the sign to say something like Ok, it’s a date but no, I didn’t. I couldn’t help thinking to myself that she was 18. Only 18! The fact that she kept calling me ‘sir’ only made it that much worse. She was legal sure, but I’ve run into girls like that in the past and it’s never good. Either she’s so stupid to the art of my approach that she’ll end up being a clinger or she’s extremely smart and knows what she’s doing. Regardless, I’ve seen it go both ways and the result is never a happy ending. It could be highly possible that I’m thinking about it too much, which I wouldn’t object to doubt. I have a tendency to think such things way too much, as if I was married or something, I’ll admit. I told the go go girl that I’d meet her in an hour before I leave the scene.

               

I walked away excited, nervous, and a little guilty. I didn’t know what would happen after this moment, but as I walked down that narrow hallway with all those lights and the walls pulsing in and out in the corner of my cornea as if it too, were a living, breathing thing, I begin to push towards the real problem. That problem was: how the f**k was I gonna get home?

 

EPILOGUE

 

So I guess this is the part where you make fun of me. To make things plain and simple, I never saw go go girl after that brief conversation we had, and I think I never will. To this day I don’t know why we never hooked up but I guess perhaps it was because of my responsibilities that put me to the test to make the decision to either get fucked up more and sleep with a girl I never met or to find Jason and get back home safe. Thing is, I never found Jason. In fact, after that night, I didn’t see Jason for 3 consecutive days.

What happened to Jason that night is probably the highlight of this story actually. As a true roommate and friend of his, I felt somewhat responsible for his wellbeing. I cannot do this if I am in the same gutter as him, so although it sucked, I didn’t bother with the dancer too much. Just like the story of how I wound up at a truck stop trying to find this m**********r, I think I started to fear a relapse of that night slowly approaching if I would have hooked up with the exotic dancer. What ended up happening was I went out to smoke, got bored and tired of waiting for an entire hour to pass by so I started walking away to find Jason, who I thought was in the HOTEL club. When Jason finally picked up his phone, he told me to pick him up at a place called Connextions, the gay bar I mentioned briefly in the introduction of this story. As much as I dreaded that f*****g place, I walked there�"it was only a block or two away�" just to discover I still couldn’t find him. I walk outside to see if maybe he’s shooting the s**t with a girl or something but still no Jason.

Let me remind you that it cost me 10 f*****g dollars to get in that god awful place. When I tried to go back in to begin another search and rescue regime, I was denied access unless I paid another 10 dollars. That should not have been the case. When you get in, they give you this stamp that lets you walk freely in and out of the building as many times as you want until your blue in the face. The issue was that the stamp on my hand had somehow never been placed to begin with and this made me furious. I called and called and once some more called but the only thing I heard from Jason was his voicemail so I said f**k it and tried to figure a way back home. Everything and everybody could kiss my a*s. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it until I realized that it was the caravan I was driving but by that time I was halfway home.

                1 day went by: nothing.

                2 days: still nothing.

                On the third day (which is our work day) I see him and god, did he look awful. If ‘look at what the cat drug in’ is a simile for someone that’s seen better days, then that simile is an understatement. It looked like he literally had been up since the night we went out. Later throughout the day,he told me what happened and it amazed me. On the night he disappeared and right around the time I slowly walked away from the go go girl, Jason received a call from a girl he had been wanting to meet for a while. She told him she’d be at Connextions by a certain time�"the time I left and put an end to my chapter for the night�"and that she would be waiting for him. What happened next is Jason stopped everything he was doing, and runs (yes, runs) 3 blocks from 4^th street to Connextions (still in a full-fledged suit I might add). The fleeing part he mentioned had me believing the night I left him, that he was doing just that. So I left, not knowing that Jason could have probably used me as back up. Jason had a tendency for this type of sporadic behavior so I thought nothing of it at the time.

 

When I woke up and made my box of cereal, stepping over his jeans and shoes that were left in exactly the same spot in the kitchin from last night, did I think maybe something was up. I continued to let it pass anyways. Little did know that while I was at home asleep, he was with that girl at her place along with another girl and it just went to hell from there. Two and a half night’s straight, he told me. Two and a half night’s is how long it had to take for the madness to finally be put into a slumber. While I was at work the second day�"after he had called in on the first day�"Jason confided that he had more sex than Dirk Digler in his prime for two nights in a row.

 

“Then what was the third night all about then?” I asked him. Jason told me to look at him and I did: eyes low as s**t, skin saggy like the back of a grandma’s a*s, and reflexes so sluggish it would make a man high off marijuana seem like he was on crack cocaine. Somehow, as he later explained it, another girl came over and the three of them watched a porno together. From there it just went to hell, and even I will vouch for that. Let’s just say you don’t want to mix strangers, porn, and amphetamine (or meth; he didn’t specify) together while completely trashed on alcohol. Let’s just say that. Due to the privacy of this man’s business, I won’t discuss everything that happened but although it was funny to me, the thing on my mind as I write this is that damn girl. The one that danced like Cher would have danced in her prime, a smile with lips that begged for attention. A body that desperately needed a man (or a woman, who knows?) to have against its rhythm, moving back and forth and up and down with the waves of the music. My thoughts still linger towards her in my mind sometimes when I flip on the radio and hear a fast paced song. Or sometimes I think of her when I see something as simple as some wild animal roaming frantically throughout the skies or in the streets.

 

                “That’s odd.” I repeated to myself while driving one day, weeks later. Everything was back to normal now but I doubt it would stay that way living with Jason. For now, things were fine with me the way they were. I was listening to Don Omar and Aventura, a song you could actually dance to when the thought came to me.

“That girl from that night. She never did stop dancing did she?” I thought about this for a long time before I finally pulled into the factory parking lot at work for another long and pain filled day. My engine was still running and with the AC blessing me on a 90 something degree day, I saw a squirrel run up and down a tree. It moved with rhythm, stopping and going, pausing and weaving until it stood there for a while looking around. It spotted me with both its head cocked up and both of its hands on the ground and it froze still. I continued to stare the little guy when suddenly, it darted off to another tree and I thought occurred to myself then.

 

“That go go girl never stopped dancing either, did she?”

 

-          End