An Interview with the Average Male Client
Posted on: May 13, 2005 12:37 PM
I work sixteen hour days. I spend maybe six hours a day in my house, sleeping, before getting off to work again. My work at the moment is in a strip club. It's the sex industry. It's strange how your view of men becomes distorted, until after a certain amount of time you know exactly what buttons to press, exactly how to hook them in, exactly how to pose, how to bend over, how to whisper and flirt and stretch in ways which produce the desired results. As a woman, you forget that men, in these places, have other lives apart from the time they spend drinking and soaking up the endorphins of an oiled-up dancer in the timeless world of the strip bar.
And sometimes, you remember.
Yesterday I perched on a bar stool when the club was particularly slow, talking to my friend from Belarus, Renata, about her plans to apply for law school. Renata used to be a dancer, until her boyfriend gave her an ultimatum. Give up, marry him and get her green card, or stay dancing. She now bartends instead. To my right sat a burned-out, thirty-something from Wall Street nursing his beer and looking disconsolately at a writhing dancer in various poses of exotic display. I asked him why he was here. He looked up, surprised by a question other than 'Would you like a dance?'.
"I had a bad day. I work long hours on Wall Street. It's hard, sometimes. This place is where I come to hide, I guess."
Hide from what? Was he lonely? He laughed.
"No, no. Life is good. I'm married to an amazing woman, a clinical psychologist - geez, she'd have a field day if she knew I was here! I have a two year old back at home. But sometimes... I dunno. You come to these places because no one can find you. Your phone doesn't work down here, you're surrounded by women, but it's not like a regular bar, with all the issues and the flirting and the sexual politics. Here it's straightforward. It's a man's world. It's a fantasy, I guess."
Does he ever get lap-dances?
"Before, yeah. But now... I gotta daughter, you know? And if she was ever doing this, I'd go crazy. I look at these girls, and now I see that they're someone's daughter. Being a father changes you. It's hard. I heard these people sitting behind me and my wife at the cinema the other day, a young couple, arguing about having children. The guy was like 'How much more difficult could it be than having Sandy?'. Sandy was obviously their dog. I turned around and was like, 'Buddy, believe me, having a kid is not like having a fucking dog'." He laughs dryly, and then buys me a beer.
"What you doing working here anyway? You're not like the rest of them."
What does that mean? I ask him. We're all women, we're all the same. We're playing a part as soon as we step in this place. Me, I don't play the part that well. I usually end up telling the men they're assholes instead of laughing in the right places. But we're all here to earn a living. There are mothers here working to pay for their kids. Students dancing to pay their fees. People just trying to earn a living. I'm here to get some writing ideas, make some cash, observe the world, until the day I can survive from the printed word alone. He looks thoughtful.
"I'm gonna tell you something Mimi. I was a musician, a long time ago, when I was 25. My band just signed a record deal. We played all over the East Village. It was gonna be big. I'd worked for ten years to make it big in music, and after years of scraping together a living, and eating shit to pay for gigs, it was happening. And then the record company folded two days before our first single came out. And I'd had it. I left music and got a job on Wall Street. Married at 28. Had my daughter two years ago. Nice place in the Village. A nanny. And now, for the first time in years, I'm happy. I'm real happy. Maybe you should think about that."
Think about giving it all up? Nothing could induce me to ever give up my dream of being a writer. And the longer I work in a seedy, sweaty world where sex is the currency and my body a hundred dollar bill, the more I know that writing isn't just an escape. It's what I will do for the rest of my life. And this is just a means to make that happen.
He pauses mid-sip.
"Everyone's different I guess. But how do you cope with someone like that?"
He points at a fat forty year-old in tight jeans, white sneakers, his arm wrapped around a tiny dancer, a lecherous grin spread across his face.
"I mean, that guy looks like he's never even heard of The New York fucking Times, apart from as something to wipe his damn ass with. How do you put up with men like that?"
I look at him. Kate, the Chinese Manager from Brooklyn who pimps us out, marches over purposefully and confronts Wall Street Man.
"You gonna take this nice lady to the Champagne Room or you gonna just sit there and waste her time?"
Wall Street Man gibbers an excuse. Kate shoots me a 'give-up-he's-a-tightwad' look, and disappears. I look at Wall Street Man.
"To us, you guys are all the same in this place. Some you can talk to, some it's difficult, but at the end of the day, you're all just a cock with a wallet."
He smiles wryly.
"I gotta go home before my wife gets mad. Thanks for talking to me Mimi. And don't give up. Maybe music just wasn't for me."
He tosses me a ten dollar bill, smiles, and leaves looking lighter than before. I wonder if this was his last visit. And then realise it was probably just one among many. Renata comes over.
"Hey Mimi, these guys are giving you money when you talk to them, right? It's a waste of time if they're not."
I flash her the bill, strapped around my ankle, tucked into the strap of my six-inch heeled shoes, where I keep all the money I earn in a shift. She nods, appeased.
"When you giving up this waitressing and lapdancing shit? You know you should be on stage with the rest of them. You got the body. You got the moves. There's more money there."
Me? I know. I have the shoes ready, the dress and the audition booked, plus the thick skin to go with it. But after my encounter with Wall Street man, I can't help thinking, I'm someone's daughter. He's someone's father. If I can forget that for just 8 hours a day, if I see them all as just a cock with a wallet, then I'll be fine. Just fine.
There's no pictures for this entry. I think the words are probably enough.
More of a conversation than an interview, but interesting all the same. Good stuff.
(Can I be a grammar whore and tell you that "no one" is two words? Sorry, pet peeve)
Posted by: Nancy at May 13, 2005 1:35 PM
To be perfectly honest, this is the first entry of yours that I have really liked. Your first two I didn't even make it all the way through to the end, though not for lack of trying.
This really catches a side of you that I couldn't see before. As someone who doesn't currently have money troubles, I can still relate to your decision to work in a strip club to chase after your Ultimate Dream of being a writer. That definitely takes guts.
As for Mr. T... Who knows what he's up to these days? Maybe he's a Wall Street drone...
Posted by: enjanerd at May 13, 2005 1:40 PM
Hey Mimi! Your interview is primo, really.... But Renata??? From "Beleyruse"??? Do you mean Byelorussia, Belarus??? If this is true, it really make me overjoy that there is kindred souls of mine living in New York! And especially in such abnormal and wonderful places like strip-bar!
So, congratulations for this post to you, Mimi. I am having many difficulties with mine, but it must also be total awesome and blow your minds!!!
Love,
Lyova Lyubov
Posted by: Lyova Lyubov at May 13, 2005 1:44 PM
Mimi, this is totally excellent. I am appalled at having to (try to) top this.
Posted by: ritchey at May 13, 2005 2:02 PM
While most of us who are artists have to, in some way, whore ourselves out to keep a roof over our heads while we create, I wasn't impressed by this entry...
I want to see more than the superficial "I'd do anything to keep writing" emotion--something more subtle and evocative than this piece, which seemed to dwell mainly in stereotypes.
Nice effort.
Posted by: J at May 13, 2005 3:14 PM
Now that's strange James, because the piece certainly wasn't about 'I'd do anything to keep writing'. It's more about the job, the clientele, and the type of people who work there than any emotive claim to being a starving artist. The majority of New Yorkers work as hard as I do, in many different strands of work, and strip clubs are certainly better than prostituting yourself on the street. And this job is certainly better than working in the office I worked in three weeks ago - you can read the story on my blog. Perhaps you should read it again without the prejudices you obviously had prior to starting the first word. And if you want stereotypes, I should think a positive portrayal of strip club clientele certainly isn't that. If I'd dissed the guy needlessly, perhaps.
Posted by: mimi at May 13, 2005 3:32 PM
I just said 'James' and then realised the post I was replying to was a 'J' - sorry the two james' for any mix-up!
Posted by: mimi at May 13, 2005 3:33 PM
mimi,
have you ever been publised in a book/journal? or attempted to write a novel. you remind me of a short story book i read last year called up in the old hotel
Posted by: daniel at May 13, 2005 3:55 PM
Mimi, this is so classy. There's nothing more beautiful than illuminating ordinary humanity.
Gorgeous job.
ps. Lyova, there are a gazillion of your kindred european souls in NYC!
Posted by: Lucie at May 13, 2005 3:57 PM
if you want the truth i gave up reading your first posts because its english was so hard for me...
but I read this one completely and I enjoyed it, ..well a kind of Sad Enjoy...
I dont know if it is sad for yourself too..
Posted by: medya at May 13, 2005 4:13 PM
Hey
I entered another blog comeptition just for women - please vote for my site at:
http://www.kaysbargains.com/Contest.php
and if you're a woman blogger, you can enter your own site.
cheers!
mimix
Posted by: mimi at May 13, 2005 4:38 PM
I did reread your post, several times, at your suggestion...
Looking at prior posts, I suppose what I mean is that I see this piece not as a true interview, but as a conversation. The first part about "playing the part" is certainly stereotypical of the strip club world--
Most guys who visit strip clubs are, in some sense, trying to escape the real world...What I want to know is more about why this guy ISN'T a stereotype of an escapist. Why is he trying to escape a happy life--do you associate that with him avoiding his previous artistic life?
The essence of my post--I wanted more depth from the piece. I didn't feel it scratched far enough beneath the surface.
Posted by: J at May 13, 2005 9:11 PM
The way I saw it was, this guy said he had everything, and yet he still had this unfulfilled dream, an exhausting job, and an inexplicable need to sit in a strip club. And as the girls who work there, we accept that without questioning too deeply as the psychologist would have done, as we're exposed to certain things which are primal, and certain things which are both wholly rational (guys=cock=naked chick) and yet irrational (happy married man=love=naked chick.?) I think every girl wants to know what her man gets out of a strip joint. What every stripper knows is the fantasy only stays within the walls and the confines of the moment.
Posted by: mimi at May 13, 2005 9:29 PM
Mimi,
Your entry is mad good. I felt it deep in my soul. Great job.
Posted by: Steve Schroeder at May 14, 2005 1:54 AM
i read this one first and still think it is easily the best. i guess i should have posted earlier to affect some judging of some sort. yeah sure it is a conversation but she isn't interviewing a celebrity. if the subject knew this conversation would have been repeated maybe it wouldn't have happened. at least she "interviewed" someone she didn't know which in my opinion got the most interesting results.
did anyone else ask anyone a question that you really wanted to know the answer to? i doubt it.
Posted by: curt kentner at May 14, 2005 9:57 AM
Hmmm...the bar has been set pretty high here for everyone else. Still, not as funny as an interview with Mr. T would have been. Now if that guy had actually been Mr. T, oh man, you could have just sewed up the entire competition right now. But as far as "interviews which don't involve Mr. T in some way", this is going to be hard to top.
Posted by: Craig at May 13, 2005 1:26 PM