Spent (14 page)

32

A
fter five abdominal surgeries,
chemo, and radiation, she marched back into the elections department like a superhero. “They let me do whatever I want now,” she said. My sturdy mom was well again. Her co-workers who used to bug her, she told me, could kiss her horse-loving ass. There'd be birthdays to celebrate and trips to Costa Rica. There'd be a future. Christmas trees. Now, there was hope and there was time. Remission was a promise of walks on the beach and jaunts to the farmer's market, photographing sunsets from her beautiful redwood deck.

“Yeah. My cancer markers are nil,” she said, buzzing on hope. The two of us sighed on the phone.
Remission. See? We dared believe.

I'd been up to Humboldt and back several times during her treatments. Even with health insurance, Mom's hospital bills drained her bank accounts. She considered selling her property—the property that was supposed to be my inheritance.

During that time, I also auditioned for a reality television show.

“If I win, I'll give you half the prize money,” I promised her. I wasn't the girl who won things, but I imagined the look on her face if I did. So I about peed myself when I was chosen to be a contestant to appear on the show for the twenty-five thousand dollar cash prize. “I'm going to be on the show!” I told Mom.

“See?” She said. “You can do anything.”

I waited in a chair backstage. Eight judges sat on a panel deciding whom to give the prize to, based on questions they asked us. They weren't allowed to ask contestants about their financial situation, but they could ask us anything else and reject us on a whim. The panelists were chosen from all over the U.S. The contestants were considered “extreme” in terms of their lifestyle. There was a puppeteer with HIV, a pregnant Mormon woman on her ninth child, a preacher from Michigan, and a Madame from Vegas who carried a binder with pictures of her stable of hookers.

The producer, a plucky brunette named Jen who cracked jokes all day long, led me by the elbow to the judges for the third time that day. It was between me and one other guy, a kid from Laguna who lived with his fisherman Dad.

“You're about to win a lot of money,” Heather whispered to me. Mom was going to be so thrilled. I savored just the thought of that conversation: “Mom, I have fantastic news.”

“What?” She'd say.

“Oh nothing. You can keep your property.”

Onstage, the hot lights were brutal. “Do you think prostitution should be legal?” A short gay guy with short spiky hair asked me.

“Of course. It's a victimless crime,” I said, cupping my right hand over my eyes. The glare was blinding.

“Where did you get your clothes? They look like they're straight off the rack from Melrose.” What did he care if I bought my clothes from Melrose? I told the truth.

“A girl gave them to me for organizing her closet.” Organizing closets was one of my side gigs. I'd salvaged cool stuff lately from garbage bags meant for Goodwill, a fringe benefit when a client had parted with her old clothes. I rifled through the bags and took what I wanted.

“So, people just hand you stuff? That shirt looks brand new.” The lights were so bright I thought my skin would boil. I could only make out the short guy's spiky blonde hair.
What was his fucking problem
? I wanted to hose him down. The surfer kid was completely relaxed while I was being grilled.

I said, “People don't hand me stuff. I work for stuff.” A bead of sweat dripped from my temple. I took off my jacket and held it to keep from melting.

“Why did you hide those tattoos from us?” he asked.

“You've seen them. They're all over my portfolio.” I hit back. Mom had helped me by compiling pictures for a profile for the show. He shrugged as if to suggest, “See? She's a big fat liar.” Guilt gushed through me. Even when accused of something I didn't do, I buzzed with adrenaline and shame. The relaxed kid answered a tame question about wearing real fur. He refused to do it. The judges gave the $25K to the kid who lived with his parents and drove a surfer van because he didn't wear real fur. My face burned. I was crushed, and Mom's property was sold.

I thought about how different my life looked only a couple of months before when Rico, my friend Gina's regular client, took me to lunch at Casa Vega. Like the strip clubs, Casa Vega was a dark, private place to wheel and deal. The bar was packed with men who were well into their second or third scotch.

I didn't know why Rico wanted to meet me there. I'd only met him once before. Rico found Gina in the adult gigs section of Craigslist after she posted topless photos of herself in a meth-inspired attempt to find a sugar daddy. She needed help. She had a couple of DUIs and was seeking quick cash. Rico took Gina on a sixty thousand dollar shopping trip to Versace and flew her to St. Barths and Brazil, but there was a price she had to pay. There always is.

Rico waved at me from the bar and slipped the host a hundred dollar bill. The host led us to Rico's special table in the back. I sunk deep in the plush red seats, which were very much like the lap dancing couches in strip clubs I'd known. After a long silence, I said, “My mom thinks I should go back to grad school.”

“You should,” he responded. “Get that Masters for your mom. I'll pay for it.” He sipped Diet Coke from a skinny red cocktail straw. He ate cheese quesadillas and dunked warm tortilla chips into salsa. He wasn't a dainty eater.

“You have my word,” he said. He handed me a thousand dollars in cash under the table. Pecked me on the cheek.

“Just fax me the paperwork,” he said. I faxed it seventeen times and called him ten. I never heard from Rico again.

33

“M
eet me near the
big fish tank near the entrance,” Spaceship Steve texted. Kara needed a night off, and I needed some fast cash so she set up an appointment for me with one of her regulars, a professional gambler who was on a winning streak at Commerce Casino. She said his energy was tapped into another realm—so much so that when she jerked him off, she felt transported to a Sheryl Crow concert, so he became Spaceship Steve. I had nothing against Sheryl Crow, so I agreed.

Besides, Mom had called.

“I didn't sleep at all last night, but I don't want to go to the hospital again,” she said.

“You're okay, mom. You just had a bad night.” She was just being dramatic.

There was the casino, blinking its gaudy eyes, right off the freeway.

“You need to come say goodbye,” she said. I heard her blow her nose.

“Mom, you'll feel fine later. Take a nap.”

“When can you get here?” she asked. I pulled into the dark parking garage.

“Soon, Mom.” She was sick again. The cancer was back.

Stupid. I clocked my outfit. I forgot that Kara had instructed me to dress down. She said that when hooking, you should dress like a celebrity going to the gym on her day off: ripped jeans and a hoodie. Converse tennis shoes. A loose ponytail. I looked like a hooker meeting a trick in a sexy black slip dress that showed my lace, rhinestone bra and fishnets. Seriously stupid, I thought, walking towards the sliding glass doors. Icy wind from the air conditioner hit my bare arms. I wandered around aimlessly. The casino was packed with Asian men. I wondered what card game they were playing. Just when I was about to pivot back out the door, I spotted the huge aquarium full of striped fish, swimming lazily.

A big white guy with a red baseball cap tapped away on his blackberry. He looked up. “Steve?” I asked quietly. He nodded and hugged me like an old friend.

“Let's walk this way,” he said and led me to an elevator. We got off on the fourth floor and walked down a burgundy hallway to his tiny room, with two small twin beds. “How'd you do tonight?”

“Pretty good,” he said.

“Do you stay here a lot?” I asked, removing my slip quickly.

“When I come to town,” he said. “Two hundred, right?” He handed me the bills. He was a doughy, freckled man with red hair. I walked over to him and pressed my boobs and belly against him. “Oh, I want an actual massage, too, if that's okay.”

“Of course,” I said. Shit. Spaceship Steve is going to take the whole hour, I thought.

“Do you always win?” I asked him.

“Sometimes,” he said. I pulled off the cheap Aztec comforter and motioned for him to lie down on the sheets.

I took out my fourteen-dollar almond oil and poured a generous amount on his pimply back. Steve was already naked and on his stomach. My hands moved down to his chubby calves and slowly up his inner thighs. He had a smattering of pimples across his upper back. I needed him to hurry.

Mom's fevers were back.
Cancer markers, T-cell counts, DNR, DNI, chemo, radiation, infection, five abdominal surgeries, PEG-tube, remission, metastasis, septicemia, organ failure, hospice care, and morphine drip
. It all starts again.

I had to get to Mom and take her to her chemo then hold the bucket so she could puke. Get her a warm washcloth for her face when she cried. Give my step-dad Chris a break. Bile Duct Cancer loves Gallbladder Cancer loves Pancreatic Cancer. Mom loved horses. They bucked her off. She got back up.

“How's that feel?” I asked with my fingers lingering on his wet balls, slick from the oil. He turned over, cock like a kickstand. I grabbed it. He removed my hand.

“Slow down.” I needed him to hurry. I needed Mom to be okay.

“I'll go slow,” I said. “Promise.”

My happiest moments with Mom were spent in a moldy old library when I was eight or nine. “You ready to go?” she hollered from the kitchen and I ran upstairs with my orange corduroy book bag. At the library, we took our time looking at books and flipping through the dusty pages. I grabbed all the Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books I could carry and lugged them all up to the counter, plopped them down. “Are you really going to read all those?” she asked with a disbelieving look. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest.

“Mmmhm,” I said.

“You have to carry them all yourself.” Her gray eyes twinkled. She was playing mad. I piled the ones that didn't fit in my bag into my arms like logs, carried them to her seventy-four forest-green Volvo, and tossed them onto the backseat. I didn't know then what words and stories would mean to me. I had no idea they would grow long alien arms and wrap around me and show me the sky and the galaxy and beyond. Books would change my stripes and make me cry and sink into my skull. Books excited me. They were a way out of my crummy small town, and they were something I shared with Mom. We took our time in the library.

My hand was on Steve's cock, jerking him off. “Slower,” he said. He placed my hands on his ass. I let my fingers linger there and massaged his balls again, annoyed. The room was stuffy and dark and had a view of long tall buildings; a room where secrets happened.

After the first round of chemo, Mom tried eating a steak and had to return to the hospital. Her body couldn't break down meat anymore. She had a fever, another infection. She had to use the feeding tube again. I had to get back to her. I needed this Sheryl Crow concert to end.

I poured more oil on Steve's cock and tightened my grip. “Are you ready to go?” I asked him and made him come hard, exploding all over his pudgy stomach. I put on my slinky black lace dress and walked out of the Casino into the hot, dry air. I couldn't remember where I'd parked my car. I wandered in the garage for fifteen minutes, dazed. Just like Mom had in Vegas, years before.

On the drive back to my apartment, I pretended what happened didn't really happen at all. I shoved some clothes into a suitcase and stared at it.

Before she got sick again, Mom had said, “Go get that degree, honey.” She insisted I go to grad school, which felt like an unlikely luxury, one that I didn't deserve. The other students had families and jobs and were already authors and teachers. I felt like I was from another planet—thirty-seven years old and no great achievements or jobs skills. To pick up books again and write full time seemed extravagant. Maybe if I got my Master's, Mom would live longer. She'd be able to drink a toast with her neighbor, Charlene. She'd say, “My daughter got her Master's,” and in my small way, I would give her something to be proud of. Even though I knew an MFA degree wouldn't guarantee a career or make me more employable, it would make me an unusually articulate sex worker. And that was something.

34

“I
feel like hell. When
are you coming home?” Mom's voice sounded as if her cheeks were stuffed with Kleenex, a muffled tune of giving up. I needed to talk to her in person about not giving up, but I was on the 210 Freeway, speeding towards Pleasures, the only topless bar in Pasadena. “Soon, Mom.”

I didn't have enough money to go see her. Shit, I didn't have enough money to feed myself. Any work I'd had, all my mini-gigs, had dried up. People left town, people hired someone else, someone cheaper. Bunny wasn't answering her phone, Fred was out of town. It felt like work was allergic to me. That, or I'd somehow screwed my karma. I had an eighth a tank of gas and eighteen dollars, ten of which I blew on cat food.

“Hang on, Mom.” I spotted Pleasures across the street from a used car dealership, tossed my phone in my lap and pulled in. It was time to strip again, but I was geriatric in stripper years. I'd heard Pleasures was the kind of place that wouldn't have a problem with that.

Gas prices were astronomical, creeping over four-thirty a gallon, and it's a twelve-hour haul to Humboldt from Los Angeles, so I decided to fly instead. It's faster.
Sink or swim
, knowing that the best swimmers always drown. It's the panic and fatigue of suffocation, not mechanical skills, that kill. The trick is to calm down and breathe, conserve energy.

“I'll see you soon, Mom,” I said and hung up. I lugged my pink Victoria's Secret bag full of my remaining costumes through a door that was propped open with a brick. There's something awful about entering a strip club with the bright Los Angeles sun still blazing overhead. It's like wearing a down ski jacket in hundred-degree weather or sitting in a hot tub wrapped in fur.

The heat reminded me of Vegas, and Vegas reminded me of cancer. Vegas reminded me of Mom's cancer. I marched into Pleasures and said, “I'm here to audition,” to a short guy who was frying meat. Later, he would try to sell me a copy of his book,
Beyond the Pole
. He flipped the burger and lifted a ceramic white plate off the top of a stack, set it on the metal surface, and sliced a pale, mealy tomato wedge, poured salt on it, and popped it into his mouth. His meat sizzled. I wiped sweat from my upper lip. Tiny clouds of grease hit his forearm.

“Get dressed then bring me your ID,” he said, glancing up at me.

Pleasures was larger than it looked on their website. There was a stage in the middle of the room with a rusty, slim pole, and a pool table with a long bar. The only way to the dressing room was through the kitchen. I held my pink bag to my chest in order to fit through. It stuck to my sweaty arms and made a ripping sound when I pulled it free and dropped in on the floor of the dinky dressing room. I peeled off my jeans and checked out my thirty-seven-year-old flab in the cracked, spotted mirror. It had been four years since I'd stripped. Four years and my edges had blurred—my hipbones covered with thick cellulite. The shock of seeing my flaws under fluorescent lights filled me with embarrassment. I squeezed into one remaining pair of shiny booty shorts as I'd done a thousand times before, though never after such a long hiatus. I'd been busy bulging out while Mom had been shrinking. My thick softness betrayed how I felt: sharp, tight, and breathless. I faced the mirror next to girls young enough to be my daughters.

I angrily grabbed Lucite shoes from my bag in their smelly, scuffed, six-inch glory, which helped with the fat problem. Taller is the optical illusion for thinner. Next came a faded, sparkling, borrowed pink bikini that smelled like stale bubble gum.

I was not only heavier than the other two dancers, with their legs like blades of snake grass and slim, pointy ankles; I was older, much older. They were maybe twenty-five, but their fake reading glasses, white knee socks, and plaid miniskirts screamed teen porn star. They had names that dripped nasty barely-legal sex like Hennessy and Bijou. One had braces. She bared her teeth and picked something from them, showing flesh toned rubber bands stretching the length of her wet, open mouth. Another girl would look icky doing such a thing, but she looked luscious. I wanted to put my whole hand in her mouth, just to prop it open. I smeared gloppy pink lipstick over my lips and pressed powder over my face to conceal the dark circles under my eyes. I pressed foundation into the tiny lines along my temples.

I found the short guy in an office next to a silver metal file cabinet confiscated from a garage sale in the seventies. I handed him my California license and he made a copy. “If you get onstage now, you can work tonight.” He handed back my ID, looked at his watch, and walked towards the bar. I was relieved to be one of the only girls working the 4:00
p.m.
shift on a Monday.

I walked right up to the DJ and gave him a huge smile. “I'm Angelique,” I said and wrote it on his list, which is the equivalent of punching a time clock at a nine to five.

He nodded. “Angelique it is,” he said and took a swig of his sweaty Budweiser.

The kitchen inside Pleasures smelled like rat shit and frozen hamburger. I walked around the empty room in the darkness, looking for a lap to fall into. It was like I'd never stopped. Three hundred bucks and I could pack tonight. Leave in the morning. Catch a flight through San Francisco. I introduced myself to a bald guy who called himself Old Joe. He drank neat whiskey and told me he had nothing in his head but marbles. Old Joe introduced me to the guy in the wheelchair.

“This is Tripod.”

“Why Tripod?”

“Because he has two long arms and a huge hard-on,” Old Joe said. Tripod had polio. I liked him right away because he was cocky and unfazed, determined to enjoy himself. His greasy beer smell came from a bender that had started in Vegas, and that bender was petering out during my first shift at Pleasures.

“Tripod, what's the situation here?” I asked. “How about a dance?”

“Do whatever you want with me,” he grinned lopsided. I was determined to make a hundred bucks off Tripod.

“Step into my office,” I said and led him to the lap dancing area, a room with gum-stained black couches and oil-spotted red carpet. Dancers writhing in front of their customers gave me looks when Tripod rolled his wheelchair in next to them. He did another shot while I waited for the next song to start. I rubbed my chest in his face and imagined being in Humboldt with my mom in the redwoods. I remembered summers spent with just her and I and our books, sunning ourselves in Willow Creek, leaving only when the shadows grew long and dark. I had to be next to her again. I needed Tripod to hurry.

After a few songs with Tripod, I went to the bathroom to count my cash. I sat on the toilet to escape the loud music and decided how much longer I needed to remain at Pleasures. In the stall next to me a girl in plastic heels scuffed the floor, then snorted. “Shit,” she said.

The girls were really fucked-up at Pleasures. Taped on the bathroom stall door was a Xerox copy of some girl's driver's license with a scribbled note that said she died in a drunk driving accident and there would be a memorial. She was twenty-three. I looked closely at her dark eyes and petite nose while I counted bills, but her features were so blurry, she could have been any of us. None of the girls mentioned the dead girl, and they still got hammered before driving away from Pleasures.

One hundred twenty bucks. I needed more. I approached a guy in a Bob Dylan T-shirt whose name was McKenzie. He swerved standing up and finally settled into the smoking area, where I followed him. “Let's get out of here,” he said. “I have a place.” I thought of my mom's soft voice saying, “I'm barely here.” My skin rattled to the beat of the bass. I was anxious to get enough dough to bail and if that meant doing more, then to hell with it.

“Let's discuss it in a dance.” I pulled McKenzie towards the red vinyl couch and he collapsed. He handed me a crumpled twenty.

I spread his knees apart and wriggled between them.

“Tell me about your place,” I said.

“I have keys to a preschool where I'm doing construction,” he said. He slurred his words.

“Where's this school?” I danced around him, and brushed my hair in his face.

“Just meet me at the ATM across the street,” he said. “I'll give you three hundred.”

I looked around, panicked someone had heard us. “It's in Glendale, a couple miles from here,” he said. I looked at my watch. It was nearly midnight.

“One more dance,” I said. I needed to think about what I was about to do.

“No. I don't want another dance.” He handed me sixty bucks. “Meet me across the street.” I took the cash.

“Give me fifteen minutes,” I said. I checked out and paid my stage fee. The impulses weren't familiar anymore, a new desperation had settled into my bones. In my car, I drove slowly across the street into a shopping plaza, where there was indeed a Bank of America ATM, and looked around nervously.

McKenzie was smoking a cigarette. He seemed more sober suddenly. He took out the cash. I was right next to him with my hand out. I reached for it. He snapped it away. “After.” Then he said, “Ride with me.”

“No way.” I daydreamed about lunging into oncoming traffic, but not before seeing my mom.

“Follow me.” He walked to his white flatbed construction truck. I waited in my car until I saw him pass and followed him to Glendale for about eight minutes. We exited onto a quiet suburban street with parked hybrids and jacaranda blossoms splattered on the ground. I parked and watched him maneuver slowly into a tight parking space in front of me.

A man got out of the white truck and glared at me. He walked to a porch and stood with his fists clenched at his sides, then disappeared into the house and slammed his front door. Only, this man wasn't McKenzie. I drove away with my one eighty from Pleasures and laughed until my gut hurt.

The next day, I was applying eyeliner in the dressing room at Pleasures, when my phone rang.

“What now?” I asked Mom.

“I'm in the hospital. It came back,” she said. Her voice was raspy.

“What do we do now?” I said. Something dark raged in me.
Fuck everyone who's not my mom
.

“Take me home.”