"I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone turn around and head back down that hill after struggling so hard to get where they were when the top was just a short distance away." ~Brian D
*
I was sitting at the stage in a strip club in Springfield. It was dark in there even though colored strobe lights flashed all around me. It felt like it was getting late. The music was loud. I had moved to the stage from the bar where twenty-year-old girls were busy flirting with men old enough to be their grandfather's. Working them for their money only to gossip about how disgusting they really thought these old guys were later in the dressing room.
There was a drink in my hand: club soda, easy on the ice, two limes. I had taken the straw out. Men who drink out of straws just look gay. I leaned back in my seat and caught the eyes of the brunette on stage. She was leaning against one of the poles and her eyes smiled when I looked her way.
I've been frequenting strip clubs for almost ten years now. It's hard to believe it's been that long since Anthony and his uncle first brought me into one. I can vaguely recall how nervous I was then. If I was new to this I would have thought she liked me or maybe at least that she thought I was cute. But no, her eyes smiled because she had just found her mark.
I can't describe her in detail; they all look the same after a while.
I threw a couple of dollars down and she started dancing. I glanced down at the money, two crumpled bucks.
I flashed back to nine years earlier. My brother had just moved back to town. I started bringing him to the strip clubs with me. Back then I would take one of my dollars, fold it half, fan it out, and place it between two other bills so that it looked like I just put four bucks down. I didn't bother doing that anymore. You get the same dance for one buck that you get for four. If you watch the same girl make her way around the stage you'll realize that it's all just a routine for her. Like dancing by numbers, one, two, three, and turn , one, two, three... Once you've been to the strip club enough the routine of it all becomes comical. The girls have it down just like any other job if you work it long enough. At every fast food joint there's certain steps to take to make a burger. At the strip club there's certain steps to take to have a man hand you his paycheck.
Once she was done dancing, she leaned forward and whispered, “Thank you,” in my ear. She smelled good. Strippers always smell the same. It's like they have some special perfume that only strippers wear: Eau De Stripper. (That kind of sounds disgusting now that I think about it.)
I threw a couple more dollars down. She started dancing again. One, two, three, four....
I haven't been able to enjoy myself in a strip club since I stopped drinking. I can't forget that last column on my fourth step, “What was your role in this?” Ever since I worked that step and then shared it with my sponsor on the next step, I haven't been the same. This little voice in the back of my mind keeps bothering me, telling me things that I know are true but that I don't want to hear.
Right now it was whispering, “What if that was your daughter up there on that stage?”
“Shut up,” I thought to myself, and I pushed the thought away.
When she was done dancing this time, she knelt down in front of me and started picking up her money, adding it to the rest of the crumpled bills strapped to her thigh.
“What's your name?” she asked.
She wanted to talk. I've always enjoyed talking to strippers. They're great listeners. They don't really care what you have to say, but they listen.
“Jorge,” I replied, “What's yours?”
“Giana,” she said.
“Seriously?” I thought to myself, “You've got to be fucking kidding me. I need to get out of here.” I couldn't tell if the little voice was laughing or crying.
“No, that won't do,” I said.
“What won't do?”
“Giana is my daughter's name. We'll have to call you something else.”
“Oh, Steph then.”
“Steph. Is that your real name?”
“Yup. How long are you staying here for?”
“I was just getting ready to leave, Steph.”
“Would you like a private dance before you go?”
Fuck me! Of course I did.
“I guess I can stay a little longer,” I told her.
Ten minutes later I pushed open the cold, steel door with the tinted glass that led out into the street. I had to shut my eyes for a moment as the sunlight hit me. It was only just after noon, and I was already fifty dollars lighter than I had been twenty minutes ago. I walked to the meter where my car was parked. The frigid winter air whipped against my face. I hopped into my car hoping that no one I knew had seen me because I felt ashamed.
Oh, how things have changed since I quit drinking. People say that strip clubs are degrading to women. They're not. They're degrading to men. And I was just now realizing that.
I took a long, deep breath as I turned the key and started the engine.
The little voice spoke to me again, “What was the point of that? You just spent fifty dollars to feel like a scumbag.”
I pushed the thought aside again and looked at my own green eyes in the mirror. The voice was right. I took another long, deep breath, and drove away thinking it would be long time before I would go into another strip club.
Now what was I supposed to do with my afternoon? I should have been at school right then, but it was too late class had already started.
I thought about calling Arelis and seeing if she wanted to hang out as I headed towards Main Street. She was a young, pretty Puerto Rican girl I had met a couple of months ago. She lived right up the road in the South End near the Italian social club. We talked a lot at first, but it dwindled off. She had three kids at twenty-two all with the same guy and they all lived together. One big, happy family. I felt bad.
The little voice started again, “Is it fair to her if you call her to hang out? What about her children's father?"
"Fair to her? Fair to him?" I said, talking to myself, "What the fuck do I care?"
"You were in his shoes once, how did that make you feel? What about your children, is it fair to them?” the voice replied.
“Fuck you little voice!” I spat back silently, and pushed the thought out of my mind. The little voice was really starting annoy me.
Almost a year ago, before I quit drinking and working those steps, this would have been an awesome day. I would've been drunk by now off rum and Coke with lime, “Cuba Libre” it's called. There is an ongoing joke amongst Cuban exiles:
“How do you make a Cuba Libre?”
“You mix rum and Coke with lime on the rocks.”
“No! You kill Fidel Castro!”
So, I would have been drunk by now on this beautiful, frigid winter day playing hooky from school with nowhere special to be. I would have just had a blast throwing money away at the strip club. Imagining that I was so much better then those old men in there who just didn't "get it," when really I had so much more in common with them than I would have ever known.
I would have just called Arelis and made plans to meet up with her for a booty call.
"Tell your boyfriend to watch the kids for a while, because you need to go to the store," I would tell her.
Then we would have met someplace classy like a parking lot somewhere behind a warehouse in West Springfield. And the thrill of it all would be so much fun.
I would wake up the next day feeling like a piece of shit, but it would be alright. I woke up every morning when I was drinking feeling like a piece of shit because I was. I was a selfish, lying, two-faced scumbag.
Instead I was heading home, tail tucked between my legs with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Thanks to AA and the fucking twelve steps, I now had this little voice constantly whispering in my ear, holding me accountable for my actions.
I realized after working those steps that I was responsible for my problems. I couldn't blame things on other people, places or things because I always played a role in my life. Hell, I was the main character.
I also learned that I was powerless over everything in the world around me. I could control myself and my actions only.
Moreover, I held resentments against people for doing things to me that I had easily, carelessly, and selfishly done to others.
All these years I had thought that problems followed me around everywhere I went. When things got to be too much I would run away, but they would find me. The patter would repeat itself over and over throughout my life. Now I knew why. I was the problem. I couldn't run away from myself no matter how hard I tried.
I had developed a conscience.
"A conscience! What the fuck was I supposed to with that?!?" I thought.
I shook my head. Fuck me! My life as I knew it was over. After you took away all the bullshit that had made up my life, the lies and the selfishness, there wasn't much left. I was just an empty shell of my former self. And the thought of having to go down a new, unfamiliar path in life without all of those coping mechanisms that I had grown to love scared the shit out of me.
I could ignore the little voice. I could just say, “Fuck it!” like I had so many times before. That would be so easy. So comfortable. So familiar. But if I did, I would be skirting back down the same dark, winding path that I had worked so hard to climb up. I knew where that path eventually led to, the bad place. The place where nightmares become reality. No money to pay bills, but plenty of money for steak, champagne, and cocaine. Coming down after a long night wanting nothing more than to just curl up in a ball in a warm, steamy shower and die.
Yes, my life as I knew it was over. I couldn't go back to that. Ever.
“Thanks AA! Thank you for showing me the light in all this darkness! Thank you AA for ruining my life!” I shouted to no one in particular as I drove down the interstate, not caring if anyone saw me or not.
I didn't know where I was headed, but at least I wasn't headed back to where I came from.
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