Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America (31 page)

"But that's not what repentance is," she tells me." 'Repent' comes from a Latin word meaning 'to face another direction.' It means acknowledging that what you've been doing isn't working for you any longer, and trying something else."

So maybe those men trying to save Babylon by the Bay are misguided. And maybe, for me, repentance isn't out of the question.

"I think Jesus always had a soft spot in his heart for women like strippers," Barbara muses. "The people who profit off them is who he had the real issues with."

I picture Jesus in a strip club. Would he get into it? Would he sit at the rail and tip? No, he'd probably be the guy at the bar who's always giving the girls free backrubs.

I had better stop thinking of Jesus like this or God is totally going to lack my ass.

"I don't really think people using each other as objects for gratification is good," Barbara says.

"But it's not always like that," I counter, an unexpected edge appearing in my voice, "sometimes the men who come in just want someone to talk to."

"Hey, how come you can talk about the bad things about stripping, but whenever I say anything bad, you get defensive?"

Welcome to my world, sis.

Later that night after Barbara has gone to bed, I sit cross-legged on the bed in her guest room, reading the Bible. The air is heavy and still, almost oppressive with the scent of night-blooming flowers. Coming through my Walkman is rap bastardization of a Gordon Lightfoot song that depresses me.

When I read a passage like Proverbs 5:3-4,
"For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honey comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; the steps take hold on hell,"
something so saturated with fear and hatred of female sexuality, I want to run off and join the Strange Women's Union: Hoydens, Harlots, and Sluts, Local 666-69, pronto.

Clearly, I'm going to have to evaluate and assimilate this Bible thing piecemeal.

I hear the night breeze in the trees outside the window and even though the room is hot I am chilled. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, and hug my knees to my chest, feeling very alone. Going to church today has something to do with it, I'm sure. Realizing that there's a whole other world out there from which you are totally estranged is always a lonely discovery.

I don't think I'm going to find what I need in these gilt-edged pages.

Prayer, it is said, is the last refuge of the scoundrel, and don't I know it. At five in the morning as I lie flat on my back in the spare bedroom in my sister's house, I say a prayer of thanks that nothing terrible ever happened to me when I stripped. A prayer of comfort for the lonely. A prayer of hope for the lost And a prayer of well-being for the dancing girls of America, who right now are either out seeking redemption after-hours, or sleeping the sleep of the just.

When I wake in the morning, Barbara has already left for work. The house is quiet and cool.

I pad down the stairs and out the back door. The yard brims with plants busying themselves with the tasks of renewal. Pink roses along the driveway fence itching to burst into bloom, red petunias in white plastic hanging baskets challenging the rim of their container, and stands of hardy purple iris splaying their petals toward the sun.

A good day for a ritual. Maybe the presence of others magnifies a ritual's power, but I would rather do this by myself. Stripping turns the private into the public, and I would like this to be just for me. I don't want any chanting or wax figures or anything else that might make what I'm about to do feel like neo-Pagan corn. I'm self-conscious about this as it is. Organization is my preferred form of sacred practice—everything in its place. Disorganization is the sign of an unquiet mind, as I know very well, and I would like to do what I can to shut things up in there. (
"When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long."
Psalm 32.)

On a scrap of paper, I write the three most valuable qualities I developed by being a stripper.

Nerve

Empathy

Charisma

I take this scrap and tuck it into my wallet behind my driver's license, so I'll carry it with me everywhere I go.

On another scrap of paper, I write down the three things that stripping brought me that I would most like to get rid of:

Weight

Defensiveness

Obligation

Oh, the weight. To lose the excess intangible weight, the gross psychic tonnage I've accumulated. All the naked pain I've seen and taken on. And shame. And guilt. How bad I should feel is relative, I know. I'm not Ivan Boesky or Attila the Hun or Doctor Laura. I didn't steal or kill or spread bigotry in the guise of righteousness so I don't have cause to self-flagellate. But for so long, I wouldn't for one second cop to guilt or shame or a sense of wrongdoing and now this residual gunk has worked its way to the surface. These emotions are not all that I am, but they're in there. I'd like to get them out. For good.

I am desperate to get rid of the defensiveness. There are innumerable people at whom I could shake my fist, there's always an attack or a perceived threat from one side or another. But I don't want to leave behind a trail of blame, accusations of who used who, and who had it worse, because that serves no one. Here there is no constructive element to contempt.

And I'd like to bid good riddance to the feeling of obligation. A sense of duty to make the job okay. To reason away the inconsistencies and struggles until I've diluted stripping to prurient pap. Six years of selective focus and one year of concentrated attention, and stripping still won't parse as benign.

I tear the three words free of one another, then take the lighter I keep in my makeup bag for melting my eyeliner pencil and set fire to these three scraps of paper in the sink.

The smoke detector in the dining room goes off, emitting a series of loud, shrill beeps. I jump on a chair waving a magazine in front of it to get the smoke to dissipate enough for the racket to stop.

I scrape the wet ashy scraps from the bottom of the sink basin, carry them to the back door, and toss them into the bed of irises off the side of the back porch.

The popular image of the sex worker is changing. If in more cautious times we needed the "fallen woman" archetype—she who strays from propriety and is socked with shame, regret, and ruin—to keep the family together and the social order intact, now we need the brazen capitalist whore to lead the way toward cannier over-achievement. As she saucily maneuvers to improve her lot, her shamelessness absolves us of our own shame, her pluck affirms our ambitions. Maybe the sense of obligation to act as if I am her is my false voice, and she is my false idol. Or rather, she was. I disappeared her from my life in a blaze of holy purging fire, and her ashy remains I laid to rest among the irises.

The kicker is that I am one of the success stories. I entered the sex industry at a young age and came out the other side with a decent career, a home, a stable family life, friends, loyal partner, no substance abuse problem. Such as can be done, I did everything right And this business still kicked my ass sideways.

I don't want to leave ungraciously, to turn up my nose—"watch the halo, hon"—as I waltz out of this cul-de-sac and on with my life. I don't ever want to disparage a dancing girl. If someone were to tell me that stripping is the best job she's ever had, I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. I don't know for sure that I'd be better off had I not done it. I might have been worse. I'm sure I'd be much more of a snob. I hope I never claim superiority to my past.

And I hope striptease sticks around. In his book of interviews with exotic dancers,
Some of My Best Friends Are Naked
, writer Tim Keefe asks a dancer named Lillith what she thought exotic dance would be like in an ideal world.

She speculates that in the perfect world, dancing wouldn't exploit either party, that it might not exist solely as a commercial enterprise. She ends her conjecture with, "Whatever happens, long live the dance." Yes. Long live the dance.

I'm starting to think that closure is a lie. And if closure isn't a lie, then it's definitely something that resists appearing on demand. There is no Cathart-o-Matic that you can crank up and watch your unfinished business settle itself while you wait. A couple years ago I was distraught over how quickly time passed. And now here I am wishing I could do something to speed it up. Heal faster, dammit!

I don't feel resolved, but I do feel like it's time to pack it in. I've come to the conclusion that exotic dancing is the hardest work I've ever done. Not the least gratifying, by a long shot—scrubbing toilets and sacking groceries tie for that honor—but it put me through the most contortions, knocked me for the biggest loop. Stripping left the biggest mark on my soul. To me, dancing has been a lot of things, but I can no longer truthfully say it was "just a job."

Had I known at eighteen that I'd still be struggling to sort out stripping more than a decade later, would I have even bothered?

When she drops me off at the airport, Barbara says, "I hope you feel less frustrated soon."

"I'll be all right," I tell her. Which sounds like a crock, but I think it's the truth, pretty much.

Before I get out of the car, Barbara gives me a book on women's Christianity. Published in 1984, before political correctness was even called political correctness, the book stresses inclusive, non-sexist terms for worship.

I browse through the pages while I wait at the boarding gate for my row number to be called. Some of the suggestions for the renaming of "God" are The Source, Lady of Birth, Consoler, Mother, Healer, Giver and Taker, Bakerwoman.

Oh, brother. I am not calling anything Bakerwoman, supreme deity or not. But I'm not dismissing faith out of hand. I wouldn't turn my back on God because of an aesthetic technicality.

I could start my own denomination: The Church of Fabulosity. Our Lady of Glam. Post-Punk Jesus and His Egalitarian Crankster Love Posse.

Or maybe I'll take up yoga.

I board the plane and buckle myself into my seat I put on my headphones until the flight attendant asks that "all portable electronic devices be turned to the off position until ten minutes after take-off." Here we go—cleared and heading home. I gained perspective, but I didn't transcend jack squat, and I can't say I'm not disappointed about that. I wanted an inarguable bottom line, a picture-perfect ending, an epiphanic bang and not a whimper. But right now, what I have instead, courtesy of my Walkman, is the Gospel According to Saint Osbourne. He sings out about two things that don't exist—indisputable truth, and the fountain of youth.

That's for sure, Ozzy. That is for certain sure.

TWENTY-ONE

If the journey home always seems shorter than the journey out, then why is unpacking harder than packing?

For days, the floor in the extra bedroom has been covered with piles of costumes and shoes—the leopard-print thong is tangled around the black beaded evening gown, a plastic grocery bag stuffed with bikinis and booty shorts disgorges its contents through a huge tear made by an escaped underwire, a gold stiletto nuzzles toe-to-toe with a pink glittered platform mule like they're kissing. The closet doors are obscured by upended luggage. My red satin robe hangs from the back of a chair. A lone false eyelash is stuck to the full-length mirror, its fine, spidery legs matted into spikes. Rhinestone jewelry and errant pots of multicolored body glitter mingle with the dust bunnies under the ocelot-patterned settee in the corner. It looks like Liberace exploded in there.

The truth is I haven't fully unpacked because I don't know where to put this stuff. I'm sure the cosmetics and toiletries will go to good use, as will the bikinis, and the hairpiece is likely to see a few wild nights on the town. But what about the dresses? I definitely don't have a lycra lifestyle. I could pack them in a box for storage but having them tucked away on a shelf would be depressing. Every time I'd see the box, I'd think of the discarded lovers of Miriam, the vampire in The Hunger. The men and women Miriam took as her own could have neither her eternal youth nor the release of death, so when they reached decrepitude, she laid them to wither in trunks in the attic, periodically returning to remind them of her pledge of everlasting love. I can't bear the thought of all those garments languishing in disuse, elastic weakening with age, sequins dropping off like rotted teeth.

I'd donate the clothes to the Goodwill, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of some unsuspecting eight-year-old girl traipsing around in one of my gowns on Halloween. A bonfire would be dramatic, but I'm reluctant to burn anything—that seems too much like destroying critical evidence, a disavowal. I could simply throw them out, but I'm really not inclined to toss what's left of my life as a stripper in the trash. Besides, I don't think spandex is biodegradable.

Regardless of what I do with the rest, I'm keeping the new pieces—the pink shiny minidress, the yellow-feathered ensemble. For what purpose, I don't know. Maybe I'll use them as Halloween costumes myself. I can dress up in them and cover my face in white makeup, then when someone asks what I'm supposed to be, I'll say, "I'm a ghost of my former self." Ha ha.

The weathered cedar plank fence out back is covered in freshly washed, dripping-wet dresses I've hung out to dry. The next-door neighbor's dog sticks his nose through the holes in the graying wood, sniffing and barking. While I was at Barbara's, the lilac bushes in our yard blossomed and now the tight-clustered blooms nod their heavy perfumed heads in the breeze. The air is alive with the happy throating of robins—which are much thinner this spring than last— and now and then, a ruckus from an ornery blue jay.

I've figured out what to do. Once they finish drying, I will fold the dresses and put them in a plastic garbage bag on the front porch. I'm giving them away to another dancer. Autumn is a local girl who works down in Denver. A bitch of a commute, two hours each way, but she thinks it's worth it. I met her at the gym and we sometimes run next to each other on the treadmill. When I bumped into her last night in the locker room, I told her she could have the dresses if she wanted. She's a good four inches shorter than I, and about ten pounds heavier, but I'm sure she can make do. She hasn't been dancing for very long—only a couple months, and as a single woman with a two-year-old to support, I imagine there are more important things than costumes for her to spend her money on.

When we first began talking about dancing, Autumn, then twenty, had just started. She told me she had been looking forward to working as a stripper since she was a teenager, then she had her daughter and got set back for a while. But she didn't grow up under the impression that stripping was a sleazy, dead-end job. Amongst her friends, it was considered an enviable position—almost chic, certainly more so than working at the mall or going to cosmetology school, the other options she and her friends saw before them. Stripping has become pretty cool within a certain subset and I imagine it will only get cooler. But will it get any easier? Probably. Although I doubt it'll ever be genuinely easy.

A decade from now, will Autumn struggle to make sense of her days as a stripper? Will I? After a solid year of scrutiny and self-examination, I'm still not done. I could keep raking it over and over, like currying the stubborn nap of an animal's fur in hopes of getting it to lie flat, but I don't think that would help. If the dancers from previous generations with whom I've spoken are any indication, I'll have this mass of conflicting feelings with me quite a bit longer. I'll take them to the altar, certainly. Maybe I'll take them to the grave.

So I don't feel totally at peace. But I'm pretty well-organized— what's good and bad have become distinguishable. And that counts for something.

Last night Randy and I lay in bed discussing the wedding invitations.

"I've got this idea," Randy said. "The invitation could look like the cover of a romance novel. We could have an illustration of me holding on to you…

"… and I'm swooning in some tarty dress with a lace-up bodice and you're in your cowboy hat and one of those open-necked Fabio shirts! With a title in gold cursive, like,
The Cowboy and the Showgirl: They Said It Could Never Work.
"

"Exactly! And we'll be against a sunset with a stallion rearing up in the distance."

"I think that is the best invitation idea
ever!
"

"Well, now that you're home for good, we can start working on it."

I looked over at him. He stared up at the slow-turning blades of the ceiling fan, smiling.

I slid my arm under his neck so he rested with his head on my chest.

"So, how were you able to deal with me running around the country half-naked for a whole year?"

"Wasn't a whole year, honey. Just parts of one."

"You know what I mean."

"I do. I'm just teasing."

"Well... ?"

"Because ever since I met you, I've known that you have a whole other life. You're a lot deeper than that job. Everybody sees that. Don't you?"

Autumn jumps about a foot in the air when I open the front door.

"I thought you weren't going to be home when I came by!" She holds her hand to her chest trying to regain her composure.

I didn't think so, either. Initially, when I invited her over, I thought I'd leave the bag on the front porch and go out for a drive or something until I was sure she'd come and gone. But then I decided that if this was the end, I might as well have the guts to show up for it.

Autumn is pulling dresses out of the bag and holding them up over her jeans and Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. "These are great! Are you sure you want to get rid of them?"

No.

"Yep, I'm sure," I force the words from my mouth, thinking that the pink-and-white spotted dress she's pressing against herself is what I wore in Dallas. The Tentacle of Love. "They're all yours."

"Well, thank you, thank you!" She does a little bow, which I return.

"Happy to keep them in the family, my dear. Wear them in good health."

We look at each other, unsure of what to say. What do I want to tell her? You've got a hard road ahead of you?

Save your money?

Run while you still can?

Right now, Autumn is in the invincible period where she's over her novice nerves and the money's gotten good enough that the gig seems like a total lark. Blue skies under the black light. There is nothing to be said to a girl in that place. I know.

The soles of her sneakers squeak on the porch boards. More robins chirp.

"I should go," she says, breaking the ten-ton silence. "My daughter is at my mom's and I need to pick her up." She gives me a quick peck on the cheek and bounds down the front path to her old silver Honda hatchback. The bumper sticker says, STOP INBREEDING, BAN COUNTRY MUSIC.

I lean against the doorsill, watching while she starts the car. I quirk up my lips at the corners and give a half-wave as she pulls away from the curb.

It's going…

With a honk and a farewell wiggle of her fingers, she takes off.

"Be careful," I whisper after her.

It's going…

At the corner, she signals and turns left, then drives out of sight.

It's gone.

Since anonymity equals courtesy in strip culture, I chose to change the names, stage names, and identifying characteristics of most people who appear in the book. The following people appear in the book as themselves: Randy, Wil, Cathy, Jeanette, Jade, Ann Marie, Jim Hayek, the Pure Talent School of Dance class, Deb, Jane, Atom, Dixie Evans, Carol Queen, Beth Ross, Elliot Beckelman, Jennifer, Jim Mitchell, Lynn Rossman Faris, Scarlett Fever, Pillow, Susan, Barb, John, and Peanut from the Road Dogs.

Many of the aforementioned helped me tremendously in the researching of this book, by being a part of it I thank them. I also owe huge thanks to Jonathan Burnham and Farley Chase, my agent Tina Bennett and the nice folks at Janklow and Nesbit, my family, Lisa Everitt, Molly Ker, Stony Lonesome, Sherry Britton, Jim Nelson, and Don Waitt and Exotic Dancer Publications.

Additionally, I must express my gratitude to the women with whom I shared the stage. You are the heart, the soul, and the legs of this book. Without you, this book would not only have been impossible, it would not have been worthy of attempt.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lily Burana has written for the New York Times Book Review , GQ , the Washington Post , New York Magazine , the Village Voice , Spin , Salon , and Details . Strip City is her first book.