Showgirls

„…it´s a whale of a time“

“Really, such a party!”

“Never thought a simple girl from Wyoming could make it here…”

“It´s a different city every week. The gents love us and it´s all very tasteful.”

There is a dark cloud on the horizon- who knows what lightning will spear down the next naked girl. It´s a dog eat dog world. Can´t trust the natives. Especially not them, but not anyone really. There is something disgusting, aggressive-making about the proximity of the hotels to the esplanade and the dirty side-streets with the vendors and the taxi-drivers and the seemingly endless parade of good-for-nothings. No wonder the blood-pressure is through the sky. Not only mine. Morrey´s too. Nobody takes care of business like we do though. No loose ends, no questions asked, same clients for years. And we´re getting wilder every year. Less fabric, more ass. You can never have enough ass, although some of the girls take a while to find that out. Not all of them got wiles like Maureen o´Shea or Rita Hayworth, not all of them apply to the service ethic, even the little dickie ones, the ones fresh from the farm. Mind you, it´s better that way for us, in a way. You´d need another full-time partner really, to get them away from the guys in the silk suits whispering stuff about the silver screen and the next big thing. Really. Aside from the sharks and the Feds, these guys are the biggest hassle.

Some fellas don´t take too well to alley cats coming to sniff their five hundred dollar fish. Per head, per night! And them, trying to cajole them into some local pond where they wind up fat with four kids smoking cigars for supper and never dressing beyond a housedress again. It´s happened. Not to me, but I´ve heard: it happens.

Take Lola there, by the pool. Classy head under those curls. Keeps the gents just close enough to smell her perfume…she tells me stuff I need to know. Carla doesn´t know her ass from her armpit although you´d never think so, the way she waves it around. She´s got the moves allright. Onstage. Off, she´s a basket-case and a half. Fella just needs to wink at her and she´s a goner. Of course, he´s the goner first and then it´s all hell; other girls calming her down takes the better part of the season and then in the next city, the circus starts all over and just getting her out of bed becomes the feat of the day- you know, girls practicing their routines, going over the floor-plan with Murray, get the low-down on the night´s party…Takes time and planning and gumption- no coming undone! Not Lola though, she never makes trouble. (Be damned if I know where she got her name from…) It´s a secret. Just like all the big spenders she hides up her sleeve. If there´s a girl sneaking around with a local- she tells me.  Someone sloppy with the routines and neither I nor Murray nor the hosts notice- she comes to me. She tells me where they came from and where they´ll end up and if I don´t like the story, girl´s history. Finished.

There are a few things I don´t like in a show-girl´s habits, but you know, some habits you gotta turn a blind eye on. Show-girls shacking up together: that´s okay for a party, if the guy is into that kind of thing (and which guy isn´t?) but on their own time, now that´s just unnatural to me. But ya can´t say, cause then you´re called a dirty, prying bastard, when it´s god´s honest truth that that just ain´t natural.

Ah well. Sassy, the bunch of them. Not at first, when they´re fresh off the farm and still warm and smelling of hay and cow-sides.  Then they´re all eyes, checking out everything the older girls do. What a lark. Gotta love´em then. Later they just give you a headache. Not my Lola though.

POOPSIE-KID EVANS

“Ya gotta have nick-name, really: you gotta. Mine is somewhat more elaborate than average, but then I´m a cut above the rest. (Knock you down with a damn feather, once you get used to my charm, an old boyfriend once told me. “It takes getting used to, baby,” my ma used to say and she was right. Just like life- takes some getting used to, what with the baby lost and the whole sad story, so like any of the girls´ stories…) NO, not like ANY girls, but I guess there´s safety in numbers and the girls really are my family now that my ma´s passed away and if you subtract my big mouth and my look apart ( Igotta gypsie look about me, some fellas say, but then, what do they know anyway?) you get a skinny jack-in- the –box. But it´s all part and parcel, no dividin anything and so we´re all birds of a feather, wolf in a pack, one in a herd, you know?

I Know my moves, but that´s a small wonder! 2ooo and a half nights, not countin days off. I always say, babe: 2ooo and a half days off, not counting nights, now that would be the real deal! Guess you wouldn´t stay in shape that way or something. Dunno.

Cut above the rest. Wish I hadn´t said that. Saying that now, makes me squeamish and you know why? Because memory is a real hey-whore. She´ll leave you in the cold, without your underwear sometimes. Mostly, when you need her real bad, to show you a door out the rear or a way to her heart. No, she´s just fading now. Just makes me feel like I´m drowning or dyin of some terrible habit, being without her. You know. Some girls took to not calling me my name anymore (when it´s my trade-mark goddamn it: you say Poopsie-Kid and that´s just me- my kid arms and legs flying in a show, like there´s nothing to hold them down- my spangles, my dresses - EVERYTHING! “You´ve gotta respect that,” Norm would have said in her sweet, somber voice. Oh Norm, sweet god. Norm.

LOLA

Some say, she wasn´t quite right, but it wasn´t that. She was righter than most and they had her removed on that account- not because she was some “poor girl” who coulnd´t hack the pace (oh, how they always come out with that one) but coz she opened her mouth. Not like Poopsie kid, running her mouth bout this and that and yadda, yadda- you forgive and forget but really opening her mouth about who was running The Show. Not just our show – we all knew that, least we thought so - but the whole cursed vein of the night…the companies booking their wage-slaves to our tables, the government guys holding their palms up when something went wrong in their pecking order; all those “fellas” never doing anything but minding their own business while the sky came crashing down on our feathered heads.

Norm. She never wanted to be called any thing else. Said it was solid and laughed in her low, meowling way. Can´t blame poopsie-Kid for falling for her, hell, we were all stricken with her for so many reasons. She was inconspicuous, till she was on the stage, and then later, when she was off it, out to dinner with some guy, she was awkward again, rambling weird stuff and that turned some of them on. Mostly there were complaints about her though, toward the end,  and it was all I could do to defer most stuff to Murray, who was forgetful and blind. To most things really, but especially to any pertinent stuff like feelings. He´d just forget about it, or pretend to coz he did´t know what to make of it and he did´t want to come across as stupid.

It´s Cal you had to watch out for though, he was a sly, gossiping weasel and there was nothing he loved better than hearing slander and acting on it, like some darned god. I never told that sack of shit anything that could hurt us. Sometimes I would make up stuff, sometimes I told him stories I´d come across from other companies. Sometimes, but rarely, if a girl had an attitude that was really poisonous, we´d sit down, some of the girls, and talk about it and then Cal got the upload. That´s how it went. But it worried me- it really did- the way him and the other men would get  a thrill out of us girls not getting along. I guess it was the bottom line to what happened to the pair of them. To Norm and Poopsie-Kid´s romance. Cause that´s what it was. Real love in a world of paper-mache sets and sordid dinner dates with strangers acting like your father or your brother. You didn´t really know which was worse. There is no gradient for measuring  the sorts of insults the good guys, sweating in their suits and ties dosed out.

You could be in the middle of telling them something, about yourself or work or whatnot, when they would interrupt you, eyes all glazed and say, “ what´s it like then sweetie, in the DRESSINGROOM, changing with all the other girls?” like they´ve never attended a similar event amongst men, like they all would whip out their little friend, then and there and have it assigned a Noble Prize for Cleverness…The number of times that question came up was beyond counting. And of course, Cal or Murray and later on Knox, would get really nervous about us “behaving charming” enough at all times on our set number of dates that came with the etiquette that was no etiquette at all.

Oh, sorry- my mind wanders. It´s been a long time since I left all that behind, but not all girls live to tell the tale. Even the ones who come out in one piece.

One thing I will never forget is what Poopsie-Kid told me about Norm a long while after she had disappeared. No one knew where she could have got to. She had no family and her things were still in the room she shared with Poopsie, untouched, but we had all given up on her.

That night, Poops and I were sitting on the cool sand by the sea, the waves rolling in teased out feet before they went out again. I´d never heard one human being talk about another the way she did that night, before she did the deed. (I did´t know at that moment, what she meant, but I guess it was that: a tub full of blood and her eyes staring past the horizon and her tiny, pale face so sad.) “Norm showed me, what it means to live,” she said. “To be really and truly alive: so much it hurts just to close your eyes because you might miss one moment of beauty. There´s beauty all around she´d say. That´s what she was like, not the muttering, wild-eyed angry whore they made her out to be. Said it one time after we made love, when I cried once- maybe it was our first time. And when she said that, it was like hearing the words for the first time and from then on, it was ME up on that stage. Like being on a cloud and watching me and all  the other girls  and I could SEE: there was beauty there. That was then. We were a cut above the rest.