There’s an eviction notice on my front door, second one this month. I throw it on the table with unopened letters and unpaid bills. Some are addressed to me, Ms. Natalie Lunsford. Some are addressed to Mr. Drew Eckhart. His mail still trickles in from time to time. I’m not sure who to forward it to. After the accident, I figured someone from Drew’s family would come to the house wanting to go through his things. I hoped they would so I wouldn’t have to do it myself, but after a month of waiting I couldn’t stand to look at his things anymore. Now his things sit in boxes stacked at the front door for when I feel compelled to be completely rid of them. Before I leave the house I throw a couple of things in a duffle bag. A pair of clothes, lipstick, and a green army style jacket that belonged to Drew. I lock the door behind me, wondering if my key will still fit when I get back later. I haven’t been able to put gas in my car for two weeks now so I walk down to the bus stop at the corner. There’s a homeless man named Earl who sits there every day. I’ve noticed Earl doesn’t have a coat, so I hand him Drew’s. He thanks me and all I can do is force a smile. He gets on the bus with me. I can’t help but wonder where he goes each day and why he comes back here. I wonder where I would go. The bus stop nearest to my work is still five blocks away. It’s about as close as most people will go, but I’m not like most people, I’ll always go a little bit farther. I walk the rest of the way to work. This part of town just seems to fade into all sorts of things, obscurity being just one of them. It’s already getting dark and I realize that I’ve never actually caught a glimpse of the sun hanging around here. I wonder does it set faster here. Is it ever bright here at all? There are too few functioning street lamps. The sidewalks are cracked and the gutters are littered with shards of glass and Styrofoam cups. The shops along this street have mostly been closed for longer than I have been coming this way. There are bars across the windows and where the windows haven’t been smashed in there are layers of dirt and grime so thick I can’t find a reflection. Ahead of me is a street corner preacher. I guess those of us who wander down this path haven’t been completely lost yet. A sign hangs on the man’s chest. Today’s sermon: God Hates Fags and Fags Will Burn in Hell. That’s lovely, I think, I wonder how God feels about the homeless. Does he have a place for them? The lot in front of the bar I work at is nearly empty. It’s not quite dark enough yet for the scum to come crawling out from the shadows. A giant neon sign that reads “The Velveteen Rabbit” hangs above the entrance. Tony, the bartender, greets me as I walk in the front door. He’s stocking the shelves and wiping out glasses. House music is playing, but all of the lights are still on. Becky is backstage. She’s tall, curvy, and blonde. Three out of three. She’s one of those perpetually happy types. A smile as big as her tits is plastered on her face at all times. Guys like happy girls, I know this. If I didn’t hate her on principle I’d probably like her too, but it’s her third night so she’s still fresh. She still has some innocence intact. I’ve been doing this for two years now so I might as well retire. The crowd hardly ever changes so what is new and exciting quickly becomes old and boring. It’s the reason the boss has me dancing early in the night when not quite enough alcohol has been downed and men aren’t quite loose with their change yet. I put my bag into my locker. I’ve been slowly moving things out of my apartment and storing them here. I notice the things in my locker have been shuffled around. I pull everything out so I can take inventory. The one thing missing is an old ratty Nirvana shirt that Drew would always wear. When I had boxed his things up, it was the one thing I couldn’t part with. It still smelled like him. The ways girls come through here I know I’ll never find it again. I put my face in my hands and fight back all of the emotions I’ve been holding back the last few months. Then I take a deep breath and put everything back into my locker. I strip down out of my clothes and pick out a lacey bra and panties. I find a pair of fishnets that aren’t torn and put them on sitting at the vanity. Looking in the mirror I notice my eyes look dark and sunken in. Everything fits looser than it once did. I barely fill out my bra. My hair is flat so I spend ten minutes teasing it up. I apply red lipstick and thick winged eyeliner because men like pretty girls. Men won’t even look up at my face long enough to notice, so really I put it on for myself. I take the stage first. There are only a handful of people in the room, most of them haven’t even made their way to the stage, rather they sit at the bar working up the courage to come closer. I dance but my hearts not in it like it used to be. When the money doesn’t come like it did before, the thrill just seems to disappear. By the time I leave the stage I only walk away with twenty bucks. I think the one man sitting at the stage must have pitied me. He didn’t even watch. His head was in his phone the whole time. Backstage Becky is getting ready to go on. It’s only been half an hour, but I peek around the curtain and the house is full. All the tables around the stage have been claimed and Tony is working overtime at the bar. The lights go down for Becky and I tell her to break a leg, and truly I mean it. I grab a tray of drinks from the bar and make an effort to shake my ass some while walking over to a table in my platform pumps. Becky takes the stage in an American flag bikini complete with red fishnets and black stilettos. Red and blue lights flash, covering her body as she saunters over to the pole. It’s the full stars and stripes routine. She grabs the poll and climbs to the top. With her legs wrapped around it tight she looks out over the crowd and salutes them. It’s a rookie’s routine. I remember doing it once. It’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser on account of the percentage of sailors that come to watch, but I notice that it’s the uptight, God fearing men that really get off to it. The ones that come in with stiff collars and hair parted on the side. It lets them off the hook, for God and country. Becky takes both hands off the pole, leans back, loosens her grip with her legs, and slides down to the floor. The men start to loosen their collars. I set drinks down at a table occupied by three young guys. They are facing the stage, watching Becky eagerly, but every few seconds they turn to each other to comment on her tits or to just raise their eyebrows, giving encouraging looks. One of them seems older than the other two. He looks tall even as he slouches some in his chair. His hair is somewhere between combed and unkempt and he wears a burgundy suit with a mustard colored pocket square. His cologne is strong and smells expensive. I can see a gold watch peeking out from under his sleeve. When I pass the drinks around, I am a little clumsy with his so that it spills in his lap. He moves to get up. I put my hand on his chest, pushing him back into his seat, pull a small handkerchief out of my bra and drop to my knees to pat his lap dry. He relaxes back into his seat, takes a sip of his bourbon and sizes me up. When I walk away I look over my shoulder and notice his eyes following me. I lean against the bar as I wait for the next round of drinks. Becky’s star spangled top is laying on the stage. “Think we should burn it?” I say to Tony. “It would be the patriotic thing to do,” he says back to me. She has bills tucked in the waist of her bikini bottoms all around. There are men throwing more on the stage so that she’ll have to bend over to collect them. “Sweet thing though, ain’t she?” Tony says. “More sugar than spice, for sure,” I say, and then, “hey Tony, you see that man in the burgundy suit?” Tony looks over in his direction. “Have you seen him in here before? “No, who’s he to ya?” “No one really, it’s just he looks expensive, ya know? I was trying to hustle him and he just sorta looked at me.” “Honey, you’re in heels and panties, isn’t that the intention.” “No Tony, it was different than that. He wasn’t looking at my tits or even my ass, he was looking straight into my eyes like he knew me, like he was seeing if I’d recognize him too.” “Well do you,” he asks me. “No. He reminds me of someone though.” As Becky leaves the stage Tony hands me some shots to take to her. Twenty minutes later and I’m backstage holding Becky’s hair as she holds her face inches above the toilet. Her mascara is running and in between vomiting she tells me she really thinks she was good tonight. I tell her that she would have made her father very proud. She looks up at me and I brush her bangs out of her eyes. “You really think so?” she asks. “Sure thing babe,” I say turning my head away because her breath smells like cinnamon and puke and I can’t stand to look at her. “I think I’m done now,” she tells me, “Like really done. With it all.” “I’ll have Tony call you a cab.” “Thanks. You really are the sweetest.” “No problem babe.” I deal with bitches like Becky every night. They never make it more than three nights. They shake their asses, make their quick grand, sort out their priorities then stumble out the back into a cab and never look back. Maybe Becky will be a pharmacist one day and I’ll come in to get my prescriptions filled and she’ll have to turn me away, because they won’t accept my insurance. In the back of her mind she’ll be thinking about how I rubbed her back as she sat slumped on the floor, hugging a toilet, wearing nothing but red and white striped bikini bottoms. Tony continues to hand me trays of drinks to pass around. I try my best to bend over really low when I set them down, but these guys don’t waste much money on tipping servers when they can throw their money at a goddess sliding up and down a pole right before their very eyes. A girl’s got to make a buck though, so I readjust my bra and try a little harder. The boss comes up to me as I return to the bar with an empty tray. He says his new girl turned out to only be seventeen, he can’t risk a scandal, and with Becky gone he needs someone else to take the stage next. It’s a full house and liquor is flowing. I haven’t danced for a full house in months. Boss looks me up and down. “You’re looking thin sweetheart,” he says. “I’ve still got the moves, honey.” “I’ll bet you do,” he says, “Alright, you’re on in ten. Fix your hair up a bit. We got anything tighter you can put on? “I’m sure I can dig something up.” He thinks I don’t know how this works, how men work. Backstage I tie my hair up into a loose ponytail with a black ribbon, the rest falls in long waves of auburn. I sort through drawers of lingerie to find the tightest thong and bra I can. I choose a black velvet bra with straps that cross in the front and pair it with a black thong and lacey garter belt that clip into my fishnet stockings. I look in the mirror and reapply my makeup –red lipstick, dark eyeshadow –and rub glitter onto my chest. “You look good baby,” I tell myself. I can feel some life pouring back into me. This is what I live for, just like I did before Drew. Over the loud speaker the boss announces me to the crowd,” Gentlemen please give a warm welcome to the incomparable, sexy siren, Rhiannon.” The curtains open up just enough for me to slip through. I walk onto the stage under blue lights. Just blue. I keep my eyes in front of me, straight ahead towards the pole. It looks like an old friend. Beer bottles and shot glasses clink all around me. I can hear heels stomping around and chairs sliding as some other girl serves drinks. The men’s room door swings open and shut and in between I hear the sound of urinals flushing. Someone to stage left whistles and another hollers, “Yea baby.” I don’t look around. I’m in control now. I keep my pace slow. My heart is steady, its beat drowned out by the bass thumping from the speakers overhead. I reach the front of the stage and lean back against the pole. I wrap my arms around the pole behind me and lean my head back looking up towards the ceiling. I pull the ribbon out of my hair letting it fall in waves down my back. My hands grip the pole above my head and I slide my back down it till my cheeks rest on my heels, my legs open wide. The noises around me disappear. I’m up quick and then bend over to the floor so that my ass is in the air. My hair falls forward. I swing my head and pull it over my shoulder. Someone throws a twenty on the stage. I look up and all eyes are on me. I put one hand on the pole and walk around it. The light catches the ring I’m wearing on my finger that Drew proposed to me with and I can see light reflect off of it towards the bar. As I move the light dances through the bottles of liquor lining the shelves illuminating blue, green, or amber. I start to climb. I am skinnier than I used to be. It’s easier to move up the pole, but I have to wrap my legs around it tighter to feel secure. I feel closer to it than I ever have before, but farther from the people watching as their faces start to fade away. More crumpled up bills fall to the stage below me. The view from the top is heaven to me. I’m closer to the lights and the smoke in the room rises and settles here. I can see it swirl around in the air as the lights move in and out of it. Up here my head feels clear, like I can breathe easier. Up here I think of Drew, but only for a moment. Below a face comes into focus, the man in the burgundy suit. He is much calmer than his buddies. His gaze is mature. It’s intimate the way his eyes peer up at me. I think to myself, let me put on a show for you daddy. I kick my leg up over me, wrap it around the pole and slide down. The room spins around me. I reach the stage floor in a hand stand and let my legs fall over me into the splits. More bills land on the stage. I lay back on the floor, my legs together, my back arched, and my hair spread out around me. I swing my legs over the side of the stage sliding down until my feet touch the floor. I walk over to the man. I dance around him and then climb onto his lap straddling him. He stays calm, cool, and collected. I wonder what’s different about this man. He doesn’t have a ring on. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull his head in towards my chest. Can he hear my heart beat? Would it sound broken if he could? I’ve made him the most admirable man in the room and he doesn’t even seem to notice, he just looks right into my eyes. I swing my left leg over his head and sit up out of his lap. As I walk away he grabs my hand and pulls me back to him. He puts a bill into the waist of my thong and lets me go. I walk back up the stairs of the stage and dance around the floor scooping up my money, placing it in my bra. I stand up to slowly make my exit. The faces in the room start to reappear. The noises all flood back in. Whistles. Applause. I look back over my shoulder and the man is watching with his hands in his pockets, a thin smile parts his lips. His buddies are hanging out of their seats high-fiving each other. In the dressing room I start to count my money. Tony brings me a shot of fireball and says, “I haven’t seen you look so sexy and alive in months.” “Thanks, you’re a doll,” I say, then throw back the shot. Boss walks backstage, grabs my arm and says into my ear, “Fella out here requested a private show. Pace yourself, I’m charging him by the minute.” When I step back into the bar, the burgundy suit is standing there relaxed. His buddies aren’t with him anymore. I take him by the hand and lead him to a private booth and pull the curtain shut. Facing away from him I sway my hips back and forth, pull my hair over my shoulder, and reach behind me to undo my bra strap. Then he speaks. “That’s not necessary.” His voice is deep and his speech direct. Its familiar to me, it conjures up a memory of Drew. My chest falls, pauses, then rises again as I stare ahead at the curtain, searching. Slowly, I turn to him, shaking the memory from my head. I grab his hand, tracing it down my stomach and he says, “You don’t have to do that either.” Then he points at the ring I’m wearing on my finger and says, “That’s nice, where’d you get it?” “Do I know you?” I ask. “You don’t know me, but I know you,” he says, “and I also know that doesn’t belong to you.” I pull my hand to my chest guarding the ring with my other hand. “This ring was given to me by someone, someone who’s not around anymore. It’s the only important thing I have left of him.” “It wasn’t his to give, and that ring is the only important thing I have left of my mother, so if you don’t mind, I’ll have it back, pay you for your time, and be out of here.” It all makes sense why he looked and sounded so familiar to me, although I had never met him. “You’re Drew’s brother.” I say “That’s correct.” There’s a lump in my throat and I can’t speak. I just stand there frozen in place. His eyes, Drew’s brother’s eyes, which are so familiar with their rare, green color, just stare at me patiently. I feel like I’ve lost so much since Drew’s been gone. My body is withering away. My passion for work has fizzled. I’m losing my home and I have no one to turn to. I’ve lost the dream of things I’ve never had and I lost the only love I’ve ever believed in. All this time, I thought that I could keep myself though, thought that I could keep this piece of Drew. Now, here’s this man, another bill collector come to take the rest away. I look down at the ring glimmering on my finger held over my heart. It honestly makes me sad. It’s a constant reminder of its unfulfilled promise. There’s a gap between my finger and the band. It’s as if my body has been trying to let itself loose from the ring all this time, growing thinner and thinner to shed it from my finger. Tonight, on stage, I let it all go, or almost everything. I came alive and it wasn’t for anyone, it was for a moment where I felt alive. In that moment things started to come back to me. The space between my finger and the band is space to find new dreams to hold onto. I look back up at Drew’s brother. His eyes are still on me and his lips are pursed. I hold my hand out to him and he looks down at the ring, then back up at me. “It’s okay,” I say, “but just tell me something before you go.” He slides the ring off my finger, examines it briefly and puts it into his jacket pocket where the mustard colored pocket square hangs out. “Ok.” “When they buried him, did he have his ring on, the ring that I gave him?” “No, my father didn’t want to have to explain that to anyone. He’d rather bury his son in the image he’d always preferred of him. That of the bright, dutiful, son, ready to follow in his father’s footsteps. Not the rebellious son, who falls in love with strippers and gets himself killed fighting with thugs in dark allies, in parts of the city no one wants to talk about. I stand there wavering in my six inch heels, chewing the inside of my lip, trying to understand. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says, “I was never close enough with Drew to understand him. We mostly just butted heads, but standing here in front of you tonight, I think I get it. You’re a strong, beautiful girl and I respect you.” I let out a breath and look up as a tear escapes. I quickly wipe it away before it can travel down my face. “You look so much like him and yet completely different,” I say, “It makes me happy and sad at the same time.” He stands up and goes to open the curtain, but he puts his hand on my shoulder first and says, “Cheer up, boys like happy girls.” He slips a hundred dollars into my bra strap, then he walks through and disappears. I sit in the booth recounting my money. There is so much money cannot replace, but yet this is the only shit I live for, and if it makes me feel alive then that’s okay. When I get home, if my key still fits the lock, if my stuff isn’t already sitting on the front porch, I’ll be able to keep it. I could put gas in my car and then maybe I could offer Earl a ride, see where it is that he goes. See what it is that he lives for. Or maybe we can all continue to live the way we do, if we feel compelled.
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