Venice Beach Boy

I’ve said it multiple times, but I hate the South Bay boys. There’s a few groups that come in regularly after a late night drinking at one of the beach bars. They arrive after 2:30 a.m. and take up as much space as possible and somehow never buy more than a single 99% of the time. I’d thought Lance was one of those boys. We’d met a few times prior to this evening, and every time I was a discovery to him. He never recognized me even after I introduced myself to him four different times. To be fair, my hair changed radically with each introduction. The first time I had my big curly bleached blonde hair; the next time I wore a wavy dark brown wig; the third time I was wearing one of my clip-in ponytails; and this latest time I had my hair in Princess Leia buns. Every time he’s come up to me and said something along the lines of “you’re maybe the hottest girl here tonight,” then apologized for not having money, then would promise he would spoil me one day. He would round out each interaction with an invite to his beachside bar. Tonight however, he came in and handed me $20.

Him: I told you I’d be back. Can you come sit with us whenever we settle in?

He opened his wallet again and pulled out another $20 and tucked it into my garter.

Me: Sure.

Him: You got any blow?

Me: No, but you can ask Mark.

Lance plopped down in the VIP booth closest to the bathroom with his friend, Abdul. They were both slurring their words level drunk. Lance’s wallet was full of $20’s, and while this is no indicator of generosity, I wanted to see how many of the $20’s I could collect.

Him: I’m sorry, I’m a little drunk. I finally have a night off. I mean, I worked all day at my bar, but now I’m off.

Me: How often do you work?

Him: Seven days a week. I’m there every day.

Me: Wow, that’s a lot of time.

Him: I gotta do it. Gotta work hard. You should come by one day. It’s called “Summers”. It’s right on the beach in Venice, so you can come spend a day on the beach and come by and I’ll make you whatever you want. You drink?

Lance and Abdul were sharing a water bottle of vodka with Red Bull mixers beside them.

Me: I drink a little, just not at work.

I don’t really drink if I can avoid it. Sometimes it’s nice to have a fancy cocktail or share a glass of red wine with friends, but alcohol makes me feel sick. I’d rather do drugs than drink. Give me weed and ketamine, not a vodka Red Bull. I sat with them briefly before the DJ announced it was time for showcase. I excused myself.

Him: Guess I should buy a dance?

Me: That would be cool.

Him: Why don’t you go to the back and we can dance when you come out?

That was an agreeable arrangement to me. I began walking to the locker room and Lance made a beeline toward Mark for coke. I do the showcase walk begrudgingly, even though it’s not the worst sales strategy. There are often times I need to escape from an especially chatty customer who has decided without much prompting to go into the intimate details of their emotional troubles when all I want is to close the deal before they drain any sexual tension out of the interaction. I appreciated Lance’s willingness to go along with the special. I returned and he handed me $60.

Him: That’s for you.

Me: Thanks.

Him: So what do we do? Three or four songs? How does it go?

Me: Three songs is perfect.

Lance and I took an open booth. Mark came by and they shook hands to exchange the goods, then we closed the curtains and Lance used my body for privacy as he fished a Mickey Mouse key from his pocket and snorted a few bumps.

Me: Aw, that’s a cute key.

Him: It was my father’s favorite cartoon. He died when I was eighteen.

I couldn’t help but think about the history of Mickey Mouse as essentially an animated minstrel show. Of course, the design has since changed from looking like blackface to looking like the benign mouse cartoon we all grew up watching. Lance dipped the key into the baggy in between giving me his life story and complimenting me on my body through the lens of insulting other dancers’ body modifications.

Him: I love how natural you are. Never change anything. The worst thing is when girls get implants. I can’t date a girl who’s gotten surgery, you know what I mean?

I thought about my friends with implants. I’ve seen so many through my years of dancing-- some amazing and almost imperceptible, others botched and terrifying. I like women, and I could see implants as a turnoff for some people, but for me there’s nothing more satisfying than watching new boobs settle. I love seeing the initial torpedo shape loosen and drop into a more natural placement. Some breasts look much better with implants, especially after people have breastfed and their breasts have shrunk after weaning a child. Ass implants are also intriguing-- the way they alter a silhouette and the degrees of augmentation people get. I love seeing the variations in surgical techniques. The only real drawback I’ve seen is the weight of implants. It’s like four to six additional pounds added to the chest or hips, which seems burdensome, but if I don’t have to carry it why should I care?

Me: I don’t mind implants.

Him: But your breasts are perfect.

Me: Oh, I would never get any for myself, but I like them on other people. I love my boobs.

Him: That’s good. I think my ex got butt implants, which was really weird. I mean she was thicc, so I didn’t even know until I broke up with her and she asked me if it was because of her ass...

I enjoyed the idle chat and Lance didn’t seem to want me to dance on him. Occasionally he would grip my ass and give me a little squeeze, but he was primarily concerned with doing blow in private. He’d bought the dance to be fair to me, which I appreciated because dances are the bread and butter of my income. We finished the dance and he tipped me another $60.

Him: Can you come hang out with us for a little while?

Me: Of course.

I was getting paid and I didn’t particularly want to interact with any additional patrons at that moment, plus Lance was fucked up and seemed unable to keep track of how much money he was handing me, or maybe he didn’t mind blowing it all to get my attention. I sat with my legs on him and considered him thoughtfully. Lance is an average height white man in his twenties with dark hair and a scruffy beard. He looks young, but exhausted with a greenish complexion and a little mushy belly that seems out of place on his otherwise thin body. He stared off into nothing with his eyebrows furrowed as he rested a hand on my knee.

Me: Are you okay?

Him: Me? Oh, yeah. You can tell?

Me: You look stressed.

Him: Do I? I’m just dealing with some legal trouble. Some Arabs are suing me for some bullshit. Luckily one of my roommates is a lawyer. I talked about it with him and he gave me advice and said he’d help represent me. He was like, “Do you know how much I normally charge for a conversation like this?”

He said “Arab” like “A-rab,” as if aiming to turn an acceptable ethnic descriptor into a slur, but I didn’t have the energy for a teachable moment.

Me: Sucks you’re getting sued.

Him: Thanks for caring. You’re such a good person. I wanna buy you the car you deserve. What kind of car do you want?

Me: I’m not that into cars, to be honest.

Him: Oh, you’re not materialistic. That’s even better. But if you had to choose, what would you choose?

Me: Um… I guess a Tesla? Because I feel bad for burning fossil fuel.

Him: A Tesla! Yeah, that’s a good one. I wanna put you in a car like that and cover you in Gucci.

Luxury brands are a foreign experience to me. I’ve never purchased any luxury brand goods, and I’ve never considered purchasing any in a serious way. It’s one of those qualities that works against you when you’re in an industry all about materialism and taking advantage of other people’s desire to flaunt their money.

Him: What are you, like nationality? Is that rude to ask?

I knew he meant ethnicity, but I wasn’t about to correct him.

Me: It’s cool. I’m black Creole and Puerto Rican. What about you?

Him: My parents are immigrants from Colombia and Uruguay.

Me: Oh dope. I’ve heard Uruguay is cool, and they have legal weed. In Brazil, people make fun or Paraguay.

Him: Why is that?

Me: They say that if something is janky or a knockoff that it’s from Paraguay.

Him: That’s funny. You know why Uruguay is great?

Me: Why?

Him: We were the first country to win the World Cup. And you know who was second to win the World Cup?

Me: Who?

Him: Uruguay. Anyway, my dad opened the bar after he came here, and pretty much fucked off and had my mom taking care of it until he died. I miss him… If you ever want to work at the bar-- actually nevermind, you don’t wanna do that.

Me: Yeah, I don’t, but my sister might.

We sat silently. I didn’t have anything in common with him to talk about. I hoped he would continue leading the conversation.

Him: You don’t have to sit on me. You should just be comfortable. Here--

He took off his hoodie.

Him: I saw a tutorial on how to turn a hoodie into a pillow recently.

He folded the hoodie into a pillow and had me lean against it. The setup was a bit awkward, but I appreciated the gesture. We turned our attention to the stage where a girl who looks like a lanky mixed Miley Cyrus was dancing.

Him: She’s so skinny I don’t even know why she’s a stripper.

Me: Some people really like skinny girls.

Him: I guess so.

He glanced down at his phone.

Him: Are you political?

Me: Yeah, I’m very political.

Him: What are you? Actually that’s a complicated question.

Me: I’m liberal.

Him: That’s cool. I respect that. I voted for Donald Trump because I felt like he was the one who was really gonna shake some shit up. I was so tired of the political bullshit.

Me: Oh.

Him: A lot of people can’t even talk about politics anymore, it’s so polarized. I just don’t want to have to pay for other people’s healthcare. I pay so much in taxes and these immigrants don’t pay anything and now we have to pay for their hospital visits? How do you feel about your tax money paying for other people’s healthcare when they don’t even pay taxes?

It was a lot to take in at once. I didn’t understand how a Latinx immigrant could express such anti immigrant sentiments. I didn’t understand how he could just say “fuck it” and vote for a candidate who explicitly voiced his contempt for people like him. I didn’t understand how Lance could be so cold. I realized that I was in no way going to sway his opinion in our little strip club chat. He recognized the discomfort in my face.

Him: I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about it.

Me: No, it’s okay. I don’t mind my taxes paying for other people to be healthy. I believe we should all care about each other.

Him: That just shows how good of a person you are, that you think that way.

He bought another set with me and a single. I felt a little sick knowing explicitly his political leanings. Most of the time it’s an unspoken part of my interactions with rich men, but knowing was harder to swallow. I excused myself after the frequency with which he was handing me $20’s stagnated.

Him: Come see me at my bar. I’ll pay you and make you whatever you want.

Me: Sure, maybe sometime in the future.

I figured it might happen. Who doesn’t want free drinks at a beachfront bar in Venice? But also, maybe I didn’t want it enough to spend anymore time with a Trumper. I excused myself and took a breath in the back before returning to the floor.