Page 57 of Trip Through Your Wires

I prepare to introduce myself, but as I look around the room and take in the names scrolled on miniature chalkboards hanging from the corner of each vanity, I realize they’re probably as fake as the wigs on the shelf in the back. Cherry, Rain, Midnight… items, weather, times of day. Words that describe, but don’t say a lick about who they really are.

I can’t see giving myself a name like Blossom or Moonbeam, and yet, I don’t want to lose myself. “Delta,” I say simply. “My name is Delta.”

When I was a girl, Momma used to sing me “Delta Dawn” at bedtime. It always struck me as a little sad but she loved it; said it was playing on the radio the first time that she held me.

“Well, all right,” Louise winks. “Lovely to have you, Delta.”

As the girls go back to what they were doing,she grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “How about we get you set up at your station, hmm?”

We make our way into the room and when we reach an empty vanity at the end, she stops and holds out her hand. “Here you go.”

I look at it, not sure why I’m back here taking up space if I’m not even going to dance yet. “Should I be back here?”

She places her hands on her hips and smiles. “Why yes, sugar, you should. This is where all the dancers belong, and soon, you will be one of them. Trust me. You will upgrade from that fabric in your hand to rhinestones in no time.”

Unlike these girls who appear to want to be here, this is the last place I want to be. But knowing the only way out is by going in, I flash her a smile and prepare to do whatever needs to be done. “All right,” I nod. “Show me the ropes.”

Chapter 12

Jenica

I’ve been working at Richardson’s club for one week and learned a few things in that time. The first was that dancing is hard.

These girls aren’t just strutting around the stage, baring all. There is a mix of skill and artistry in what they do. It takes not just a beautiful body but stamina. When athleticism is paired with a sexy swivel of the hips, or a suggestive hand, dancing tells a story that can stir a range of emotions from adoration to curiosity and of course, desire. It takes real talent to do what they do.

I may have been an athlete once but my muscles scream watching these girls. And their costumes…they’re not just items of clothing to be removed as the music progresses. They are layers of that story, peeled back with perfect cadence during the routine, with a grand finale of strategically placed pasties and scraps of fabric that leaves the audience begging for more.

I didn’t think I could do what they did every night. Rock out to a little Nirvana, sure. But dance in front of hundreds of men in a way that makes them want to throw cash at me? No way. I’m the last person anyone would want to see on a stage, so it’s a good thing Richardson has me in the job that he does so I can watch and observe instead.

Cigarette girl—a job as archaic as it is demeaning. When I put on what I realized was a bikini the first night, and one of the staff members in the bar handed me a tray, I looked at them like it was some kind of joke. But when I was ushered into a corner and told to stand, I realized it wasn’t a costume at all. That was my job.

When Richardson said he would be watching, he wasn’t kidding. Every night I felt his eyes on me; observing how I interacted with customers and assessing their response to me as I stood there with a try full of smokes and stogies. While I was perfectly content to stand there saying ‘cigars, cigarettes,’ over and over each night, doing so in a bikini was infuriating.

I guess it’s a blessing in disguise because as long as I was the girl that customers came to when they wanted a smoke, I wasn’t the one they watched when the dancers came on stage, and that’s how I came to my second observation—the club and those who came here, were nameless.

Not only did the job I was working harken a bygone era, but the club itself. Like speakeasies of the past, the only thing that identified it was not a secret word, but a symbol. A fox head adorned silver cards customers carried, as well as cocktail napkins and matchbooks on every table. It appeared to be their key to everything. There were no receipts, no money changed hands at the bar; the only time I did see cash was when customers threw it at the dancers or slipped it into their G-strings.

One thing I did know about them, however, was the men who came here were powerful. I was right that first night when I said this place was for the rich. They arrived with an entourage and had an air about them that indicated money was no object. But their time here wasn’t just about pleasure. It was also a place of business. While some men watched the dancers, others disappeared through the black door or held court in the leather booths, curtains drawn, and Richardson was a part of it all.

He was always there to greet them when they arrived and patted their backs when they left. The more I watched him, the more I began to realize he hadn’t been on the run the past seven months, but here, making money, living the high life.

The last thing I learned was that time here is elusive. Like a casino, there are no clocks anywhere. The club is designed to be one long party, where the drinks never stop, and the skin is unending. Thankfully, it does end, however. Every night at two o’clock, the club closes and everyone goes home, only to start again the next night.

“Well there you are.” I turn at the sound of Mamma Louis’s voice. Turns out not calling her Mamma was impossible. All the girls did and she did feel like a mom in this den of snakes. “How are you doing, sugar?”

I turn and smile gently. “Just getting some fresh air.”

“Ah,” she nods and comes over to where I’m standing at the railing. The air is anything but fresh. It’s pungent. A mix of dank earth and cigars that clings to your hair and skin. But I’ll take the stink with the quiet. It beats being inside.

It had only been one week and already I was feeling the impact of being here every night. I switched to black coffee in the morning, and Mountain Dew in the afternoon, and before leaving each night, I took a whiff of the can of chewing tobacco Danny left at Nana’s a few months back. By the end of my first month I wouldn’t be surprised if I were sipping jet fuel.

Thankfully, this was my last night before a couple days off. Apparently the club was closed on weekends, which seemed dumb since most businesses made their best money on Saturday and Sunday, but I wasn’t complaining. I was anxious to sleep in, focus on my real life for a bit, and think through all I’d observed over the past week and see if anything could be used to bring Richardson down.

“Can I do anything to make things easier for you?” Mamma asks, pulling me from the thought.

“No, ma’am.” I look down and pick at the railing. “I’m just going through an adjustment. It’ll get better.”

Thanks to my impossible schedule, I hadn’t talked to Ellery much the past few days and I missed her. Not to mention the one time I did call Jake, just so I could hear his voice on the answering machine greeting, it just rang and rang. I didn’t know what was worse, not hearing that dorky greeting of his, or knowing he’d unplugged it and possibly why.

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