Au Go-Go

I would like to say that the soundtrack to my brief go-go girl career consisted of cool songs like "I Fought the Law" and "Secret Agent Man." I would be thrilled if I could say that I used to do a lascivious fan dance to Tom Waits' "Pasties and a G-String" (as in, "Crawling on her belly and shaking like jelly/And I'm getting harder than Chinese algebra?").

The reality, though, is that those bars played the same stupid songs over and over again during the summer of 1990, when I was dancing. I can't remember the titles of these songs, or the artists who recorded them, the record label or what was on the goddamn flip side. I can't even remember most of the lyrics, but certain parts of them stick in my head. Phrases like, "Wiggle it, just a little bit/C'mon, I wanna see you wiggle it, just a little bit," or one I remember as "Money talks, money talks/Dirty cash will haunt you/dirty cash will eat you up." The worst one by far, though, would have to be the song that went, "It takes two to make a thing go right/It takes two to make it outta sight," words that were followed by these high-pitched screams. (This song wasn't confined to sleazy strip clubs either; it blared from every taxi cab all summer long.) That stanza just rang around and around in my head until I wanted to stove it in with a stiletto. I even heard those screams in my sleep.

Yes, the songs were more than lame, and so was dancing in general, as a profession in the early 90s. I guess I thought I would be wearing a fringed cowgirl outfit and dancing in a cage, but the reality was far, far different. The reality was standing stock-still on a tiny pedestal in the center of a bar in New Jersey (not even a stage!), wearing a silver thong that I had bought from one of the Brazilian girls who sold costumes (I bought it to be nice, as if it were high school, and I was going to be running into her all the time) and turning around every five minutes to spank myself, with a coy smile on my face. Believe me, I got tired of that gesture long before the audience seemed to. The reality was doing low-grade coke in a filthy bathroom, just to stay awake. It came down to more than one of those "What Am I Doing Here?" moments, like when I was sitting at the bar chatting with a some Cuban longshoreman and a nun?a nun!?came in collecting money for the orphans or something. (All the guys sheepishly gave her money, and while I felt guilty too, I wasn't about to give up any of my tips.)

Why did I keep doing it, after I found out how awful it was? Well, there was the aforementioned dirty cash. There was also that edgy factor, which was the reason I did a lot of things, from going up to the South Bronx to buy drugs to volunteering in a soup kitchen?I figured all these experiences would make great material for a novel or a memoir some day (still tentatively entitled Home Is Where I Hang Myself). This is what is known in the biz as the "Well, Gloria Steinem Was a Playboy Bunny So She Could Write an Article About It" defense. Every girl reporter has probably thrown that little excuse up as a justification to the journalism gods at one time or another.

Really, the only good time I had was at the bar where I got to pick my own music on the jukebox. I had to pay for it (or ask nicely for quarters from the gentlemen), but I did get to play "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and "Thirteen Women" by Bill Haley. I also could weed out the undesirables pretty easily, as most of the men were confused by my choices. Any guy who liked the songs I played was the guy I was going to let buy me cocktails for the rest of the night. The only other positive thing? I have to say, there is no job besides dancing where it feels so wonderful when quitting time comes. Nothing can compare to taking off those pumps, putting on a sweater that resembles a burlap sack and high-tailing it out of there in a cab, counting out your singles as you go.

I decided to quit after getting scared one night, when this guy in the bar offered to drive me home, saying that he was a gypsy cab driver. He seemed nice enough, and I was in some godforsaken neighborhood in the Bronx, so I agreed. When we got out to his car, however, I saw that it had a police shield on it. He claimed he wasn't a cop, that it was just there so he didn't get parking tickets, but I got nervous and just ran away from him. I had visions of ending up as a headline on the New York Post, so I hung up my g-string.

Every now and then, when I am shopping in the supermarket or the discount shoe store, I sometimes hear one of those hideous songs. They always stop me dead in my tracks. I look different now?I could be a librarian or a private investigator?but I wonder if people can tell I used to have a trashy past. Luckily, I have enough restraint to not just get up on the nearest counter and start shimmying. I may cringe when I hear that awful disco, but it doesn't make me feel like dancing, like I'm gonna dance the night away.