New York Stories

"The thing about this job," I say, straddling my first customer of the night, a cute, ruffly-haired young guy with glasses from a record company, "is that it's not rocket science." Michael is his name. Actually, I forgot his name.

"Right?" he laughs. "We both know what we want." He means that he knows I want to get paid, and that he would like a lapdance. But his voice is suddenly husky.

Normally, I am a difficult, halfhearted stripper-cold and distant with my customers. My barely masked contempt is equaled only by my morbid fascination with this den of iniquity. It's like poking a dead rat with a stick: You shouldn't do it, you don't particularly enjoy doing it, you hate how disgusting the dead rat is, but some part of you needs to see what its entrails look like.

Let me explain: I started working at the strip club out of a combination of dire financial straits and old-fashioned curiosity. I wanted to see the seedy, dark side of New York from the inside. However, it's rare that one just falls into a situation accidentally. For things to happen, one must be open to them first.

In short, I went looking for trouble. I went looking for the old, weird, vice-squad New York. And, much to my delight, surprise and despair-I found it.

Here, there's a market for everything. At the club, the girls are representatives of their own niches. Some men like the blondes, who are only acting dumb to maximize profits; the curvy Brazilians; the Eastern Europeans; a few like the moody, slouching girls.

Then there's Michael. Most men don't talk during dances, at least not with me. My silently communicated boundaries discourage it. But Michael is chatty; he has witty, well-made anecdotes about Willie Nelson and peyote and calling up recording artists: "So how are we doing? How's the record coming? Help me help you. How's the creative process flowing?" I feel like I'm talking with an old friend. While they pay for a lapdance. I can't mix the two, right?

"What's your favorite movie this year? Remember, I'm a media guy, I have to know."

Are you fucking kidding?

"The Squid and the Whale," I say.

"My definition of being professional," he whispers, "is doing what you love with people you hate."

I hate all the clients: the businessmen; the old men; my boss, Frank. My violent, Taxi Driver-style fantasies involve machine-gunning him down while he's doing what he thinks are slick moves on the dance floor in his sleazy suit, bald head sweating. Multiple bullets send blood spurting from his chest, splattering all over his white shirt and the girls, who scream and then start laughing like hyenas.

But I can't hate Michael. He's too young; we have too much in common. He reminds me of somebody I used to know, was attracted to. His face, his mannerisms, his voice: they're all disconcertingly familiar.

Per standard practice, I try to avoid eye contact, anything resembling intimacy, but I can see him gazing up at me, looking into my eyes, blowing cool air onto my stomach, something that only a lover would do. For the first time in my dubious two-week career, something bizarre happens: I'm enjoying this transaction as much as the person paying for it. Is it still a transaction? What am I doing here?

My right hand rests on the side of the couch. Before I know what's happening, he covers my hand with his, and I freeze. He's broken the cardinal rule: the rule of my hating him, my professional, psychological boundaries.

And just like that, what started as a crude service between strangers becomes a genuine moment between, simply, two human beings.

In a city of 8 million, it's amazing what we put ourselves through to find these moments, the ones that make us feel alive, and, for a song or two, not alone. It's even more bizarre the places, where and when they occur-catching us off guard. For a minute, my anger, my judgments of myself and everyone else, melt away. He sweetly fumbles with his wallet and, soon, disappears onto the street.

"The city is so dirty," Robert DeNiro's character fumes to the politician riding in his taxi who asks him what he wants to change the most. "I just wish somebody would clean it up." His vehemence startles and creates an uncomfortable silence.

At the Nassau G station at 2 a.m., the floor is flooded with water and soap suds. It's nice to know that once a night, just a little part of the city gets clean.

Rose White publishes a zine called Old Weird America.