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“You’re a walking disaster.”
I smiled at him. Smithie was all bark and no bite, at least with his girls. He was a big, black guy, used to be muscle but he’d gone a little soft. He had half a dozen kids with four different women and he doted on all of them, including the women.
“Listen, Smithie, I need to pick up a couple more shifts.”
He looked at the ceiling. “She comes in late, and right away she asks me for more fuckin’ shifts.”
“I have to get my car fixed!” I cried, tying my apron around my waist.
“You work more shifts, I have to pay you overtime. I don’t pay overtime.”
“Smithie.” I gave him a wide-eyed, girlie “please” look that I saw other girls use on him. It worked, so I’d tried it and found it worked for me, too.
Smithie wasn’t in a generous mood.
“You want more money, you work a pole.”
I looked at the stage. Three dancers were working poles, all oiled up, all wearing nothing but G-strings and pasties.
Not on your life.
“I’m not working a pole,” I told Smithie.
“You’d be doin’ me a favor. Mandy told me today she’s gotta quit. She’s pregnant.”
I couldn’t help myself. I clapped. Mandy and her boyfriend Ronnie had been trying to get pregnant since before I worked there.
“That’s great!” I cried.
“That is not fuckin’ great. I’m a dancer down. You work a pole, you’d have my ever-fuckin’-lastin’ gratitude and so much money, you could buy a Porsche.”
“JoJo’s your best dancer and she doesn’t own a Porsche,” I told him. And she didn’t. She drove a Corolla.
“JoJo can dance but her tits aren’t real and she’s short. Guys can tell the real from the fake. Your tits are real and your legs go on for-fuckin’-ever in those fuckin’ shoes. Men look up those legs to those tits and they’ll give you fifty-dollar tips.”
“I’m not working a pole,” I said in a way he knew I meant it.
He sighed.
“You want me to have a guy look at your car?” he asked.
See, Smithie was a softie.
I nodded and smiled.
“You’re a pain in my ass. Get to work,” he ordered.
I got to work and made extra nice with the drunks and idiots who paid good money essentially for nothing, though they obviously didn’t see it that way. Tips were good, gropes were few and it was a decent night.
I arranged for Lenny to take me home, and when everyone was gone, I waited at the door for him.
Lenny was a bouncer, midnight skin and two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle on a six-foot-four-inch frame. He was getting a masters in biochemistry at Denver University.
He walked to where I stood at the front door. “Wait outside, I’ll do a sweep, set the alarm and lock up.”
“Gotcha,” I said and walked out to stand outside the front door.
Smithie’s was on Colorado Boulevard, and even though it was three in the morning, traffic was passing steady. The days were still warm but the nights were chilly and I pulled the cardigan closer around me. I was tired, my mind beginning to shut down, and I found myself dazedly looking to the right.
