Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
Take a show, take a show, you got to walk around take a show. It’s the beginning of the evening shift at Show World, a large, three-story peepshow entertainment-complex located on the corner of 42nd St. across from Port Authority. Customers track in snow from outside, leaving muddy puddles on the tile floor. I’m on the second floor where a dark corridor is lined with brightly lit, numbered cubicles. The women clean their sides of the booth with rubbing alcohol and paper towels, wiping down the phone, the glass, the mirror, the doorknob, and the edges of the doorway. We clean with the doors open so that we won’t miss a customer during the brief six o’clock surge. The booths are organized with the most attractive women, the moneymakers, in the high-traffic booths near the stairs. There is a loose racial segregation as well, with the white girls in the front of the L shaped corridor. Mostly the women are young and conventionally pretty. There was a time when there was room for older women with whips, and a three hundred pound women who got the Pampers and thumb sucking trade. But not anymore. That was when business was booming at Show World and every booth was full. The sex industry is in a depression now, every year the money shrinks, and only the top and medium girls can afford to work here. Disney has purchased all the land around Times Square so the future is uncertain. New York has passed a new law, which states that no more than 40% of the merchandise in an establishment can be sexually oriented in nature. This means that the gift shop now includes sunglasses, unrealistically priced “Good Housekeeping” magazines, luggage coated in dust, and postcards of the Manhattan skyline, nestled in with the studded dildos and blow up Annies. Annie with her gaping red hole for a mouth, nothing like the pretty girl on the package.
Each booth has two doors, one for the women, one for the customer. Red lights go on over the booths in use. Poker faced men from various walks of life wander about the complex, shopping. As the customers stroll down the row some girls react with a smile and better posture, others look indifferent, smoke, eat candy bars; some hiss, call out, or beckon with their fingers. Green-aproned male janitors patrol the area selling tokens and calling out, Walk around, walk around. I’ve been standing here for ten hours, I’m doing a double, and if I see that narcissist Flavia look at her own reflection one more time I might have to smack her. You’d think she’d get enough of her own face inside the booth. Princess Flavia thinks she’s better than the rest of us, claims she doesn’t do dildo shows, claims she doesn’t do a regular show for under twenty bucks. My ass. The evening shift is coming in and China’s whining because she’s didn’t get her booth.
Alberto, how come you’re sticking me in 10? She’s wearing a sequined bra and g-string under an unzipped sweatshirt, a backpack hanging on one shoulder.
You didn’t sign in and you’re late again.
Oh, come on, I'm always in 1.
Not tonight, sweetheart.
You know I don't do good over there.
Maybe you should have thought about that earlier. Alberto taps his clipboard with a long yellow nail. Lucky I don’t send you up to the juice bar.
The juice bar is mostly prostitutes and trannies. The one night I worked up there, I’d never seen such a jaded bunch of customers in my life. I could have given birth on stage and they wouldn’t have noticed.
China stalks toward the back booths, her metal spikes gritting on the tile floor.
You stuck out in Harlem now. Sasha laughs down in booth eleven.
A janitor jangles metal tokens in his apron pocket. Take a show, take a show.
The customers cruise through the circuit again and again, they’re window-shopping tonight, hardly any are taking a show. They’re choosing their girl like their whole lives depended on this one decision. There’s a businessman who’s been circling for five hours. That’s what I call a full-fledged Walk-About. Like he’s looking for the Holy Grail, maybe. The janitors keep them moving; everyone's got to keep moving, except for Cockroach and Candyman who are allowed to remain stationary. They’re kind of like pets.
The janitors jangle their tokens; they’re bored too, shaking the tokens in their apron pockets while they call out their hypnotic litany. Walk around, walk around, buddy you got to take a show or walk around. Herding the salmon up the stream. I’m listening to the janitors jangling the tokens and that same damn Madonna tape that Alberto’s obsessed with. I haven’t had a customer in two hours and I’m getting real sick of these spinning clowns and bears. What depraved soul decided a circus theme would be really cool for the décor of a peep show? I’m so bored I’m actually looking forward to watching some paraphiliac jerk off in front of me. Take a show, take a show. People think this is a degrading job but they don’t understand why. It’s appalling and mind-numbingly boring in the same way a factory assembly line job is appalling and mind-numbingly boring. Worse than that because on the assembly line your hourly wage is not dependent on your attitude, your smile, or if you remember to suck your stomach in. I’ve heard that boredom is just this close to enlightenment and I’m not sure if that’s true but I know boredom can be just this close to losing your mind. You aren’t allowed to wear a Walkman or read a book and you can get carpal tunnel syndrome from masturbating all day. People think I’m kidding.
I can hear Sasha down in booth eleven. Free Willy, free Willy.
I’m looking at those paper angels that Larry hung up, three of them, one to represent every girl who’s been killed on the premises. A real morale booster but nobody’s died here since 1979. The last one got her throat slit on stage by a janitor. Which gives me pause because the janitor from Ghana is offended since I alcoholed off my hand after he shook it. Now I see how you are, he said. But what does he expect? I touch my pussy with that hand and he’s been holding on to the mop all day. I shouldn’t have done it in front of him but it’s just habit, you touch money you wash your hands, a man touches your hand, you wash your hands. It’s not personal.
Chlorine bleach comes in several scents now, meadow fresh, lemon, and rain scented. I bought some rain-scented kind recently and it smelled exactly like a peepshow; I don’t know what the manufacturers were thinking.
Larry’s paper angels sway softly on the random air currents, reminding me of an ink sketch my mother drew of Amelia Earhart and Icarus, naked, entwined in each other’s arms as they plummeted toward the sea. It was called “Falling.”
A teenager in low slung jeans and sweatshirt stops at my booth.
How much?
It's five dollars per token and then a minimum of a ten dollar tip for a regular masturbation show, a dildo show is twenty, and anything fancy is extra.
You play with yourself? Can I jerk off?
Yeah.
What do I get for just a token?
Nothing.
A janitor comes up to the teenager and shakes the tokens at him menacingly. Buy a token, buy a token.
We're just talking, man.
Got to take a show or walk around.
The teenager stalks away.
I find myself fixating on the iridescent blue-green sheen of Flavia’s panties. They remind me of a beetle’s wing. She narrows her eyes at me and I turn away, look up at the ceiling where the little angels dangle, dwarfed by the spinning clowns. I did a book report on Amelia Earhart in grammar school. I traced a picture of her from a book cover. She was smiling, strands of gold hair escaping from her cap and goggles. I wondered what it would be like, falling into the ocean, bright sky, sun gleaming off a wing. We lived by the sea then. My uncles brought home turquoise crabs in wiggling pillowcases. The females and babies were thrown back. My mother dropped the males alive into boiling water; they made a screaming, hissing sound before their shells turned red and they quit struggling.
They’re screaming in agony, I said.
She bent over the pot, smiling, her hennaed curls catching the steam. It’s over quick.
Buy a token, buy a token, walk around, walk around. I drag my stool close to the doorway and sit on it. You make more money if you stand up, I guess they need to see your whole body stretched out, I don’t know, but I’m just too tired. I close my eyes; my booth light is warm on my face. I used to keep the light in my booth turned down low because it was more flattering but now I turn it up bright and blinding; I can barely see the customers, just my own reflection in the glass. Anyway, customers are like fish, they like bright shiny things. Walk around, walk around, you got to keep moving.
Finally I get a customer, a businessman who darts straight into my booth without discussion. I hear the sound of a token falling, then a second and third, the red digital 10, then 15, registers on my meter. I shut and lock my door. When the screen goes up I see that he’s already got his dick out and is yanking on it industriously. The numbers on the meter run down, 15,14,13... I pick up the phone. Hi, you started without me, I say. You want a show? The businessman sticks two twenties through the slot, one hand still on his penis, balancing the phone between his head and his shoulder. I hang up my phone since there’s no further need for discussion but the idiot keeps the phone held between his head and shoulder like he’s hearing something. I pull the money gingerly out of the slot with the pinky and ring finger of my left hand and put it in my cubby next to the K-Y jelly and baby wipes. I look longingly at my book, The Tin Drum, which is poking out of my backpack, hanging from a hook inside the cupboard. We aren’t allowed to read at work, even during the lulls. I take out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and clean off my fingertips, throw the tissue in a plastic bag hanging inside the cupboard, get up on my stool and pull my g-string to the side. I’m lazy. He knocks on the glass and gestures to the phone. I hate it when they want to talk. He’s eyeing my black dildo so I already know what he wants to talk about. It’s amazing the percentage of white men who come in here to talk about black dick. There’s a gay peep show right down the block but they don’t go there, someone might see them coming out. The human dynamics in this place are a sociologist’s wet dream.
The businessman asks could I please put my face close to the glass. I come up close. Next door I can hear princess Flavia slapping her butt up against the Plexiglas or what ever it’s made of, strange girl, she’s already cracked one window and the management made her pay for it. The slapping makes me think of some gigantic moth bashing into a light bulb until it falls on the ground with its wings singed off.
Could you kneel?
That's extra.
Oh man, all right, all right, here. The man frantically digs around in his pocket and puts a ten in the slot. Could you open your mouth? That's it, good girl, yeah, look at that cock baby, isn't that a big cock? Come on, tell me, talk to me. Talk to me.
Talking's extra.
Goddamn, O.K., just close your eyes.
No. I’m thinking I’m kind of hungry and maybe I’ll order some Thai food.
Could you please close your eyes?
No. They deliver right to the booth like it’s your little house and the delivery guy looks all bug eyed at the dildos. I always give him a big tip because what goes around, comes around.
Just close your eyes for a second.
No.
It’s real warm because I’ve got the light turned up so high and I’m thinking about getting an orange soda from the machine after this guy’s done and I’m thinking about Icarus and about wax melting down his back and all the feathers dropping out.
What the fuck? I already gave you fifty dollars you greedy bitch.
Talk nice or the screen is going down.
He glances at his meter. O.K. O.K, how much you want? I just want you to close your eyes.
I don't do that.
What? You stick that big black thing up your ass but you won't close your --? He darts his eyes toward the meter. Oh man, my token's almost up, I'm about to blow, just close your eyes for one second. Oh, come on, please? I should have gone to one of the other girls. I'm almost there, I'm gonna --I'm almost there-- comeonplease, just close them for one second.
The screen starts going down.
AH, SHIT YOU FUCKING BITCH.
The screen slides down concealing the businessman from view. I can hear his muffled curses and the slam of his door. When I get my panties straight and step outside I see him stomping warlike down the hall, his pants still hanging wide open. Walk around, take a show. All the activity has attracted the Bottom Feeder. I just shake my head no before he even gets close. He likes to lick the other guys jiz off the glass but I told him a long time ago I’m not going to watch him endanger his life for less then forty dollars and there’s plenty of girls that will let him clean up for five. Walk around, walk around. One of the girls has taped a piece of paper to Candyman’s back that says “Kick Me.” He’s such an easy target. He scuttles up to my booth, smiles like he’s about to be struck, and holds out a piece of butterscotch candy.
Thanks. I pull the sign off him in such a way that he doesn’t notice and I wait until he’s gone to throw away his candy. And of course I wipe off my hands.
Walk around, you got to take a show or walk around.