A Season of Many Conflicts

When Christmas brings a half-naked militia and unexpected spirit

I still believe in Santa Claus. Actually, to be clear, it isn’t the red-suited Christmas figurehead I believe in, although if the dude popped out of my fireplace one Christmas eve, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised.

It’s more the magic Santa represents that I believe in. This is not an easy sentiment for me to share. For many years, the lump of coal I call a heart didn’t allow for feelings, particularly those perpetuating overt cheer and good will. But all that changed when one Christmas delivered just the unconventional spirit I needed.

That was a season of many conflicts for me. I was in my 30s and finally beginning to do well professionally, which meant I had a respectable place to live with actual furniture and even a savings account. But that was as far as my adulthood extended because personally speaking, I was a hot mess.

A hot, sleazy mess who filled the gaps between relationships by dabbling in rock stars. I had a whole system. When a relationship with a guy whom I actually liked would end, I’d wallow in self pity for a week or two, then consult the touring schedule of every rock band I knew.

There was almost always someone coming to town I could call on. That December, it was The Pro. He was a professional musician in every respect except perhaps, accountability, and had spent his career filling in for guys who quit or were booted out of their bands.

I liked The Pro because he was talented and exciting to be around. I disliked him because he once suggested I get a nose job. Clearly, I wasn’t feeling especially discerning when I called him.

He was happy to hear from me, and offered to send a car to pick me up, suggesting after his gig we check out a fancy new strip club he’d heard about. It was the day before Christmas eve. What I should have done is stay in and watch Rudolph and drown myself in a punch bowl of flaming brandy.

But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted company. I wanted closeness. So, I pulled on my leather skirt and stiletto boots in the dead cold of winter to spend the night with a quasi jerkwad and even convinced myself I was lucky to do so.

The one thing The Pro could always be counted on to deliver was a flagrant display of alleged stature, so I wasn’t surprised he sent a limo to get me. He was the last true Rockstar I knew in a time when even big bands were downsizing and cutting costs. Somehow, he still managed to show up to every show in a chariot with a gig rider more extensive than Mariah Carey’s. And bless his heart, he got away with it.

I spent most of his show backstage, taking advantage of the paraffin wax treatment he’d requested I knew he’d never use. Since I wasn’t there as a journalist, it was a relief to not have to pretend to be interested in his band or his on-stage preening. I was going to see enough of that after the show.

And oh, did he ever work to get himself gussied up to go out. The Pro had followed Jon Bon Jovi’s lead and recently chopped his long hair into a bro shag. It didn’t suit his aging face one bit, and no matter how long he blowdried and misused an entire bottle of Paul Mitchel gel, he still wound up looking like an electrocuted David Cassidy.

And if I sound scornful and jaded now, it is only because I have the benefit of hindsight to see the pathetic absurdity of this guy. And myself. But in the moment, I licked his snakeskin boots just as eagerly as everyone else. I admired and complimented and even loaned him my mascara, which, by the way, he never returned, all in excited anticipation of spending the night with him.

I do have to admit, his choice in strip clubs was outstanding. Years in the music industry have made me something of a strip club connoisseur. Personally, I like my strip clubs either grungy – think biker bar and bullet holes - or glam, just like this place.

From the outside, it looked like a shoebox. On the inside, it was a neon pink utopia. There was a main stage against the far wall, mirrors polished to a high gloss everywhere, and several mini stages with just a platform and pole scattered around the first floor. The music was loud, the drinks were stiff, and all the dancers were decked out in Christmas lingerie, from teeny red Santa skirts to G-strings dotted with puffy white pompoms. Apparently nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a lap dance.

For the first hour or so, The Pro and I lived out every Motley Crue video cliché. We enjoyed lap dances and illicit touching and I even spent some time twirling around a pole with a brunette wearing little more than fuzzy Rudolph antlers on her head.

It was sordid and delightfully tacky and I was all set to pounce on The Pro and suggest we take the limo back to his hotel … Until another pro took over.

She had a name, though for this story I’ll just call her Cheeky Monkey. Some girls strip to pay for school and others do it for the thrill, but Cheeky Monkey did it as a career. I doubt she’d purchased a single thing on her body, from the very fake boobs to what I’m confident were very real diamond earrings.

I don’t know if she smelled money, fame, or just general desperation on The Pro, but she climbed into his lap and latched on tight. And damn his ego, he literally bought right into it.

She turned his head so fast and so far that when I returned from getting several spite-fueled lap dances of my own, they had both disappeared.

I mean they were gone, limo and all. I frantically call The Pro, but he’d obviously turned his cell phone off and likely would not be turning it back on.

This was all my goddamn fault. Don’t get me wrong, the Pro was a dick, but I knew that. In my dumb rush to not be lonely on Christmas, I’d completely ignored my top two rules in hooking up with a musician: Never leave the guy unattended and always give yourself an out.

Musicians generally have the attention span of a prairie dog. If you’re not there to constantly guide them back to where they need to be, you’ll lose them and whatever else you’re counting on them for.

Like a ride home. This particular strip club was located just past the Illinois border in the industrial portion of Indiana. Rideshare apps had yet to be invented, and even if they had, I’d be more likely driven to a dumpster death than I would my intended destination.

The area was so remote the only two taxi companies I could find laughed when I told them where I was and how far I needed to go to get home. “You’d better start giving some lap dances if you wanna get out of there,” was the advice I got, and I knew I was officially stranded.

There was only one person I could turn to for a rescue, one I knew I could count on to answer my call and not want sex in return for the favor, and that would be my girlfriend Texas.

Texas has always been the balance to my crazy – a badass chick who’d seen me through my best and worst moments since high school. She had just gotten married, and seeing as how it after 1am, I’m pretty sure my call to her was about to test the “for worse” part of her marriage vows.

I’d worked myself into a mild hysteria by the time she picked up the phone, and half-cried, half-screamed my way through an explanation for why I was bothering her so late. Texas was annoyed but understanding, and promised she’d be there in an hour.

I collapsed into a chair at the back of the club to wait. There was no natural light in the building, and all the pink neon was beginning to make me feel like I was trapped in the bottom of a Pepto Bismol bottle. God, it was depressing.

The waitress who served me and The Pro earlier passed by the table and stopped when she got a look at my face. She asks, “Aw honey, what happened?”

I’m not normally one to open up to strangers, let alone a random cocktail waitress in a strip club, but I was exhausted and dejected and feeling so tragic I blurted out the whole stupid story. By the end I was sobbing, sobbing in a fucking strip club the day before Christmas eve, and if that isn’t a whole new kind of low, I don’t know what would be.

Nobody wants to see a girl crying in a strip club. Least of all the manager, who tells me to get my shit together or leave. Fortunately, several girls come to my defense, and the next thing I know, I am being hustled across the club to the upstairs dressing room by a herd of thoughtful dancers.

Word apparently made its way through the club that Cheeky Monkey snagged my guy and all the girls were outraged. Not exactly on my behalf, but because they all collectively hated Cheeky Monkey.

They huddled around me in the dressing room, dabbing at my tears and stroking my hair, and shared all their many grievances. It would seem Cheeky Monkey made a habit of swooping in stealing the good customers while leaving all the gropers and bad tippers for the other girls. What’s more, she borrowed their make-up without asking, never cleaned up after herself, and even swiped tips off the stage. She was a stripper without scruples, and the girls were over it.

The more they talked about how much they hated Cheeky Monkey, the more worked up they got. One minute they’re all sympathetic and pampering, the next minute there’s a half-naked militia rising up in the dressing room.

They’re yelling “fuck her” and “that bitch” while Kid Rock is thumping in the background, and I find my self pity is quickly usurped by their glittery agitation, and suddenly I’m thinking, “Who does that bitch think she is?”

The strippers are restless in their anger, and one chick kicks open Cheeky Monkey’s locker and begins rummaging through her things.

Panties and slips and pasties go flying around the room and the girls realize Cheeky Monkey hasn’t only been stealing their customers and their tips, but also their outifts.

There is nothing quite so terrifying as a gang of outraged strippers. I can only imagine how effective they’d be if they banded together over something that actually mattered. Instead, they wage war on Cheeky Monkey’s locker, crushing pallettes of eye shadow, overturning jars of body glitter, and denting the hell out of the door. And then there’s me, right in the center of the mob with a pair of scissors, gleefully turning Cheeky’s bikini panties into a pile of satiny confetti.

A booming voice interrupts our bitchy mayhem, yelling, “What the fuck is going on in here?”

I look to the dressing room door expecting to see a bouncer or a manager or maybe even a police officer. Instead, I see my gal Texas.

She is wild eyed and wearing pajamas. Her parka still has flakes of snow on it, her hair is a tangled mess, and I’m sure she’s wishing she were back in bed with her husband and not confronting this trashy disaster.

Sadly, this is not the first time I’d called Texas in for a rescue and wound up forcing her to hunt me down. The last time I’d pulled this stunt, I’d asked her to haul ass to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I’d gotten into a vicious fight with the guy I was seeing and desperately wanted an escape. Of course, by the time she arrived, we’d made up and were frolicking in a boat in the middle of the lake.

That time I bought Texas a hotel room for the weekend and we all wound up hanging out. It not like my distress signal had, I don’t know, compelled her into a rapey neighborhood beyond the south side of Chicago and required her to march through a strip club in her pajamas.

Oh, I was a shitty friend. If I were Texas I would have grabbed me by the hair, dragged me out of the club, and dumped my sorry ass at the first bus stop I found.

But Texas was not that kind of chick. She shakes off her coat and drops onto a chair, lighting a cigarette as she does. Texas had zero cares about where she could and could not smoke back then, and inhales deeply.

The strippers and I were still locked in our tacky assault positions. We break our poses one by one, dropping lingerie and makeup on the ground and slowly come to our senses.

I notice Texas is holding a gift bag, which she extends to me with a Santa-like smile. She says, “I think you can use this right about now.”

The girls gather around as I reach into the festive bag. Wrapped in layers of red and green tissue paper is a bottle. It’s not the typical whiskey bottle, which becomes even more evident as I see the liquid inside is a murky sort of green color. Texas had brought me a bottle of absinthe.

She’d picked it up on her honeymoon trip to France, knowing that if there were anyone in her world who would appreciate French absinthe, it would be me. I’d never had it before, but I’d always wanted to try it, and right then and there seemed as good of time as any.

I look to Texas, who smiles and says, “Grab some glasses, girls. I’m going to show you how to drink absinthe.”

For the next hour, the girls and I gleefully knock back many glasses of absinthe as Texas played bartender. I won’t say it was exactly cozy there in that stripper dressing room, but as I let the green-tinted spirit work its magic, I did start to feel better and maybe, just maybe, a little merry.

Sure The Pro was probably off in his luxury hotel room banging that damn cheeky monkey, and I was left there in a pile of shredded panties and spilled body glitter, yet somehow, I felt as though I’d come out ahead.

I had group of temporary but no less awesome friends who were happy to rally around me. And I had Texas, my loving friend who, even in the wake of my dumb decisions and occasionally shitty behavior, was still happy to welcome the dawn of Christmas eve with a bevy of strippers, a bottle of absinthe, and me.

It wasn’t the company I expected to be keeping that holiday, but it turned out to be the best company I could ask for.