STRIP JOINT MEDICINE

STRIP JOINT MEDICINE

Fred Desjardins

 

What can you learn about the world of medicine working in a strip club?

 Plenty. Neurology, biology, chemistry, surgery - the whole nine yards. At

 the time I was working my way through university toiling in a joint

 called The Downtown Connection. The locals suggested that the

 "connection" likely referred to the relationship between a steel-toed

 boot and genitalia. I started as a waiter but my job description came to

include manager, waiter, bookkeeper, bouncer, fill-in disc jockey and

 stripper-auditioner.

 

 

There's something specific to a strip joint crowd that you won't find

 among the unincarcerated. The population generally consists of bikers,

 pimps, hookers, hustlers, addicts of all description, and ex-four-round

 boxers. In short, these people have no problem with repressed hostility.

This is a veritable poster group for primal therapy. And while the

 patrons found the atmosphere exciting, I found it - how can I put this

 delicately? - horrifying.

 

To add to the ambience the stripping area, a circular plexiglass dance

 floor that featured an electronic colour-pattern show, sat under a giant,

 rotating, coloured mirror ball, a remnant of the disco era that now

 served only to illuminate the hundreds of tattoos littered about the

 room, like a psychedelic Tilt-A-Whirl with a bad attitude.

 

When I started, the place was run by the owner's wife, who roared up

 daily in a bells-and-whistles Cadillac that would have made Mary Kay

 blush. She walked on an angle, courtesy of the lemon-sized diamond

 mounted on her left hand as she trailed her white mink coat through the

 minefield of spilled beer, dried blood and broken teeth. Her

 accoutrements were highlighted by a linebacker's build, topped off by

 phosphorescent red lipstick that must have been applied with a

 sledgehammer.

 

As for the world of medicine, I was introduced to it on my first day in

 the form of dentistry.

 

 

 

A perpetually inebriated scallop shucker who had obvious difficulty

 grasping concepts like "soap" and "comb" waltzed up to the bar and

 confronted Reg, the head waiter. Reg was a bald, leather-clad biker with

 the work SHOTGUN stencilled onto the back of his waiter's jacket. His

 primary interests in life were street fighting, binge drinking and

 adultery.

 

The shucker proceeded to inform Reg that he had a raging toothache and

 could he please punch the offending tooth out for him? Delighted to

 oblige, Reg told the patient to take a firm hold of the bar and tilt his

 head ever so slightly upwards. He then unloaded with a series of patented

 left hooks and right crosses that would have satisfied a pay-per-view

 boxing crowd.

 

 The result of this savage flurry was eye-popping - literally. Not only

 did it appear that Reg had removed every tooth from the man's head but

 he'd also clearly broken his nose, fractured his jaw and left one of his

 eyes dangling precariously in the vicinity of its socket.

 

 "Did I get it?" inquired Reg.

 

 

 "Don't know," slurred the patient. "Gimme a beer."

 

 Reg's partner, Albert, an affable, middle-aged guy with yellowish skin,

 chimed in, "I pull my own out with piano wire," and proceeded to flash a

 jack-o-lantern smile at me.

 

Eventually, the owner appointed me waiter/disc jockey/manager after he,

 along with several dozen passersby, caught his wife, who had been the

 manager, in a compromising position with the disc jockey in the back seat

 of her Cadillac. That the car was parked in the crowded parking lot with

 its top down and radio blaring was probably predictable - and hardly

 uncommon. Then, in a cost-cutting move, considering that I was taller

than the other waiters, he make me the bouncer as well. I was speechless

 at this honour.  Dread can do that to you.

 

 

 

It was in this capacity that I had my next run-in with the world of

 medicine.  I attempted to usher out an intoxicated man who was verbally

 abusing the crowd at the top of his lungs. As I wrestled him through the

 side door and out of the view of the crowd, he suddenly lurched upwards

 and fell face-first onto the parking lot asphalt.

 

 

 "Call an ambulance," I shrieked as the patrons hovered about the stricken

 man.

 

 "What'd you do to him, man? Looks like you killed him," said the guy with

 a tattoo of a third eye on his forehead.

 

 

 "I didn't touch him," I pleaded. "He just keeled over."

 

 

 "Sure he did, man," said the oily dude with the Dracula overbite and

 hysterical laughter broke out.

 

 

Soon enough the ambulance and police car pulled up. By this time the

 crowd almost had me convinced that I'd just committed murder.

 

 "He's dead," pronounced the medic, and my blood pressure hit the

 stratosphere. "His liver exploded - probably dead before he hit the

 ground," he added, and I instinctively yelled, "Thank God!" The cop

 looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered.

 

 It was at this precise moment that I had an "out-of-body experience," so

 often chronicled by surgery patients. As I turned to head back into the

 bar, a drunken woman screamed, "Murderer!" and hit me squarely in the

 temple with one of those over-sized purses, the kind they don't make

 anymore with the four metal studs on the bottom.

 

 It must have been filled with either several rolls of quarters or her

 make-up kit and as I sagged to the floor I felt my spirit leave my body

 and hover above the scene. I recall my severe irritation as I watched her

 repeatedly poke me in the eye before she was cold-cocked by Reg. Medicare

 indeed.

 

 The following several days were nondescript except for the strange case

 of "Eddie Match."

 

 

Eddie was a short, slight transient who, years earlier, had fallen out a

 third-storey window at a bootleggers. The resultant head injury had left

 him somewhat "neurologically impaired" or in tavern parlance, "a little

 punchy." We gave Eddie the last name Match because he was constantly

 asking for matches from the staff. That he already possessed enough of

 these to give Yankee firebug William Tecumseh Sherman a run for his money

 in torching the Civil War Atlanta was of no consequence to him-but certainly drew the

 attention of the local firehouse.

 

 In any case, Eddie staggered in one night and ordered his usual two beer

 when I couldn't help but notice that his left hand was bandaged up with

 what must have been three adult-sized bedsheets. I asked him what had

 happened and he related the following story:

 

 "Me and George were drinkin' wine up at my place last night when I got

 hungry. So I turned a burner on to make Kraft Dinner. Anyways, George

 asks me a question and I can't think of the answer. But I didn't want him

 to tell me so I stayed there thinkin' at the stove and leaned against it

 with my hand.

 

 "After a couple minutes or so, I smelled something funny burnin' and when

 I looked down I seen that I turned the wrong burner on and my hand was

 stuck on the burnin' one. Well, I couldn't get it off so George takes a

 hold of me and gives a yank and we both fell on the floor. And there was

 most of the skin off my hand burnin' away on the stove and you talk about

 a stink.

 

 So George takes a pound of butter and spreads it all over my hand, wraps

 it up in bedsheets and I said the hell with the Kraft Dinner."

 

 Sounds like primeval dermatology to me.

 

 I'd be remiss if I didn't recount what I learned about medicine from the

 strippers themselves. One particular incident springs to mind which

 touches on hygiene, gynecology and psychology.

 

 In my role as stripper-auditioner, I was once approached by what's

 generally referred to as a "biker chick." She told me she wanted to be a

 stripper and I set up a time for the following morning for the audition.

 She arrived on time and I began to set up in the sound booth.

 

 Auditions were always held in the morning because the "strip section" was

 closed to the public. In any case, I told the girl the drill: panties,

 bra, easily disposed-of top and high heels. Off she went to the changing

 room and I proceeded to set up the light show. Suddenly, she appeared at

 the booth door and knocked to get in. Now the sound booth wasn't much

 bigger than a standard closet and was definitely designed for one person

 at a time. Nevertheless, I let her in and she closed the door. She was

 wearing only panties as she held the rest of the gear in her hand and she

 gave me strict instructions on what songs she wanted played for her

 audition.

 

 However, music choices aside, I was immediately struck by two things -

 no, not those two things. Virtually every inch of her body was covered

 with obscene tattoos and her unusually pungent aroma throttled my

 olfactory senses and led me to the inescapable conclusion that this girl

 had never seen one of those so-called "feminine" commercials that deal

 with "feeling fresh." In a flash, I barked my instructions to her and she

 scampered off to the dance floor.

 

As the music reached a crescendo and the "biker chick" had gone through

 the obligatory preening, prancing and pouting, the moment arrived to

 remove the clothing. First came the high-heels. One hit the ceiling, the

 other bounced off the grill. The top was then ripped off in a savage

 thrust of rather muscular arms. The bra disappeared faster than pardons

 on Death Row and then we reached the last stage, removal of the panties.

 

Inexplicably, she stopped dancing and made the cut-throat motion for me

 to stop the music. Quizzically I relented, exited the booth and asked her

 what the problem was. "I'm too fucking shy," she said.

 

 

 

      Fred Desjardins is an accomplished writer and performer, he can be found at http://fdesjardins.ca/ .