Christmas Eve At a Strip Club

It's Christmas Eve in San Francisco, and a stingy business traveler is visited by three mysterious strippers who will take him on a bizarre journey through time and space. Parody of a Dickens tale.

Christmas Eve At a Strip Club     
 
            by James M. Carroll
            ©2016 James M. Carroll, All Rights Reserved

My business had left me longer in San Francisco than I wanted, and now I would have to stay in the city for the Christmas holiday. It was now Christmas Eve. The San Francisco sales office had been under-performing, and I was tasked with correcting the problem. Nothing can better motivate an office than the abrupt firing of a longtime employee -- it terrified the herd, and motivated them to work extra hours and at a frantic pace. After the tearful termination was completed, I decided to quickly grab something to eat and spend some time at the famous Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater strip club. 

Since it was hell trying to find an open restaurant, I decided on some fast food at a Quiznos that was across the street from the club. Despite my better instincts, I decided on a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and a super-sized bag of onion rings, and within minutes was inside the strip club. 

First Courtney approached me, told me that she was facing foreclosure on her house, and said she would give me a very special private show for $200. But after thinking about all the money I hadn't saved during the year, I only said: "sorry." As she wandered off, I thought I heard her mutter cheapskate. Then as I walked a little further, Katrina snuggled up to me, said she desperately needed some more cash for presents, and could give me a reason to live for just $100. But I didn't feel like reaching in my wallet, and so I replied: "no thanks." While passing the stage, I noticed that Julianne had just started her act. 

By now the Philly cheesesteak was kicking up a storm, and I felt like I was going to pass out. So I quickly grabbed a seat in the rear of the left-stage seating and got ready to ride out my digestive storm. While slumped back in my seat, I tried to take a short nap. 

But just as I began to doze off, I was approached by a beautiful stripper who I had never seen before, and she asked me to follow her. She led me down the long hallway to the club's exit, and said we had to make a stop next door at 859 O'Farrell Street. As we walked down the sidewalk my curiosity got to me, and I started to question her.

"But wait, isn't 859 O'Farrell Street the Great American Music Hall?" 

"No Robert, it's called The Music Box. See, right there on the sign."

And as I looked up, sure enough, the sign said: The Music Box - Starring Tonight - Sally Rand. All of a sudden I remembered that Sally Rand was a famous stripper of the 1930's who had previously owned the building in the early 20th-century. 

"Wait, what the hell is going on... this is 2007? Where am I? Who the hell are you, anyway?"

She turned and smiled. "Why, I'm the Ghost of Stripper Past, and the year is 1936. Calm down, we're only going to meet Sally."  

At this point I began to regret all the acid I took in college and wondered when the men in white suits might show up and take me away. We walked inside and entered a dressing room behind the stage. 

Near a lighted mirror was an elderly gentleman who was speaking to a beautiful woman with blond hair. She was having balloons taped to the bodystocking that she was wearing. With frustration in her voice, the woman began to complain.

"Why the hell won't they let me at least show my breasts? Ten years ago this place was a bordello called Blanco's. Hey, we're in San Francisco, aren't we? It's not like I'm working at the Chicago World's Fair, or in San Diego where they drew blood from the pebbles they threw at me."

"Look Miss Rand, the year is 1936 and the country is going backward. The reformist movement has changed everything. Hemlines came down, no more New Orleans jazz, no more bathtub gin, and no more flappers. Hell, the Republicans might even defeat FDR."

As I tried to speak to Sally Rand, the Stripper of Christmas Past whispered in my ear.

"Slow down sparky, they can't even see us, let alone hear you. See how hard it was in the past. Strippers were so confined by local morality laws that they could hardly work in their underwear, let alone in the nude. Sally would have taken this crowd to the limit, but the times weren't right. Come on, we'll be late. We need to hurry back to the club. You still need to meet two more strippers."

We walked down O'Farrell street and in minutes were back inside the strip club. Before long I was sitting in my back row seat, when yet another unknown and beautiful stripper stepped before me. She began to speak.

"Wake up sleepyhead. I wanna show you the strippers' dressing room upstairs." 

Wow, I thought, after years of going to Mitchell Brothers, I finally get to see the strippers' inner sanctum.

As we passed through the curtains and walked up the stairway, I started to speak.

"I don't know if I caught your name?"

"Well", she laughed, "don't expect to find it on the strippers' stage rotation sheet for tonight. Don't you know who I am?"

"The Ghost of Stripper Present?"

"See... and you got it all by yourself. You're not such a pathetic loser after all."

As I looked around the dressing room, there was none of the excitement or erotic play that I had always imagined. Instead, a couple of anxious strippers were huddled around a willowy brunette who was seated with a shawl over her narrow shoulders. Her body was turned so that I couldn't see her face. One of the strippers at the brunette's side began to speak to her.

"Look sweetie, you gotta stop eating that cookie dough, and eat something healthy. Here, try some of this chicken soup." 

But the brunette in the shawl didn't speak, and only shook her head in refusal. To the left I could overhear another pair of strippers gossiping about her. 

"It's been like this ever since she fell off the stage. The doctor said she'd fractured her mojo and might not ever work at the club again. Her mojo can only be saved with a $300,000 operation, and she just doesn't have the cash. If she doesn't get the operation by the end of January, she might be through with stripping." 

"What a shame. She was one of the best strippers I've ever seen. No one could slither around the stage the way she could. And she always knew how to do that sexy eye-thing with the crowd."

"Absolutely. And all those pouty faces she made would really drive the guys wild. Poor Tracy, don't know if she'll ever get her mojo back again."

Tracy... is that Tracy Burke? screamed my mind.

I quickly stepped in front of the slender brunette to get a better view. She couldn't see me and continued to stare forward blankly. And indeed it was the famous Tracy Burke. 

For over a decade now Tracy Burke had been the most talked-about stripper in San Francisco. Her Barbie-like figure could not have been better designed by a sculptor for that legendary stage at Mitchell Brothers, in the building where the lap dance had been invented over two decades ago. Her freakishly long legs connected to a short torso which held a tiny waist. And her narrow shoulders made her moderate-sized breasts appear prominent and voluptuous. 

When Tracy stepped onto the stage of that noisy club -- with its drunken conventioneers, blue collar workers, and boisterous lawyers -- the room suddenly became as quiet as a church. Far from the stereotype of a stripper, Tracy was reminiscent of a young Nicole Kidman and seemed to possess the instincts of an accomplished actress. As a child she had always amused her girlfriends with the humorous antics of her rubbery face. And now that same facial dexterity, performed at a much more subtle level, was what set her apart from even the most sophisticated strippers during that lucrative era of stripping, which occurred near the new millennium. None could resist her trademark smirk as she sauntered to the front of the stage when beginning her performance.

"What the hell?" I shouted at the Ghost of Christmas Present, "is this for real, or am I just sleeping off the Philly cheesesteak sandwich? Does Tracy Burke's fantastic career really end this way?"

"No Robert," she said in a stern tone. "It doesn't have to end this way. Come on, we're going to be late. You still have one more stripper to meet."  

And so I reluctantly walked down the stairs from the dressing room and in a moment was back in my seat near the right of the stage. 

My stomach was worse than ever; it felt like I swallowed a golf ball. I tried to fall back asleep when yet another unknown and beautiful stripper was suddenly standing before me. She told me to follow her, and soon we were outside the building and walking down Polk Street toward San Francisco's City Hall. It seemed odd that city hall would be completely lit up at this hour, and that there was a meeting going on inside. As we entered the crowded meeting hall of the Board of Supervisors, I began to question the stripper.

"Okay, okay... I get it. You're probably the Ghost of Stripper Future. And what year are we in?"

"2027," she replied, "and San Francisco is a much different place than it was in the 1990s -- not much liberalism left at all. David Needscomb is still mayor, but now he's become a Republican and is very religious." 

During the 1990s young David Needscomb's political career as a Democrat took off like a rocket ship, largely due to his handsome features, trim body, vibrant speaking voice, and fastidious urban grooming. While advocating the liberal beliefs and policies of that time, he quickly won the hearts of the city's yuppies and the endorsements of its senior politicians. But the stripper was right; Needscomb had indeed changed with time. He was now grey, balding, and nearly as fat as Dick Cheney -- in fact you might have guessed that they were brothers. The head of the Board of the Supervisors was about to address the crowd.

"On today's agenda we consider a permit for a new strip club to be mutually owned by a group of working strippers. Katrina Summers will present the proposal." 

Katrina moved toward the microphone and got ready. I couldn't believe how young she looked, almost as if she hadn't aged a day in the twenty years since I first saw her perform at Mitchell Brothers. She began to speak.

"Board of Supervisors, Mayor, fellow San Franciscans, as you know strip clubs have evolved a long way since the days of fan dances, balloon strippers, and pasties. Since the early 1980s, it has become known that the conversational interaction of stripper and patron during a lap dance had created an interactive experience, much different than the passive viewing of earlier striptease performances. The lap dance experience was so credible that many patrons even thought they had fallen in love with lap dancers, in much the same way that patrons developed crushes on taxi-dancers during the early 20th-century. And now in a few progressive strip clubs across the world, there is yet another new and interactive experience among erotic actresses and actors, and their male and female patrons.

New psychological studies indicate that the fantasy experience of a strip club is not a threat to marriage, but is instead a safety valve that can relieve the tremendous pressures of marriage. What the romantic movie used to do for couples is now accomplished with much greater intensity while inside the modern strip club. And now to demonstrate our proposal for a new futuristic strip club, I'd like to show a video that Tracy Burke has prepared with her acting troupe. If you'll please get the lights..." 

But Katrina was quickly cut off by an elderly city supervisor on the right. 

"Yes, yes... Ms. Summers, we have all heard of your ridiculous proposal. You try to tell us that stripping is healthy and is an emerging art form -- just like the early days of stage acting. Well, we've already seen the video of Ms. Burke and her girls, and frankly we found nothing inspiring or artistic about it."

All of a sudden David Needscomb stood up. As he waddled toward the microphone, his shirttails fell out of his pants. Tugging his belt upward, he tried to cover his massive stomach. Then with an arrogant and condescending tone, he slowly spoke into the microphone.

"I think it's high time that we put an end to this modern strip club nonsense, once and for all. We need to protect these poor girls from themselves. Board of Supervisors, I propose that we shut down all the strip clubs in town. We don't need that kind of immorality in a quiet community like San Francisco."

With that the supervisors all applauded. Not only was San Francisco not to be the birthplace of a new modern strip club movement, but was in fact to have its entire strip club scene closed forever. The ghost stripper's face seemed blurred as I began to question her.

"Come on, I'm dreaming, right? How could things get this bad?" Her eyes held a subtle anger as she patiently began to explain.

"Well Robert, you've missed a few chapters. When Tracy couldn't afford to get her mojo surgery, her mojo failed along with her instincts for performance. Even though she tried her best, she just couldn't get the presentation video right. And without a powerful video, there was just no way to get through to the Board of Supervisors. See how interconnected everything is? And how easily it can all fall apart -- just like pulling a thread on a cheap suit. What a shame, it really was a fantastic idea."

"So if Tracy had gotten her mojo surgery... this new type of interactive theater would've really succeeded?"

"What do you think" was the last thing I heard her say. 

In a moment I woke with a shudder. I was back in my seat at the right of the stage. As I looked around the room, everything seemed the same. Julianne was still on the stage, and an old man was eating a brown-bag lunch in the second row. Courtney methodically prowled the floor as she asked for lap dances, and Katrina had a mischievous smirk upon her face. 

I quickly rose from my seat, ran outside, hailed a cab, and in a few minutes was back at my hotel room. I grabbed the checkbook for my Vanguard mutual fund, and wrote out a check for $300,000. In a flash another cab took me back to the strip club where I found Tracy Burke leaning against a wall near the end of the hallway. Her blue eyes slowly met mine as she began to speak.

"Hi baby... like a lap dance?"

"Here, this is for you", and I handed her the check from Vanguard. Without even counting the zeros on the check, she hastily turned toward me and frowned.

"Look baby, you know we don't take checks." 

"Just keep it. Look... I have some things I gotta do. You could say I've become inspired." 

I turned and walked toward the exit. From of the corner of my eye I could see that she was finally examining the check. As I pushed the brass door forward, I heard Tracy give a little squeal and then shout: "Goodwill to PLs, everywhere."