When Hustles Flow pt 3

Dressed in all black, black skin tight stretch jeans, fitted black baby doll tee which reads “I’m ready” in white letters across her breast. Her long silky black hair was pinned up into a ponytail to show her dangling silver earrings. Putting a piece of gum in her mouth she approached the door ready to get money. “Chewing a piece of gum can change any woman’s attitude, it gives’em confidence” chuckled the security guard as he observed Connie get out of the car, put the gum in her mouth and walk up to enter the club. “You dat new bartender ain’tcha.” “Yeah, I’m connie”, “I am Marty”, security. “Nice to meet you,” she replied as she shook his hand firmly. “Let me check your bag and you can go in” Thanks, see ya later, keep me safe Marty, Connie smiled, winked and walked into the club. “Ok, let me show you around real quick, Kee Kee started quickly as she pulled Connie behind the bar. “Ok, here is the liquor, when there get empty, pull from here….” There was no time to spend orientating Connie as a new bartender, she had to come in and get straight to work.

 Things were moving so fast that she was just trying to take it all in as Kee Kee was rambling off information “The proper name for the girls are dancers, if you call a girl a stripper be prepared to fight.” “This is your end of the bar, this is your tip jar, you cross over to the other side and take a customer, you taking another bartender’s money. If you wanna make friends then remember these two rules don’t mess with anybody else’s money and don’t let anybody mess with yours.” “Got it?” even though at this point she was still trying to take everything in she replied “got it!” over the music. As Connie turned to the bar to begin taking customers she became immovable when she looked to her left and saw a girl climb the pole, flip over, and slide down upside down with her legs wide open. Her mouth dropped open, she had only seen that done on TV. “Ay sweetie let me get a grey goose and orange juice” yelled a short light skinned customer, he was of Spanish decent, 5’5, long black silky hair which was braided back into corn rolls. Connie still could not move, “ay young!” he yelled again.

“A-Ah I’m sorry, grey goose and juice right, yeah” she stuttered. “You new?” “Yeah” “$10” as she went to put the money in the register, he’s a regular, his name is Boogie. Take good care of him, you’re cute he will tip you good.” “I’m Kelly, I am a bartender too” “I’m Connie” “Yeah, I know now go make some money” she said as she gave Connie a pat on the butt as if she had scored in a basketball game. Connie didn’t know whether to move, hit Kelly for doing some gay s**t, cover her eyes as she served the customers, or just run home. “Here you go, $10 is your change” she said handing him two five dollar bills. She learned in bartending school how to ask for tips without asking. “Thanks babe, he replied and threw $5 in her tip jar.” As the $5 hit the bottom of the glass jar, she smiled. It was as if making her first $5 was motivation. Connie didn’t have long to stand in awe of the dancers and their routines, the bar began to fill up…..ay, let me get a hennesy and coke…let me get a grey goose and cranberry…..let me get a blue motorcycle…people were yelling to the bartenders. Kee Kee wasn’t much help, she seemed to stay in the back office most of the night. Connie stepped up her game and was fixing drinks like a pro. He owners at “The Penthouse” are too cheap to buy glasses for the drinks which made it easier for the bartenders because all drinks were fixed for a regular size plastic cup and the shots were fixed for plastic cups about half that size.

 Every time the bar slowed down for a second, Connie would stop and admire the dancers for the way they could move. She took notice of the way they were tantalizing these men and taking their money. The night came to an end quickly, the bartenders were paid their $40 cut, they grabbed their bag of tip money and went home. Connie exhaled and drove home in silence, she then realized that working in a club could make you appreciate silence. As soon as she got home, she took off her shoes and dumped her money out on the bed. “Ones, fives, twenties!” she yelled as she tossed the money up and fell back on the bed. Connie made about $200 in one night. “If I can make $200 on a Wednesday then I have to be able to double that on Friday.” The next morning Connie was trying her best to sleep in but some inspirational song kept playing into her dreams. She new something was wrong because her dreams kept being about having trouble with some people in the strip club but an inspiration song would interrupt the dream right in the middle…Then she realized that her phone was ringing. Her mother’s ring tone was some traditional phillipino inspirational song. “Yeah ma” “What are you doing still sleep? It’s 12:00pm, you are normally at the gym by now.” “Yeah ma I stayed up really late last night” “Doing what? No more of those thugs Connie” “Ma, I will call you back later she replied in a low toned tiresome way.”

After that first night, Connie knew what to do, every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday she would get the bar up and running in no time. Most of the time she ran the bar alone, Kelly would come late every night, and Kee Kee seemed to stay in the back office once the night began. Kelly schooled Connie on all the strippers…”See her, Kelly explained while pointing at a tall dark skinned dancer, her name is MeMe, she is about 5’10, wearing a white halter top and a white spandex skirt to match, her long dark chocolate colored legs stretched down into a pair of white gogo boots with an extra tall heel. “Ah and her,” she said pointing to another girl, her name is Keymani but we call her spongebob, because she is only 5’5 but her legs are 5’9. “Connie laughed but listened to Kelly as she pointed out the girls. “And her, her name is Cat, she’s gay so watch out for her, she likes long silky hair.” Connie turned to Kelly with a look of disgust, “what?! We are in a strip club, most of the girls in here are bi-sexual. I am thinking about dancing myself” “why would you do that?” Connie asked. “More money!” Kelly yelled. Connie became addicted to the quick money, she didn’t mind ignoring working with naked women when it came to making at least $200 for working 4 hours doing something fun. June and July seemed to pass quickly. Before Connie knew it she had made it through the whole summer off of tips and drinks. It was two weeks before school was to start again and Trudy started to question Connie more and more about why she had been so tired a couple of days out of the week. Connie felt as if she could not let her parents know what she was doing, so she just made up stories to tell her mom.

They already considered her to have chosen the wrong crowd all her life well this is one crowd they definitely wouldn’t want her around. Connie got in good with MeMe and Keymani, she would pay their tip out as long as they got every customer that paid for a dance to pay for a drink too. Tip out is money that dancers had to pay for dancing at the club. This amount was determined by what time they came in. The later they came in the more they would have to pay. Dancer liked coming in late in the night because this is the time when the most customers are in the club. More customers means more dances, more dances means more tips. The dancers would either come to the bar with the customers money to buy the drink or the customer would come themselves. If the dancer came to the bar with the customers money to buy a drink they would make cure Connie was well tipped. If the customer came to the bar to buy the drink Connie would charge them more claiming to give them more liquor. Management nor the other bartenders knew about this.

The liquor inventory stayed correct, the cash drawer stayed correct so according to management things were correct and that’s all that mattered behind the bar. The summer vacation is coming to an end, Connie always picks up Jacob the weekend before school starts. As the week before school approaches, teachers have to report to work. She could hardly stay awake through the staff development sessions. On Tuesday she got a call from Kee Kee, “hey Connie” “Wassup Kee Kee” “Kelly finally decided to be a dancer so now we are going to need someone to work Wednesday thru Sunday, do you think you can do it?” The first thing that came to Connie’s mind was the money. Since she started this job she has been able to do whatever she wants and buy whatever she wants. She didn’t save any because she knew she could go to work the next night and get it right back. “A-a yeah, I will take it” ......