Strip Clubs!!

Chaz's viewpoint - I was working for a company that was doing a project on HVAC and I was teamed up with this technician, Steve, who lived in the bayou of Louisiana. He would fly up to Detroit every other week or so to help prepare for the project. The project was actually going to take place in Atlanta and we would be there for 4 weeks testing HVAC units. On his first trip up to Detroit, I found out this guy was addicted to strip clubs. He insisted on going to them whenever he got a chance. My personal opinion on strip clubs is that while I like looking at the woman, but I hate paying $6 for a beer more, so unless it is a special occasion, I don’t go. Every time he flew back to Louisiana, he insisted that we leave earlier enough, so he could spend a couple hrs at the strip clubs by Detroit Metro.

Anyways, the project was to test the HVAC systems for a telephone company in Atlanta. This is rather critical for them since phone equipment generate a lot of heat, so require a lot of cooling. We are scheduled to begin April, but this makes to much common sense. I mean why would you check the cooling systems in the spring when they are starting to run? It would be a much better test to check them in, let’s say, January. The morons..oops, clients felt that it would be safer to check them while they weren’t operational and since they were paying, it meant we were inspecting cooling equipment in January.

Steve and I coordinate our flights and arrive in Atlanta close to the same time, get the rental car and head to hotel. We check in and grab a bit to eat in the restaurant. As we are sitting there, Steve pulls out this ½ inch thick stack of papers and hands it too me. It contains an Internet search of all strip clubs in a 50 mile radius of Atlanta. There were literally hundreds. Steve is like - let’s go to the closet one. I hand him the car keys and said have fun. I didn’t want the expense, plus there was a new software program that I was still working on, so I didn’t have time.

Over the next couple of weeks, I find out a few things about Steve. First, he is not comfortable in a big city and refused to drive. Second, he is a racist. He never did anything overt, but the long days of working together, it was easy to tell. As long as he did his job, didn’t become obnoxious about it, and didn’t offend anyone working with us, then his opinion is his opinion.

Two weeks into the job, an ice storm hits Atlanta. Now for someone that lives in Michigan, this is nothing, maybe a ½ inch of ice. For Atlanta it was as if the new ice age was upon us. Everything shuts down. I talk to my boss and the client and am able to convince them that it is not fiscally responsible for us to stay as we are not getting any good readings. Yeah, we can go home. I work with the airlines and manage to get flights for Steve and I back to our respective states that day. Mine left in about 3 hrs and Steve’s left in about 5. We pack up and head to the airport. Now while we were packing, Steve had jumped on the Internet and found a strip club that was about a mile away from where we were to return the car.

For the next half hour while we drove, I had to listen to him beg and plead to go to this strip club. I finally gave in and headed toward it. Steve was so excited that he was paying much attention to the neighborhood we were entering. I have a pretty high survival instinct, so I did. To a Detroit paramedic (me), it was not that bad, especially in the day time, so I continued onward. This was around 1 or 2 on a Wednesday afternoon. We arrive at this red lipstick colored building. I would like to call it a shack, but it was medium sized building, so I am not sure if qualifies. We get out of the car and go to enter. A few things that made me concerned: First, two rather large bouncers. While this is probably normal for a weekend night, but this was a Wednesday afternoon. Next was the metal detector that we had to go through. The third concern was the intensive pat down/frisk that done? I felt I should have tipped the guy, but since I do like my head attached to my neck, I didn’t. These things are not normal in strip clubs I have frequented.

We get allowed in and we are in a little foyer with a door that opens into the actual strip club. I ask Steve if he wants to continue. He is like a kid in a candy store. With his eyes gleaming, he says yes. Now in hindsight, I imagine that all the security precaution made Steve think this was some special place, possibly a brothel. I actually hope he wasn’t thinking that way cause if he was his dreams were shattered when we went through the 2nd door.


We enter the dimly lit club and make our way to a rickety table near the front stage. A waitress takes our order and leaves. As my eyes adjust, it becomes apparent that we are the only Caucasians in the place. This doesn’t bother me and from the area of Atlanta we were in, I expected it. Watching Steve’s face as this bit of reality dawns on him was funny. He takes a swig of his beer and focuses on the main stage. There is an African-American woman dancing. He gets a frown on his face and starts to look around. He glances to the left. Yep, all African-American people. He glances to the right. Shit, nothing but African-American people there too. He turns around and looks at the bar. He face falls because it also only has African-American people there too. As I have to work with him for at least a couple of more weeks, I couldn’t really laugh at him, but it was difficult not too.

Now, one of the rules of strip clubs is that if you make contact with one of the girls who are wandering around, they will come over and leech money… I mean talk to you. Of course you have to buy a $6 glass of water that they call wine to keep them there longer than a moment. They also do this if you don’t look at them, but not as much. Previously, Steve would always try to attract attention, but here he just stared straight ahead and drank quickly. Another rule of strip clubs is to drink slowly as it is usually $6 a beer. I have seen Steve nurse a single beer for over an hour. This day he was half way done with it before I had more than two drinks out of mine.

I am looking around. People watching as I usually do when I hear - Psst..Psst! It was Steve trying to get my attention. Now most people are along the walls or at the bar. We are the only ones at a table. There is no one within 15 ft of us and the music is quite loud, so I am wondering why he is being all secretive. Steve leans forward and discretely points at the main dancer – What’s wrong with her? Is that small pox
I look closely at the dancer for the first time. I see what he is looking at and why it might be concern. However, it wasn’t small pox. It was gunshot wound scars. She had 4 or 5 bullet scars in her leg and lower back. My first thought was that is unusual, but it was quickly overridden by the thought probably not around here. My second thought was wow my first stripper with gunshot wounds. Cool. As I explained what they were to Steve and how it probably occurred – drive by with automatic since the scars started low and went up and to the left, Steve’s eyes got even wider, which I didn’t think was possible.

Steve took another drink and said lets go. Being the nice person that I am, I reminded him that this was the only strip club we had gone to, so didn’t he want to stay. He didn’t. I pointed out the time. He would be sitting at the airport for at least 3 hrs. Wouldn’t he rather sit here and enjoy the atmosphere. For some reason, he didn’t want to do that either. I took another 10 minutes to drink my beer. All the while, savoring the payback of all the other times he made me go to clubs and waste my time. We left and flew out.

A month or so later, we finished up the last two weeks of the project. The funny thing was Steve never asked to go to strip club with me again. Actually, guess I should be grateful to him. Without his pleading, I never would have seen the battle scarred stripper.