The Wilderness Years - Stripper Lessons vol. 2 (Marilyn pt. 2)

I was still slack-jawed as i ambled towards the door, the piss yellow lights of Baum Blvd glowing above me like halos, i slowly walked the half a block towards the 759, glancing towards the murmur and smell of Joe's Bar, yes Joe's had that ancient city bar smell that you could sometimes pick up from half a block away, i believe i was mumbling to myself the whole way home, "Marilyn turns fucking tricks, she turns fucking tricks, who woulda thunk it?"  Of course anyone with a fucking brain would have thought it but the fact it had now been verified to the Sophisticate Rube had me befuddled, i walked into my place and looked at my roommates and blurted it out, "you can fuck Marilyn, the stripper, for two bills an hour, believe that shit?"  They of course both believed that shit...

Thus began the great moral debate? do i part with 200 bucks to fuck Marilyn? is that somehow cheating myself out of something? that little subconscious voice, the ego trip of banging a stripper, have i somehow failed myself by paying for it? did i really think i'd ever bed a stripper? i guess somehow i must have, just like every mark that walks in the door i had to at least entertain the notion? who was i to think i'd be fucking smart or suave or better yet dumb enough to throw shit loads of money at one of these girls in hopes of attaining carnal knowledge, i wasn't some stoned philosophical genius, i was a fucking apeman who read books, and so weeks went by as i went back and forth with what i should do, when i saw her at the club i wouldn't mention a thing about it, but i did drop my finder's fee for her gear, that there should have shown me my true intentions, and yet i really didn't want to date her, i just wanted to fuck her, once or twice, who knows maybe even a half dozen times but i did realize she was a train rolling towards a wreck, in a way it's the best compliment i could give her, she had sold me on the lie, the myth, the method, and the madness...

And then i got my hands on a whole bunch of magic mushrooms, at this point i had kind of given up on the whole Marilyn thing, not that i didn't have the money but more that i felt a bit shy, almost awkward about asking, had we hung out too much in that shitty club that reminded one of a 1970's wood panelled finished basement? were we like fucking friends or something? it was weird but that's how it felt, but we weren't friends it was fucking business right? i was confused, of course when one is lost or needs answers the answers can always be found in what Terrence McKenna refers to as heroic doses, most of my young adulthood is littered with heroic doses, why i couldn't just take mortal ones i don't know, guess it wasn't as much fun, wasn't as challenging, maybe it was that summer when i was 19 and working as a cashier at Hill's Department Store and reading that shit book No One Here Gets Out Alive, the rite of passage of every suburban American white boy who dives headlong into hallucinogens. the whole "bet with your mind" thing and my fucking youthful bravado didn't believe in much but damn if it didn't believe in my own mind...

So one fine Thursday i came home from the warehouse and began grinding up some mushrooms, i started with two grams, i sat at my desk and hit shuffle on the stereo and waited... that initial rush was always like catching a wave that was too big, i grinned and held on, of course an hour or two later i ate another couple grams and then made my way to the apartments front porch to drink beer and watch the cars go by and the sun set and debate the merits of nothingness with the good Doctor... i'm not sure what time it was when the good Doctor, drunk off his ass stumbled towards his apartment door. The porch was littered with beer cans and i had been talking a blue streak and the good Doctor spent the night laughing and telling me how fucked up i was but that was really code for "i love you man", you see while the good Doctor had stopped tripping i just kept right on going and he always liked hanging out with me as i rode the waves, there was a time when we were like the Han and Chewie of psychedelics and since my best mate had turned in for the night i got up and checked my pockets, realized i had a bit of cash, i pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from my other pocket and lit one of the remaining four and started walking towards the neon...

Anthony's Lounge was your creepy uncle's basement, if your creepy uncle's basement just happened to have a couple of stripper poles. The dim lighting, the mirrored walls, X-mas lights above the bar, some old neon beer signs... i walked into a decent Thursday night, the colored lights from the stage and loud music temporarily overloading the senses for a second before adjusting, i grabbed a beer from the bar and sat down at the stage... the bartender was smiling at me, the waitress was smiling at me, i looked in the mirror and i was smiling at me , i was fucking pie-eyed, one look at the grin i couldn't shake and my pupils and the words for me were "proper fucked", and so i sat and watched the girls dance, i saw Marilyn's name on the board, i must have just missed her in the rotation because i sat and watched and tipped and laughed with some of the girls i knew, there was a sexy little blond who we called Little Blond (original eh?) who clocked how fucked i was straight away and began begging me for some drugs, i told her next time and went back to grinning, she pouted and threw her hair in my face while she crawled into my lap and purred "you lucky fucker" into my ear, another wave washed over and i sat there smiling, what else was i gonna do with my raging mushroom hard-on? stand up?

Marilyn came out and worked her way over to me by her second song, she smiled and put her legs on my shoulders and gyrated away as i sat mesmerized by her tiny g-string, i tossed some ones down and she spun around and tossed her hair my way, she looked up and giggled, "you look fucking wasted", i grinned and told her i was tripping balls and then like a freight train running downhill i crashed right in, i got 200 i blurted out probably louder than i should have, what? she said, i got some money i said leaning in, you know... for, and i sat there and sorta shrugged or slumped or god knows what as another wave washed over me, Marilyn stared blankly at me, i just kept grinning at her, the money for later you know when you get off you know, and then like the genius i was i pointed towards her knees, i wanted to yell, you know Jen i mean Marilyn, the rug burn, fucking, i want to fuck you for money and i got the money... luckily that didn't come out of my mouth, of course it didn't have to cuz Marilyn was already looking at me as if i had a third eye, and not some third eye chakra filled with wisdom and power but a third eye oozing puss, a third eye fit for a monster, i of course was looking confused as the psilocybin kicked my ass...

And then in a flash she was gone, she stood up and walked to the other side of the stage and that was the last i'd see of her, my third eye having chased her away... and so i sat there and watched a few more dancers, i was befuddled by her reaction to say the least, of course i was fucking lit up and out of my mind but that wasn't an uncommon occurrence, so i finished my beer and stood up, i wobbled a second or two and made for the door, outside the cool air was a shock from the smell of smoke and perfume and booze to the cool and damp city night, traffic had died down on the boulevard and as i started to walk home it hit me, i had just been rejected by a hooker, i let out a huge laugh and began talking to myself out loud as if there were two of me, cackling like a goofball about being shot down by a stripper/prostitute, for some reason i felt as if i had accomplished something, the cars that passed must have surely guessed me for a crazy homeless person as i weaved my way down the sidewalk talking to myself, rejected by a hooker, what a fucking riot!!, the stars shone down and i laughed and laughed, the universe was a mad place i thought as i walked past the empty cans littering my porch and up towards my bed, i flipped off the light and flopped onto the mattress and giggled away, i gazed at the kaleidoscope on my ceiling and thanked Marilyn for saving me 2 bills, never had a rejection amused me so much, i laughed as the sound of the boulevard slipped in my window...