Chad’s car is a 2003 PT Cruiser, navy blue, full of homework papers, stinking clothes, and miscellaneous detritus. He immediately turns on his stereo just as I’m settling into the vehicle, and the Queens of the Stone Age song No One Knows kicks on extra crunchy, the blown subwoofer on my side of the vehicle providing extra distortion. We take off, Chad pressing his foot on the gas pedal like a septuagenarian, creeping toward stop signs, pausing for two seconds at red lights, the light night flow of the city’s traffic passing us by like blood cells. We’re on our way to the heart, the fleshy, vital heart that beats and pulsates through these sad sack lives, pushing us onward, head over heels, trying to get us to move, to breathe, to live, to fuck. Chad lights a joint while he’s driving, and I only laugh and wonder how slowly he’ll continue, now under the influence. He offers me a tote, and I smile and say what the hell and take it. I’ve been living in a repressive environment, one of fatness, omnipresent pasta, mulleted men, and discarded ambition, and I’ve traded that life for one of muscles, drugs, guns, and youthful degeneracy. Does Chad fit into this? I think, looking at his effeminate complexion, smooth and oval-faced. I don’t know right now, and it’s fine, I conclude, to not know. We pull up to Cans and park in the lot, and it’s more packed than I would’ve imagined. I see the Conans standing before the entrance, engaged in a heated discussion with the bouncer, both of them wearing sleeveless shirts and cargo pants with combat boots. "Are those your friends?" asks Chad. I only shake my head and pull him forward.
"What the hell you mean Predator’s a shitty movie?" says Arnold, talking up to the bouncer, an African American fellow well over six feet tall.
"It’s not my favorite, alright? I’m more of a Terminator fan," says the bouncer.
"Terminator? Did you hear that, Dave? James fucking Cameron? That goddamn movie has time travel in it, and don’t get me started on how retarded time travel is. Why wouldn’t Skynet keep sending terminators back in time? Why would they quit just because Linda Hamilton stopped them once or twice? Is there a limit on that shit? Furthermore, is time linear, Maurice? Is it a straight line? I just can’t believe that. I believe in the grandfather paradox," says Arnold, emphatically gesticulating, moving his arms around in circles. "Back to the Future, Terminator, they can suck it."
"Predator’s got Carl Weathers in it," points out Dave.
"Why should I care about Carl Weathers? Just because he’s black?" asks Maurice.
"That’s probably why Dave said that, but forget him. Predator is the perfect action movie. The first part is your basic military flick. You got Schwarzenegger dealing knives and one-liners, cars blowing up, a solid team of bad-ass dudes. But then the tables turn, so to speak. The Predator starts hunting them, and they don’t know how to deal with it. There’s that scene where they blow apart the jungle with their machine guns, these big, muscled dudes, they’re helpless and left swinging their dicks around impotently, to no fucking avail. Is there that kind of phallic imagery in Terminator, Maurice? Can you really tell me a movie with fucking time travel in it is a better film? The machines will destroy us? Hell, that’s the most cliché sci-fi theme ever."
"Do you guys want in or not?" asks Maurice.
"You don’t have to let them in if they’re behaving badly," I say. "This is Chad, a classmate of mine."
"What’s up," says Chad, putting his hand forth. Neither of the brothers moves to shake his hand.
"We don’t shake hands," explains Dave.
"What’s wrong with you all?" says Maurice, shaking Chad’s hand before it is withdrawn. "You shake another man’s hand unless he’s done something bad to you."
"Man is a funny word. It has a varying definition in some circles," replies Arnold.
"If I let you two assholes in, you better drink a lot and tip the strippers," says Maurice. "Five dollar cover charge."
"What the hell we gotta pay a cover charge for if we’re gonna drink and tip the strippers?" asks Arnold. Maurice is about to reply with a barrage of obscenities, but I cut in and hand him a twenty dollar bill. The boys and I enter, going down the entryway, into the bar where we grab a table next to the stage. The crowd is good, much better than I expected considering Leslie’s constant complaints. I look at Arnold, who’s apparently still pissed about Maurice’s preference for Terminator over Predator, and ask him if he’ll go buy everybody drinks.
"Purple Rain over there needs to give me some money," he says. "I’m not spotting him anything." Chad fishes in his pocket and gives Arnold a five dollar bill, and he goes to fetch the alcohol.
"Do you guys get into fights and disagreements everywhere you go?" I ask Dave.
"He does, and I usually have to back him up," replies Dave. "We don’t play nice with others."
"I’m told that success in life often depends on how to win friends and influence enemies, or some crap like that," I say. "Social decorum and basic manners don’t apply, I guess, to barbarians such as yourselves?"
"I don’t know that we’re looking to get the same things out of life as most people," says Dave. "We don’t particularly care about living in poverty, as long as we have enough money for food, drugs, and other basic amenities. The comforts of modern life are overrated. I don’t have a television, a cellular phone, a garbage disposal. Our refrigerator is twenty years old; our furniture consists of pieces we’ve scavenged or stolen. Arnold and I desire strength over all things, not just of the body, but also of the mind. The whole Nietzschean concept, the will to power, the triumph of the individual over the harshness of the world—that’s the ideal we’re striving for. I don’t want to live in a McMansion with a four-car garage and a bunch of kids. I’d rather live out in the urban wasteland burning effigies in my backyard, stripped to the waist, drunk and belligerent. I’m selfish. I’m dedicated."
"You’re an artist," says Chad, interrupting.
"I think of myself that way. I don’t know if Arnold does. But he is, too. He’s probably a greater artist than me."
"These goddamn beers were five dollars a piece," says Arnold, slamming down our drinks. "Now I remember why I don’t go out anymore."
"We never went out in the first place," says Dave.
"That ‘cause we’re banned from half the bars in this town," replies Arnold. "We did go out, initially. Otherwise, we would’ve never been banned."
"Those are some nice melons," says Chad, as a stripper walks past our table.
"Hooters," says Dave.
"Bazoombas," replies Arnold.
"Ah, the conventional male obsession with tits. It feels good, you know, to hear you guys fetishize something normal, as opposed to, say, cannibalism or anthropomorphic ponies," I say.
"Hey, don’t think we don’t like to get freaky in the bedroom," says Arnold.
"Please don’t say we, Arnold," says Dave.
"Dave, you’re a weird motherfucker, at least as weird as me, so don’t be all leave-me-outta-this-shit, because I have stories, and you know I’ll tell them," replies Arnold.
"At least I’m not into pegging," says Dave.
"You know, we have some nice strap-ons for sale at Les Adultes, available in all sizes and colors," I tell Arnold.
"Dave likes it when they pee in his mouth," says Arnold.
"Welp, I’ve had about enough of this discussion," says Chad. "Can we just look at the boobies and leave all this weird stuff where it belongs?"
"You a Mormon?" asks Arnold.
"No, why?" replies Chad.
"He does it missionary only, like Bram Stoker intended," says Dave.
"Excuse me, what? Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. Are you thinking of Brigham Young?" I say.
"Whatever the little leprechaun’s name was," says Arnold.
"A leprechaun didn’t found Mormonism," says Chad.
"The fuck it didn’t. A little racist leprechaun that’s polygamous? Wears a green buckled hat like a pilgrim? Dances with a box of Lucky Charms?" says Arnold.
"Now you’re just fucking with us," I tell him.
"That ain’t me," says Arnold, as the first stripper comes on stage. She’s blonde, curvaceous, conventional, a decent pole dancer. The boys watch and salivate; I can see the horniness radiating off of their eyeballs, dripping onto the table, ugly, desperate, obscene. They grip the table; they fixate their vision, peering holes through this large-breasted female, boring into her soul, eager to see something that no one else can, through the shallow skin, the shiny exterior. They want, they want, they want—they have no conception of balance, of shared sexual pleasure, they only know the needs of themselves, the raw, angry desire—Arnold grits his teeth, he gnashes and bites his lip—and the blonde dances, writhing her hips, moving her breasts like ammunition. Some toss dollar bills up at her, not many, but a few. The Conans have come prepared, and they spew cash all over the stage, the sum total likely not exceeding forty dollars. I watch her collect, smoothly bending down, not taking her eyes off of the audience, giving us her face, her radiant, sun-tanned visage. Jasmine could be up there, dancing, strutting, having money rain down on her priceless flesh. I don’t know if I could stomach the cynicism that flows through my veins. It is, nonetheless, an amusing fantasy.
Candy is next, as I knew she would be. She comes out like a firecracker, all sparks and flickering lights, her eyes wide, her smile large enough to devour our glances, our ambitions, our hungry needs. She struts and stalks upon the stage, prowling, almost crouched down, like a beast of prey, until she finds the pole and latches on, her moves unbelievably graceful, tight, practiced, effortless. I am absorbed, soaking in every movement like it is the last I will see, appreciating the skill and mastery on display. What is art but gestures of an artist? The body she has, most of it granted to her by God, is bent and cupped by preternatural gyrations, ranges of motion I do not think I have, nor will I ever. Graceful, limber, supple—I can’t think of enough words to describe her, nor do I tear my eyes from the figure that moves, motivated by the stage, the music, the cries and praises of the audience, all of us hunched over and offering up our life savings just for a glimpse of affection, of acceptance and exclusivity. Desire is selfish; it can be no other way, and I imagine how the boys must feel, looking at me in my black dress, my legs long and lean and more beautiful than any limbs of theirs. What do they have that I cannot offer? What can they give her that I cannot?
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