The mind conjures images of crusty old serpents lurking around the dumpster, waiting for the janitor to empty the tampon bin from the dressing room. The heartbroken youth drunkenly flailing his last dollar, forgetting a ship that had sailed long ago.
That’s what I was imagining when I drew out the large capital required for research at a seedy little joint called The Bus Stop.
At the very edge of Boulder city limits lies the grease soaked gentleman's club. A jizz stained pimple on Boulder’s otherwise blemish free face. Conveniently, the bus ride up Broadway takes just long enough to polish off a fifth between a few determined friends.I brought along two other researchers, anticipating a deviant frenzy in the strip club, I’d need as many eyes as possible. Kimon, the lead observer vomited about a half mile before we got there.
“We’ll make the rest on foot.” I said swigging gin out of a small steel flask.
We made staggered tracks through the fresh powder along broadway.
“C’mon on man, lets smoke one of those joints!” Dex, the third and final member of the team was leaning on me screaming.
“No!” Kimon, eyes closed and stubborn shouted with clenched fists. “I’m too fucked up!”
We walked and drank until we saw the '70s era white sign reading "The Bus Stop." A blasphemous oasis from the arctic winds.
We crossed the slick parking lot to the front door. Sex starved nomads wandering the ice plains in search of warm bodies and sin. We were all self admitted gnats to the red light.
After paying a nine dollar cover and a five dollar ice tea, we nestled ourselves drunkenly at the front of the stage. Notebook in hand I started firing questions at the half naked girl.
“How long have you been working here?”
“Have you noticed an influx of new faces tonight or is it the usual crowd?”
I threw a couple dollars on the floor of the stage as she sullenly crawled towards me. She wasn’t answering my questions, I knew this tactic wouldn’t work. I meandered outside in search of lonely patrons.
I spied a mexican smoking a pall mall from across the parking lot. Casually walking the awkward 20 yards, he eyed me suspiciously.
“Allen Kaufman, journalist” I proclaimed about five feet away. “Lemme ask you, what brings you here to the Bus Stop on Valentines?”
“Ahh, I dunno mane ” His eyes were glazed and aromatic tequila wafted toward me.
“My friends take me” He was sucking down the pall mall at a staggering rate. I could tell he was trying to split, go see some ass. Not talk to some white boy asking questions with a notebook. I turned the conversation in a different direction.
“You know this place is about to get shut down right?” I said confidently, sliding a Benson out of it’s long gold box.
He didn’t say anything, just cocked his head and furrowed his brow. Taking a long drag.
“Yup . . .” lighting my cigarette. “Felony mistreatment of animals, mostly endangered reptiles”
I dragged and judged his expression.
“Leez-ards?” He asked, he was thoroughly confused.
“Lizards, sea turtles, miniature horses, anything out of the ordinary really”
He whistled. “Shit mane, thats fucked up, what they do?”
I knew he was buying it, his cig was out and he stared at me drunkenly waiting for an answer.
“They make custom fetish tapes, you see these freaks are tired of the run of the mill donkey show”
The look in his eyes suggested I’d hit a nerve of familiarity.
“You tell em’ what animals you wanna see fuck and they’ll set the mood and film it. Easy as that. Only problem is you get 25 to life for sodomizing a Spineless Forest Lizard, they are of course, endangered”
The man’s nose crinkled and he took a half step back
“I’m reporting for the Camera, the story is ‘Boulder’s Oldest Strip Club: The Final Days’”.
My mexican friend stood thinking intently as I flicked my cig and strolled inside.
An 85 pound latina was grinding her crotch on the pole to Pussy Poppin by Ludacris. Her body covered in regrettable tattoos, she radiated the smell of despair. Kimon and Dex staring slack jawed, clawing holes in their pockets. I took a seat and put two dollars on the stage. To my right was a late 20 something white boy donning a yankees cap; the kind of guy that wished he could tell tales of schoolyard gang fights on the hot Brooklyn pavement. But to his egos misfortune he had been raised by a good presbyterian family, fed regularly and only used a gun under close supervision at scout camp.
He grinned as he peddled dollar bill on top of dollar bill, luring the small hispanic stripper off the pole. Kimon, Dex and myself were outmatched by about four dollars. I finally got her attention by snapping a dollar under one of her thongs.
“How you boys doing tonight?” She sounded like she had never left the midwest.
“Fantastic! Hows your Valentines Day goin'?” I slurred.
“Well, its alright” She said as she rotated her hips in a clockwise circle.
Head down pussy, pussy poppin’
Head down pussy, pussy poppin’
Head down pussy, pussy poppin’
“I’m celebrating alone this year, my boyfriends in jail” She turned around and viciously swayed her ass from left to right like the rogue boom of a sloop in a hurricane.
“Alriiight, lets give it up for Tiana” A voice came from above, and Pussy Poppin came to an inaudible end. This is my least favorite part of a strippers act. When all the drunken womanizers are howling and whistling as the lone and naked girl picks dollars off the ground.
“Everyone give a warm welcome for Nashville!” The same voice overhead said. A tall brunette walked onto the stage and winked at me. I noticed a tattoo across her shoulder blades as she buried her head into Dex’s crotch. It read ‘LOVE LIFE’ in old English text. She was nice enough.
Night was turning into early morning, the desperate hours. I took another frenzied look around; where are the patrons? It was beginning to look like the answer to my question that had dragged us here was, in fact, ourselves. We were the kind of people that go to a strip club on Valentines Day.
This realization frightened me. I wouldn’t stand for that. I have too much class. I followed the DJ out to the parking lot where he lit up a smoke.
I went through my wrap. Allen Kaufman, journalist, strip club ect...
“Ya most nights its just regulars. This isn't really the kinda place you just stumble upon”
I was scribbling short hand about to ask another question.
“Hey could you not put my name in that?” He looked worried, but calm. I hadn’t asked his name.
“Ya no problem, So where is everyone tonight?” I probed.
“Well most of the regulars have wives, their probably spending time with them” He said casually.
I took my seat next to Kimon. A stripper was struggling to let him motorboat her but her breast were simply too small. It looked like she was about to poke one of his eyes out with her antenna nipples. An interesting explanation for an eye-patch at least. The girl turned around and attempted to latch onto Kimon’s shoulders with her legs; But he was leaning back just a couple degrees too far and it sent him flailing onto his ass.
It was most definitely time to leave. The bouncer eyed us like a hawk to a small nervous mammal. I yanked Kimon up by his vomit soaked collar and placed him in his seat, smiling convincingly to the crossed-arm door man.
Grinning like a jackass, Kimon slid a dollar in front of the straight faced stripper.
“Sorry ‘bout that ma’am” slurring worse than Romney after the election.
She snatched the dollar off the stage and crawled over to the cretin in the Yankees cap.
“That guy is writing terrible things about you girls and the club” The bastard was blowing my cover.
The stripper stared me down savagely as she slapped her sagging A-cups around.
“Hey jack, you don’t know dick!” I pointed at him and stood up out of my chair.
He flipped us off and tucked a dollar into her greasy g-string.
“You get what you pay for asshole!” Dex stood up screaming, spewing dip spit all over the stage.
I tugged at Kimon, his head was hanging and he mumbled something about more ice tea.
The bouncer had called us a cab ten minutes prior, without our knowledge. We piled in the backseat ranting about the assholes that go to a strip club on Valentines day.
“Step on it! South Boulder, quick, before these animals lynch us!”
- Allen Kaufman
February 14th, 2013
