As it turned out, I was wrong. I learned in time that there was no such thing as a strip club utopia.
As I left the office, I asked Monty if I could use the payphone to call myself a cab to get back home. He let me use the one behind the bar. Fifteen minutes later my taxi showed up. Monty escorted me to the cab and handed the taxi driver a crisp fifty-dollar bill. “Take good care of this pretty young lady,” the manager said. I thanked Monty for the cab fare and headed home.
The events of the previous evening had definitely taken a toll on me. I was upset and physically exhausted from all the stress. Because I didn’t get to sleep until 5:30 a.m., I intended to sleep for at least twelve hours that day. Unfortunately, my plan to sleep the day away was disrupted at noon by the sounds of police sirens. At first, I assumed there must have been a traffic accident in front of the club. I ignored the noise and managed to fall back to sleep only to be awoken again by someone banging on the front door of the house. I reluctantly got out of bed to investigate the noise. Half asleep and in a very bad mood, I forced myself to go downstairs to answer the door.
I was greeted by two police officers that simultaneously flashed their badges at me. One of the officers ordered me to step outside. I tried to keep my anger in check and cooperated with the police. I wanted them to leave so I could go back to sleep. From the front porch of the house, I could see that the entire parking lot was choked with squad cars. I asked the officers what was going on, but they told me that they weren’t at liberty to divulge any information. The two men began to interrogate me. I was asked quite a few questions about myself, the Ruby Garter Club, and the employees that worked there. The police seemed to be particularly interested in the small-blue house that was situated directly next to the club.
They asked me if I knew who the residents of the house were. I lied and told the police that I had no idea who lived in that particular house. Although I knew that Sara and Samuel resided there, I chose to withhold the information. I didn’t want to get involved because I had enough of my own problems. The police suggested that I might want to find somewhere else to live temporarily. A roadblock had been erected in front of the club to block traffic. Apparently, the club and its immediate surroundings would be off limits until further notice.
By the time the officers had finished talking to me, I was determined to move out of the house as soon as possible. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to be bothered with it. I had enough problems of my own. I ended up renting a cheap little motel room at a place called the Green Oaks Oasis. Located directly next door to a truck stop, the Green Oaks served as a haven for prostitutes, drug addicts, and suicide victims. The motel was also within walking distance to the Nite Strip Lounge. By 4:00 p.m., I had moved all my belongings into the small, musty smelling motel room. I had a couple of hours to kill before I had to be at work. As usual, I elected to spend time sleeping.
Fully clothed in my stripper garb with sweatshirt and jeans over it, I lay down on the hard-uncomfortable bed and slept until it was time to leave.
My first night at the infamous Nite Strip Lounge was a learning experience to say the least. The last two clubs that I had worked for seemed rinky dinky in comparison. The men that frequented this club were big spenders. They didn’t spend hundred of dollars on the dancers, they spent thousands.
The management team at this club trained the dancers to be some of the best hustlers in the business. They actually went as far as to hold weekly classes designed to teach the dancers the fine art of deception. Both the management and the waitresses facilitated these classes. It was expected that the floor men, bartenders, and doormen also attend. During the classes, the managers would pose as customers. The dancers had to take turns role-playing with them, and in turn portrayed customers that were cheap, abusive, demanding, and even violent.
Management made sure that each and every dancer was capable of separating money from the male patrons in very short periods of time without delivering any sexual favors. The dancers would rehearse these scenarios over and over again until they were perfected. It wasn’t unusual for these training sessions to last as long as four hours.
Waitresses at the Nite Strip Lounge played an important role in separating patrons from their money. Twenty years ago, the only way that a woman could become a waitress was if she was an ex-stripper. The waitresses that were employees at the Nite Strip Lounge used to work in the strip clubs on Chicago’s infamous Rush Street, before they were all shut down. The Rush Street clubs employees and managers were notorious for slipping a “mickey” into the customer’s drink to knock them out. Once the customer was sufficiently drugged, they were usually beaten and robbed. These experienced con artists fled to the suburban strip clubs shortly after the Rush Street clubs had been closed down, and were commonly referred to as “bust-out waitresses.” They collected the majority of the money that filtered through the clubs. Their main purpose was to coerce the customers into spending all their cash. After the customer’s cash fund had been exhausted, they went after the man’s credit cards. It wasn’t uncommon for customers to spend thousands of dollars on every single credit card they had in exchange for the company of one of the dancers. The credit card vouchers that the customers signed were imprinted with a fictitious business name such as J&R
Banquet or Phillip G. Furriers. Married men and businessmen alike were able to deceive their spouses and employers with this system. The club owners benefited by being able to dupe the credit card companies and the IRS. The waitresses were also the club owner’s “Personal Girl Fridays” who acted as both informant and confidant for management. The waitresses had the power to make or break a dancer by either favoring or ostracizing them.
Because there was often illegal activity at most strip clubs, they were constantly under the threat of being busted or raided by the authorities. In a police raid, the waitresses were usually arrested and charged with pandering or pimping. Pandering in the state of Illinois is considered to be a felony charge. The dancers that were arrested during the raid were charged with solicitation of prostitution. In most cases, these charges were dropped because this was a misdemeanor in Illinois.
The waitresses made a considerable amount of money. Some of them probably made well over $100,000 a year, but rarely were their positions sought after by the dancers because of the legal ramifications. Some of the antics that the waitresses used were unscrupulous to say the least. If a customer would cry broke to the waitress after she had solicited him to go into the private area with her, she would virtually frisk him from head to toe looking for his money. This practice consisted of emptying the man’s pants, jacket, and shirt pocket. The waitresses especially checked the seasoned strip club junkies’ socks, soles, and heels of their boots and shoes for hidden compartments with money stashed in them. Customer’s wallets were literally seized from their hands and pant pockets and searched for cash, checks, or credit cards. If any cash was found, the waitresses would confiscate it regardless of the customer’s protest. She would either pocket it for herself or split it with the dancer.
Watching the waitresses in action was very entertaining. They were excellent mentors and I learned a lot about the business through them. However, these women couldn’t be trusted. On top of being hard-core hustlers, they were well-seasoned thieves. Nobody was exempt from their scams, not even the dancers.