It is small and weird.
It only ever has about three girls at once.
It is not a classy strip joint.
The Lampost Lounge is a small place that serves alcohol and has three girls in bikinis who will dance on your lap for five dollars.
I told Beth I didn’t go to bars on Saturdays. But the Lampost Lounge isn’t a bar; it’s a small strip joint with never more than ten customers.
Viper, our favorite dancer, comes over and says, “Look who it is. The dynamic duo of self-flagellation.”
Chang looks at me and says, “Is she talking about us?”
Viper says, “Have you two done anything fun lately?”
“No,” I say.
“Last week I had an abortion. It was awesome. They got this vacuum cleaner thingy and sucked that little fucker right out.”
“They should do that with my brain,” Chang says.
“That would be good for America,” I say.
“Do either of you fine gentlemen want a dance?”
“Yes, please. I need a dance. The loneliness has consumed me. My heart has been crushed by government policies. My head aches with despair, alienation, desolation, and I can no longer be confronted with this dismal reality without the feel of your butt smashing hard into my genitals. My sad, forsaken, forlorn genitals. My genitals beseech your buttocks, Viper.”
Viper looks at me and laughs and says, “Let my ass soothe your genitals. Let my buttocks engulf your discontented member in this neon-lighted tavern of abject misery. Let your postmodern tears plummet to my round white butt cheeks. Allow my ass lumps to soften your burden of being a disgruntled dishwasher, of being a man who feels homeless and weary. Who vomits at the very idea of John Travolta making another movie.”
Chang says, “She’s good, give her a big tip.”
After the dance, Viper leaves.
A dancer named Kathy comes over and says to Chang, “Hey Chang, what’s the capitol of Thailand?”
Chang looks confused and says, “Bangkok.”
“That’s right, Bangkok.” As Kathy says this she punches Chang in the dick.
Chang grabs his crotch.
We all laugh at Chang.
Holding his dick, Chang says, “You bitch, I’ll kill you.”
“You ain’t killing shit, Chang,” Kathy says.
Then Kathy walks away, laughing.
“She punched you in the dick.”
“Life is hopeless.”
“I know, but at least we don’t tell ourselves that it’s awesome and we deserve great things like success and well-mannered children.”
“If I owned a gun I would shoot myself.”
“You probably would,” I say.
Janisa walks over. She’s a pretty Puerto Rican girl who speaks Spanish and has an accent, but is actually from Chicago and has never stepped foot in Puerto Rico.
Janisa sits next to Chang and says, “How you doing?”
“Kathy just punched me in the dick.”
“Oh yeah? Do you need a massage?”
“With your hand?”
“Yeah, not inside of course.” Janisa moves her mouth close to Chang’s ear and says, “There’s something about Asians that gets me wild.”
Chang smiles like a little boy.
“Please,” Chang says.
“Ten dollars.”
“Okay.”
Chang puts ten dollars in her garter belt.
Janisa massages Chang’s bruised penis.
Chang says, “I’m an immigrant too.”
“I’m from Chicago, but where you from?”
“China. You know what the Long March is?”
“No, what’s that?”
“If you want you can come back to my place and I’ll show you,” Chang says, so suave.
Janisa laughs hysterically.
Chang looks at me and says, “This bitch is all about me.”
I look straight ahead and say, “You made her laugh. That’s the first step to the removal of panties.”
Chang whispers to Janisa, “Your eyes, your voice, your arms, your very essence makes me crumble. I collapse like the Twin Towers when I’m in your presence. My cock swells, throbs. I need, I need to impale you with my cock. My hard cock is reaching out to you, trying to become friends with your vagina.”
“You is crazy,” Janisa says, laughing.
“Yeah baby.”
Janisa finishes her penis massage and walks away.
I say to Chang, “You’re more socially inept than I am.”
“I’m on SSI. I can do anything I want.”
“True. I’m a dishwasher. There are regulations I have to follow.”
“Yes, you must remain decent at all times. You must always put on a good pose so as not to tarnish the good name of your employer. I, on the other hand, am employed by The People. They employ me to be crazy, to sit alone in my little cell. Society needs people like me to look down on. They need me so there is always a definition of what crazy is. I am paid to keep a line between insanity and what is called sane. My insanity, even if it be only thinking I smell like shit all the time, allows people who think that buying a Hummer will make them happy to convince themselves that they’re sane. There are lines that must be drawn. Buying a Hummer equals happiness, getting Road Runner even though it is only a split second faster than DSL equals happiness, owning Nikes and not ADIDAS equals happiness, buying brand names is better than buying generic and it all equals happiness. See Vasily, that’s why they give me money, because I am a line, I symbolize insanity. Personally, I don’t think I’m insane. But they do. They have convinced themselves that I am beyond help, that I am mentally fucked. That I deserve a free small apartment, a food card, and spending money because they consider me insane. People, when they sign their name to take out a thirty year mortgage on a shitty stupid house in a so-called nice neighborhood, can think, ‘This might be insane, but at least I’m not Chang who thinks he smells like shit all the time.’”
“Are you planning on staying on SSI until you’re dead or something?”
“Yes, I refuse to go back. I feel ashamed, so ashamed, humiliated, I feel like I’m being ravaged by nonsense. The last time I had a job this girl said to me, ‘Have you heard that new song by Avril Lavigne?’ I stood there terrified. I did hear the song one night in the car. I couldn’t understand how parents would let their children listen to that shit. I would rather have my kids watch hardcore porn than listen to Avril Lavigne.” Chang yells so the whole bar can hear him, “I fucking hate Avril Lavigne!”
A random guy in his twenties yells, “So do I! That bitch is stupid!”
“Damn straight!” Chang says.
I yell to the bartender, “Hey, I’m buying this man a shot and then we’re going.”
The bartender brings over a shot of chilled Yukon Jack.
Chang throws it back and we leave.
11
I wake up on Sunday morning.
There is crying coming from the bathroom.
I walk to the door and see Sasha crying.
Sasha cries a lot.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Sasha always responds ‘nothing.’
“Sasha, I’m serious. You’re crying like a motherfucker in here.”
“Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her. I look like her, you know. And there she is, Lizaveta, staring at me from my own face.”
“You do look like her.”
“I know asshole, that’s what I’m trying to say. I look like her.”
“You know I have to look at you, and I see her. You laugh like her. You even stick your tongue out like her when you’re happy.”
Sasha sits there, holding her face, and says, “It is strange when people die; it announces your death also. It marks everyone. It puts into your pocket a little black rock that you carry around symbolizing that you will die one day. I never really knew anyone who died. We left Russia and had no friends here. Our grandparents are dead, but we left them when we were little and never got to know them. So I had not been marked by death. Now I am marked. You realize what death is when someone close dies. You realize it because you think of them all the time. ‘I want to call Lizaveta,’ I think, and realize Lizaveta is dead. Buying presents at Christmas, I think, ‘Lizaveta would love this,’ and then realize Lizaveta is dead. It is Lizaveta’s birthday and I remember I have to get a card for Lizaveta, and then I realize I don’t have to because Lizaveta is dead. And then I realize that one day I will die, and someone will think, ‘Sasha’s birthday is coming up, I need to get her a card. Oh wait, she’s dead.’ It means I’m not there. Lizaveta is not here. She just isn’t here. Lizaveta stopped moving, her heart ceased to beat, and we’ve put her underground in a box. Lizaveta no longer participates in the lives of people. That will be me one day, a person who no longer participates in the lives of people. The world will go on without me.” She wipes her eyes and cheeks with toilet paper. “Ever see those old graves with the Civil War emblems on them?”