The Bold World Page 8

  One day, I decided to quit my publishing job. I just couldn’t go back there. It was a crazy idea, considering that I had very little money saved, but living frugally among my friends, without much structure, felt lavish to me. I slept in most mornings and went out most nights. When I came home, I’d stretch out in my bed, using all the pillows, and stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep. And when I woke up, I would weigh my options and decide, casually, selfishly, how I’d spend the next several hours of the day. This sudden free fall into autonomy felt entirely new, and I appreciated the ability to float around my neighborhood on my own terms.

  I searched out new friends with interesting stories. Sometimes I’d imagine life without rules and boundaries, a life where money flowed in—somehow—and work’s only obligation was to feed the soul. I made my way less and less frequently into Manhattan, and inadvertently saw Serge and his friends less as well. I grew a mild distaste for the “big city”—instead reveling in my community and my tribe and the daily rhythm I’d created on my own.

  “You’re not the person I thought you were,” Serge said to me late one afternoon in his loft. Weeks and weeks had passed after leaving my job, and I still hadn’t made any plans to find a new one. Although I didn’t let on, what Serge had said was a gut punch, all the more wrenching because there was no malice there, just sadness—as though he was mourning the loss of a great potential he saw in me. He was so sure that I could do anything, like eventually becoming a famous editor of great books, or maybe even a writer myself. But none of that seemed to be happening for me. What Serge had said was true. I was not the person I used to be, nor the person I wanted to be precisely. I was roaming somewhere in the middle, my identity still out of focus. And although I couldn’t bring myself to admit it, I needed to be fully on my own, with no backup plan or backup person to figure out which way I was headed.

  Serge and I struggled under the weight of this knowledge for a while until he painfully, reluctantly broke up with me. I believe that, to him, it seemed like the only thing he could do to help.

  * * *

  —

  Months passed, and I floated through my life without a compass.

  At a dinner party one night in the city, I met a woman who was an exotic dancer. Jacinda lived in a small one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn near the Atlantic Avenue subway station and gave piano lessons to rich kids during the day. She was a plain girl, not the type you would necessarily pick out of a crowd, but she was smart and she was tough—and her fearlessness, particularly with her body, impressed me. She seemed to have what many of the people I admired had, a belief in herself and in her own kind of magic: one that commanded the body.

  I walked away from that dinner with Jacinda and spent the next few weeks imagining how it would feel to be so publicly uninhibited. In my eyes, Jacinda was living, really living—and I was pitifully wasting time.

  I worked up the nerve to call her one afternoon out of the blue, and proceeded to unleash a series of questions that I’d been storing up in my mind: How did you start dancing? Where do you get your outfits? How did you learn the moves? One by one, she answered every question I asked. Over the next hour or so, Jacinda became my professor, walking me through the business of stripping.

  Before we got off the phone, I asked if I could come with her one night to the club where she danced. It was a spontaneous idea that just popped into my mind, and the question came out before I could reconsider. I needed the money, sure. But even more than that, I needed an experience that might make me feel accomplished. Dancing half naked in front of strangers in some far-off part of town seemed exactly what I needed. Jacinda laughed, taken aback by the proposition. But she agreed to let me tag along. The next day I purchased a black pageboy wig at a hair boutique in downtown Brooklyn, two glittery thong and bra sets, and a pair of over-the-top black patent leather heels.

  A week later, on a Saturday night, Jacinda and I set out for the South Bronx to make my debut.

  We took the 6 train to Hunts Point, an area in the Bronx I’d never heard of before. While we walked the half mile in the dark toward the club, we transformed. As we adjusted our wigs and applied our lipstick, Jacinda coached me on how to shift my mind to adapt to a very different set of rules from what I was used to. “You’ll be fine,” she told me, as long as I kept three rules in mind:

  Rule #1: Folks are crazy; always keep your eyes open.

  Rule #2: When you’re dancing, pick a person in the crowd who shows interest in you, and focus only on him. It’ll give you confidence.

  Rule #3: Figure out your special move, and do that move confidently.

  I thought about Sade and how she always did the smallest of motions when she performed—a flick of the wrist and the audience went crazy. Tonight, I thought, I’ll channel Sade.

  The club was an unfancy oasis at the edge of a desolate neighborhood. Block after block was dark and quiet, but as we approached the strip joint, the music from inside spilled out onto the street, where easily thirty men, all Black and Latino, formed a line to get in. When we arrived at the door, we were met by two large and very unfriendly looking bouncers. They rifled through our bags, checking for drugs, presumably, before ushering us through a metal detector, checking for any weapons we might have on us, I assumed. Jacinda had warned me that the club was wary of women coming in to prostitute, distracting the patrons and “stealing” potential money from the club owner. She predicted that the bouncers would ask me why I was there. I shouldn’t take it personally, she explained. “Just say, ‘I came to dance.’ ”

  Moments before, when we were walking from the train station, I was confident I could handle what I was getting into. But now, in the moment, it smacked of a realness I wasn’t prepared for. I was out of my element and terrified—and somehow, at the same time, intrigued. I wanted to know everything about this danger. I saw it as an obstacle to navigate—to get over or work through—and that possibility pulled me in.

  As I walked onto the main floor, my eyes adjusted to the dimness. The low lights cast weird shadows on everyone, and I struggled to see people’s faces, making out only their silhouettes. Everyone seemed so much bigger than my friends back in Manhattan and Brooklyn; the men more buff, the women more fleshy and curvy. They all seemed to tower over me. The room was crowded; every corner, walkway, and chair was occupied by bodies—some dressed, others not.

  “All right, y’all, get ya bills out—Next up: Baaaaby Gucci!” The DJ put on an up-tempo Latin song I didn’t recognize while all the eyes in the club followed a very thick, very short woman with wavy hair that hung down to the middle of her back as she sauntered up the staircase to the narrow stage. A few men clapped loudly when she began. Baby Gucci snaked to the middle of the stage, her long hair swishing behind her, and then dramatically she dropped to the floor into a full split. She bobbed up and down in that split several times while the crowd shouted out their appreciation. I was impressed by her flexibility, and remembered from my days in gymnastics how much training that move actually demanded.

  There were maybe seventy-five men in the club, outnumbering the women by far. But it was the women onstage, like Baby Gucci, who stole my attention. They were the ultimate performers, confident with their curvaceous bodies, aware of and pleased with themselves. They glided with intention across the club’s floor, entrancing whomever they passed, stopping only for those who dared to speak. And when they were called onstage, they danced—the way a lot of us do only in the privacy of our own homes, in front of our own bedroom mirrors. Uninhibited, the girls climbed to the top of the pole, releasing their hands and arching backward—dangling upside down on the strength of their thighs alone. Then, slowly, they slid their way down, inch by sweaty inch. I wondered how they got to be so strong, how their feet held up for hours in those six-inch heels, and how their bodies obeyed all the moves. The entire scenario seemed impossible.

 
“Stop staring, Jodie. Let’s get changed,” Jacinda directed, bringing me back to reality. I was here to perform, not gawk. I followed her down the hallway at the far end of the club into the makeshift locker room, and immediately the theater of the last few minutes disappeared.

  Behind the scenes, the dancers were all business. There was no sexiness, no sisterhood or solidarity, no laughing or girl power. These women were competitors—for the men, for the best outfits, for the choicest spots in the club, and of course, for the money. Their objective, the only objective, was to be the biggest, shiniest object there.

  In the dressing room, the neon track lighting was bright, and once again I had to adjust my eyes. The space looked like a laundromat without the washing machines—there were a few long tables, some folding chairs, royal blue walls, concrete floors, and that unforgiving lighting, which showed every square inch of cellulite along with dirty floor and chipped paint.

  I spotted an empty chair and put my bag down to start getting dressed. It was at that point that they started to notice us. A dozen or so pairs of suspicious eyes watched me as I quietly folded my street clothing into my bag, pushed it deep under the chair, and bolted for the door as quickly as I could. One more competitor in the ring, I’m sure they thought, seeing me.

  Back out on the main floor, feeling very exposed and inadequate, barely filling out my silver bikini top and thong, I managed to push my shoulders back and walk—scoping out the men as I passed. As I wove through the crowd, several of them tapped, tugged, and pulled at me to get my attention, but I didn’t stop. I needed time to look around and assess everything I was seeing before making any moves.

  I spotted three guys at the bar who looked friendly enough and took a seat in the swivel stool next to them. The sticky leather on the seat rubbed strangely on my bare butt and legs, and I wondered how many others had sat bare-cheeked on this same stool.

  “Hey,” one of the guys said to me. They looked about my age, like they’d recently graduated from college. Their worn T-shirts and khakis reminded me of the boys from Morehouse.

  “Hey,” I replied, assuming that was all the intro needed in a place like this.

  We sat together drinking many drinks, dulling my senses and laughing about what I was preparing to do. I shared with them that this would be my first time onstage and they asked me, “Why now?” I didn’t have any answers, but I did tell them that after a few more vodka tonics we’d all know if it was worth it or not. An hour or so later and several additional cocktails in, I walked over to the DJ booth and motioned with a nod that I was ready.

  All prospective dancers had to “try out” in front of the crowd in order to be allowed back to perform. I was seconds away from being judged on my first dance, and depending on the crowd’s response, I would know where I stood. My heart raced with the realization that I had only minutes to show people what they wanted to see.

  Walking toward the stage steps in my too-high black heels, I ran through my game plan one more time. I had determined that I would stay clear of the pole and remain with feet, knees, or hands firmly on the floor. No ambitious jumps or elaborate pole tricks. No fast twirls, shimmies, or shakes. I would keep it as basic as possible. My goal, I thought, was simply to flow. To glide my way through the next three minutes.

  I adjusted my sequined thong and closed my eyes. The only way I could make it up those stairs and onto that stage was to tune out the hip-hop music blasting overhead. Inside my head, I switched the record to Sade’s “Sweetest Taboo,” and immediately my shoulders started to relax. I swayed all the way across the stage and back again on the thought of the song’s opening drums. Looking out into the sea of faces, some of them eager, the rest mildly bored, I locked eyes with the recent college grads and saw that they were smiling, cheering me on. I sang to myself: There’s a quiet storm, and it never felt like this before. I imagined myself as that storm, and I smiled and gazed and moved slowly to Sade—over the loud music and the macho men and the thick women sucking their teeth at me from their spots in the room. I tuned it all out, and thought only about the words in the song, Will you keep on lovin’ me? Will you keep on bringing out the best in me? I watched bills land on the floor and I kept smiling. I watched eyes on me and I kept singing to myself, dancing with the stage.

  Ten minutes later I had a new job and a hundred dollars in my hands. I performed several more times that night, and each time I did, I locked eyes with someone who seemed to be in awe of me—of my skinny frame, my Sade subtlety, and all the courage I’d mustered to make my way into this moment. The feeling of being admired, and more important, seen, was priceless. The men knew nothing of my family, of the school and the classes I’d attended, they didn’t have a clue about me other than what I had pulled from inside—that quiet storm I brought to the stage.

  In publishing, I could work or not work, try or not try, and still get the same paycheck. But there, on that stage, I was determining the outcome. If I did another dance I could make more money, if I worked really hard in that hour I could make hundreds. As sexist as stripping for money sounds, I was dictating my worth. By the end of the night I was sweaty and exhausted, feet torn up—but I had made my rent for the month. All in crumpled singles, but I had succeeded. It was the first time I felt I had really earned my money. Sweat and tears earned. Adrenaline earned. Burning with fear earned.

  I made so much money on that first weekend that I gave myself a goal: In a month, I’d go on a cross-country road trip with my grandmother Gloria. We’d drive her yellow Cadillac from Texas to the West Coast and back, weaving in and out of all the national parks and monuments. And so I returned to that same club over the next three weekends and danced.

  Every time I got onstage I thought I was going to fail, or fall, or be so scared that I’d have to walk away with my head dropped in shame. Every single time. But then I’d remember Jacinda’s rules—“Eyes open. Find your customer. Do your move.” I’d always play my own music in my head and create my own vibe. I’d find the one or two admirers who seemed to understand me, and I’d dance for them, pulling them in. In every performance, I’d move from fear to exhilaration, from failure to being in control.

  I told no one about my trips to the South Bronx. Not my roommates, not my best friends. Only my mother and one guy friend, just in case something happened to me. They were concerned, of course, and voiced their disapproval. “Jodie, this isn’t you. This is beneath you,” Mama warned. But I didn’t ask for permission. I only said I was doing it, and that it was research, “for personal growth.” And that wasn’t a lie, it was a research experiment—a way for me to understand and work with my body, to process fear and to earn myself back. Being onstage half-naked forced me to confront questions I’d been asking myself. What does it mean to be a woman? Is it sexual or mental? Or is it in the power I have over others to mesmerize? Stripping makes you think about all of that. And in the end, for me at least, it made me feel valiant.

  There was something more happening on those Friday and Saturday nights than just taking off my clothes. It was something that everyone around me, for years to come, would be forced to witness: the constant motion of someone refusing to sit still long enough for others to grab hold of and define based on their own narrow and ridiculous terms. I would stay in steady motion, feeling every bit of life, because seeking shelter in other people’s lives had become too painful. The truth, I knew now, was out there to find.

  Those weeks of dancing in the South Bronx taught me that the body is powerful—not to be underestimated; that the mind can do anything it determines; and that fear is impermanent, it’s just one of many emotions, and it will always shift. Most important, it taught me that one’s path is never obvious.

  At the end of the month, I threw my glittery outfit, high heels, and pink lipstick into the garbage and set out on a cross-country adventure with my grandmother, feeling powerful and in control.

  FOUR

>   She

  FIRST TRIMESTER: COSMIC ENERGY

  “Hey, baby!” I shout as I open our front door. Home is only slightly bigger than a shoe box—even the smallest noises can be heard from any corner of our 250-square-foot apartment. I shout because I’m happy, and I need Serge to feel this excitement, too.

  We live in a five-story walk-up on Sixth Avenue in SoHo. It’s a bustling street dotted with small antique and art shops, but our building is set back a bit, making our block feel quieter than it really is. A former factory space, the building is outfitted with heavy wooden double doors at the front entrance and a steep, narrow staircase that zigzags from floor to floor. I have to use all of my energy to make my way to the top, where Serge and I live. On every landing, I lean against the wall and catch my breath like an old lady. I look down at my stomach, smiling, and keep climbing. My legs feel like fifty-pound weights, and I enjoy every bit of the exhaustion I’m experiencing.

  “Hi, Jo.” He smiles, craning his neck to look at me. I love coming home to find Serge sitting on the vintage red leather couch that used to be just mine. For the past year now, it’s become ours.

  “Babe, I ate pancakes and hash browns again at my desk this morning! It. Was. Great. And then—and then! I went into the studio with the guys. Electric Lady is like, whoa.”

  I drop my bags at the door and kick off my shoes, walking barefoot across the wooden floor. His lips are pretty much all I need in this moment, so I bend down to kiss his mouth, his hands reaching up to find the curviest parts of me.

  Serge has never shied away from my body, and with the extra flesh I’m now carrying, three months into our pregnancy, things haven’t changed.