Hi, My Name Is Los Angeles

Well, I thought, here I am. Might as well see what the fuss is all about. I was in Los Angeles. “City of Angels” is what they say, right?

I’d just come from Yosemite: Land of Hippies—furry girls, guys who wear flannel. It’s a good scene but it’s different. Whenever I told the hippies I wanted to go to L.A. I always got the same reaction: “Really? Have fun.” As if I’d just said I wanted to go to a concentration camp reenactment. Whatever, I thought. I intended to have fun.

Los Angeles beckoned to me, and I would heed its call. I didn’t know why I wanted to go. I didn’t know anything about the place. L.A. was just an idea, vague and ill-defined in my mind. I wanted to flesh it out, find out what those words—Los Angeles—really stood for.  And now here I was.

Actually, I wasn’t quite there. I’d overshot the mark and ended up in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles County. I’d gotten a ride with a co-worker from the park and wound up at her parent’s place in Huntington Beach.

Not one to be easily daunted, I determined the best way to get my sightseeing in would be to buy a bike and ride the L.A. coast. Google Maps told me to expect 60-80 miles depending on my route, and with some digressions I planned to take, I was expecting about 100 miles of travel on a fixed gear bicycle, all told.

I set out early in the morning and began to wind my way toward the coast. I expected smells of salty air to waft for miles, heralding my impending arrival at the sea’s edge. That was just a quaint, Ohio-boy notion, I discovered.  I knew I’d hit the coast when I saw the beach, and the sky expanding away from me. Somewhere far away it met an invisible horizon, and came shooting back to me on the waves of the Pacific Ocean. What a vast space, I thought. It was empty in the way a big box is empty, or a large canvass blank. The emptiness suggested possibility to me. Possibility—potential—always on my left side, I began riding north into the fabled city, a sea of a different kind of potential. 

I didn’t know what roads to take, or where my route would lead me. I knew I wanted to end up at the top of L.A. I was on the bottom. The biking was kind of boring, as biking is wont to be. Just pedaling, pedaling… all day. The scenery was good, the air was polluted and so were the views. But this was the experience.

The first day was uneventful. A stop at a taco truck, a walk down one of the city’s many fishing piers. I even went and watched a movie, just to have a comfortable chair and some cool air to breathe for a while.

That night, I bedded down beside a cemetery. I spent a lot of time in cemeteries as a part of a military funeral team in the Army. I feel pretty comfortable, pretty familiar, in a place like that. I wish I could say I was just another sleeping soul, lying with the others for a night. The truth is: I was restless, wary of being discovered, and uncomfortable. I kept thinking: they’re going to find me, though I didn’t know who “they” were.

I had only the clothes on my back; long pants, t-shirt, long sleeve thermal shirt. This wasn’t an oversight—I’d intended to travel light. I brought only a backpack and the barest of necessities. I was riding a bike, and a large pack would have marred that experience; impeded me. Avoidance of impediment. It’s a persistent thread that runs through the fiber of my being. It’s why I don’t wear underwear and the reason I prefer to boulder or free-solo instead of roped climbing. 

Huddling on my side to conserve my warmth, lying on the bare ground now, the dead stalks of grass poked my back and I would startle awake to the slightest sound.

Around 2:30 in the morning I awoke because I felt a presence near me. I looked around frantically. With an admixture of relief and apprehension, I saw a raccoon not two arm’s lengths away. At least it’s not a person, I told myself. On the other hand, my time in Yosemite taught me that raccoons aren’t your friend. I tried to scare him. I hissed and pantomimed throwing something at him. He stared at me, unfazed, daring me to do something more. I was lying next to a tree—the better to hide my lumpy silhouette. With insolence the raccoon circled to the other side to try to get to the backpack I was using for a pillow. He moved in that middle-of-the-night way. I hissed and growled at him, and to my relief he relented. I got the sense that it wasn’t because I had scared him, but because he wasn’t willing to put up with my childish antics. He didn’t come back that night, but he was successful in making sure I slept even less soundly until the pre-dawn hour I had determined I would rise (O’dark-thirty, they called it in the Army).

That next day, I took a couple of good pictures of a city steeped in industry and overcrowded with buildings. Beautiful in its own way, I was quite enjoying the experience. I ate donuts for breakfast and biked as close to the coast as I could. Often there was sandy beach on my left, concrete landscape on my right.

I found Los Angeles to be everything the hippies loathed: crowded, bustling, polluted, rough. It was a new chaos to me that acted as counterpoint to Yosemite’s supreme sense of order and its undeniable correctness of being. Yosemite exists, and you say ‘of course’. Los Angeles exists, and you say—what? I still wasn’t sure, so I biked on.

I found an answer later that day. I’d ridden upon concrete and asphalt to the top of a magnificent testament of human endeavor. In the second to last stop I made I found Santa Monica Original Muscle Beach (OMB) and its attendant community. There I found the rings, which I’ve described a little elsewhere and will not now describe. In the people that peopled this place I finally met the face of the city, or at least, what I wanted to believe was the face of the city, Los Angeles.

Beach culture—the idea lightly rattled in my mind, but had no supporting connections to anchor it to any solid idea. Here “beach culture” wasn’t an idea, it was a reality of people. These people were like the climbing culture, but maybe a little more careful of their tan lines. Still, they were accepting, and interesting, and focused on their health. They were awake and alive, and so was I! I recognized this immediately, and decided I had to stay and explore this idea to make sure I had not misread it.

I spent the next two days there. I slept on concrete at night, behind a building under construction. I slept poorly and the nights were cold. I spent them by myself. During the day, I would soak up as much sun as my skin could hold. My nose burned and swelled and my whole body became pink. I reveled in the pain because of where it came from.

I spent all my daily allotment of sunlight at the beach, and it was a complete validation of my initial impression. I’d found my tribe, my people. Or, as close as I might find (I don’t think I really belong to any one people). I felt belonging, and I resolved I would come back and stay as long as I felt like I belonged there.

Los Angeles, I think, the people.

Go-Go

It’s Saturday night and I’m racing through the streets on my bike. The sky is clear and the road is smooth. 25 miles per hour is fast when it’s your body that provides the locomotion. The air is chilly because it’s winter in Los Angeles. All the same, I’ve worked up a sweat and I’m just wearing a pair of jeans and a small backpack. Electronic music is vibrating my eardrums—it will be my soundtrack for this night, but I do not know this yet.  

A traffic light turns red and I come to a stop. Typically, I can balance on my bike at a dead stop. It’s called a track stand, and it only takes a little practice to execute. You just have to balance the bike so, and shift your weight between the two pedals. I can’t find balance; my legs are shaking. I’m not too tired. In fact, my body is humming. I’m nervous.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the beach, socializing and exercising. I’d made friends with a guy who said he worked as a bartender at a club in West Hollywood, and he told me his club was always looking to hire. “Just work on your abs, like, for two weeks,” he said, “Then just come in and apply.” I asked him what kind of job required me to have a nice abs. “I work at a gay bar, and they have go-go dancers on the weekends,” he replied.

At other points in my life I might have dismissed the notion, or I might have felt disgusted at the thought of dancing for men. Now? I felt matter-of-fact about the situation. He said I could make a couple hundred dollars for a few hours of easy work. I just had to dance in my underwear. It might be undignified, but hundreds of dollars, one or two nights, and no experience necessary? How could I say no? considering my present situation, I thought. Dignity can be a luxury, not something necessary to survival. I gave dignity up a while ago. “I’ll work on my abs,” I said.

I’m biking as fast as my heart and my lungs and my legs will allow me. I have the contradictory feeling of wanting to get there as fast as possible—to get it over with—and of wanting to pedal the opposite direction, to flee far away from what I have committed to.

It’s a scary thing, to think about putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of strangers. You are vulnerable: unclothed, there for their enjoyment. What if they disapprove? What if they jeer, or insult you? What if they find your body ugly? What recourse do you have? You’ve already admitted by virtue of your attire and actions that your purpose is to please them, and if you do not, then you have failed and that failure is evident for everyone to see. Failure, I am afraid of failure. But desperation mandates that I cannot fail. I need money, success.

I arrive at the club a little earlier than I expected, so I find a café nearby and sit at a table to gather myself. I play music loudly in my earphones to drown out the cacophony of sounds that is the West Hollywood party scene. This part of town is rich—in money, in indulgence, in lust, in gluttony. The boulevard blazes and twinkles, every light designed to arrest my attention and draw me in. Shiny cars pass in both directions, some stopping for the valet, others trolling for one of the good parking spots.

Finally, the appointed time arrives. My friend has arranged for me to meet the club’s manager, but my friend will not himself be here. I walk into the club at an early hour, and it is not crowded. I find the manager. My friend set up the meeting, but he didn’t tell me what to expect. I have made the assumption I would just be asking for a job, maybe taking off my shirt or dancing to a few short songs. You know, just to give them an idea of what they might be paying for. I’m wrong to assume those things.

The manager, Brian, asks if I wanted to dance. Although I feel chary, I say “Sure,” not wanting to appear difficult. “Okay, you’ll work for tips tonight and if you work out, you’ll get the flat rate if you dance again.” I know what tips were, but I don’t know what the flat rate is. I don’t ask.

Brian leads me out the back of the club and to a detached storage/dressing room, five feet by twenty, all cinder block and painted white. The door is locked from the inside. Brian takes out a key and unlocksthe door. Opening the door, he says “These are the girls.” The first person I see is a muscular man in his mid-twenties wearing nothing but a pair of bright yellow underwear, he smiles and greets me. Then as I squeezed into the narrow hallway of a room, I see a young, buxom woman in red lingerie. She is pretty. She also greets me, but she squeezes out of the room as Brian introduces me; “This is Curtis, he’s going to dance tonight.” Then Brian leaves. I am alone in a room with a man in his underwear.

Go-go dancer underwear is no ordinary underwear. It’s usually silky nylon and shiny and cut in a way to expose as much as possible. “Man panties” really is the best term I can think of to describe the stuff. I don’t own underwear in general, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have anything like what I needed now. “Can I barrow a pair of those?” I ask, pointing to his rolling luggage suitcase, overflowing with nylon in all different colors. “You don’t have any drawers, honey?” He asks, admonishing me. I explain I didn’t know I’d be dancing tonight; I’m new. He picks out a pair of man panties with a black waist band and covered in a blue and purple print, “Here, you can wear these.” I’m not afraid of nudity; the Army rid me of any of that fear a long time ago. I undress in front of him and put on the “drawers” he’s given to me. I feel uncomfortable. They cling to me, and they are trying to get into places I do not want them. I look in the mirror. Dear God, how far I have come from where I started, I think. I have a nice tan, a light golden brown from the waist up, and the knees down. My thighs are immaculate white. They’re going to love this, I think to myself.

I take a deep breath, open the door and walk across the alley back to the club. A bouncer lets me in and one of the other dancers shows me a stage that I can dance on. The club is picking up, and it is beginning to get crowded. It’s about 10:30, and I am go-go dancing. The DJ’s blasting electronic music like what I had been listening to on my ride here. I just start to dance as I would with my clothes on.

At first, I am by myself, in my own world, and trying to feel comfortable. I get my first dollar from a man who comes over and watches me for a moment, a mixed drink in hand, and then he pushes a dollar into my waist band. “You’ve got a gorgeous body,” he says. I thank him and keep dancing.

The rest of the evening comes on as a crescendo, a rush that swells into frenzy. The club gets packed, the music gets louder. Smoke and lasers fill the air, which itself becomes humid and warm as men and women dance to the beats, 144 of them per minute.

I am in the moment, and I am suspended in disbelief, alternately. At once I focus on the music, and I dance and express myself, something I love to do, and can do no matter where or what the circumstances (I’m more ready to make that assertion after this experience), and in another moment I leave my body on autopilot and contemplate the fact that I am now a go-go dancer. Never would have imagined it.

Men, old and young, walk to the base of my stage and leer at me for a moment, some ask my name or if this is my first time dancing. Then they slip some money into my waistband. Most want a hug, some want to grope. I am degraded.

There are also the women who have come to a gay club for a good time, or to accompany their gay friends. A few of them eye me, but more shyly than the men. They are intimidated, I gather, and when they were encouraged to approach me, or their friends give them a dollar to give to me, they are reticent to close the distance between us. I just smile at them. They probably think I am gay, anyway.

I dance for three hours. I am pouring sweat, having danced with enthusiasm and not taking a break unless I was told to. Half-way through the night, Brian has moved me to the indoor balcony and I have danced the remainder of the evening in a “cage” of flimsy steel bars, illuminated by blue LED lights on the ceiling. I leave the cage at 1:30 in the morning, go back to the hallway dressing room, and remove wads of dollar bills—and one twenty-dollar bill—from my underwear. I made $40 in three hours, I see. The regular dancers say I should make more, and that this night has been a slow night in terms of tips. $40 is good for broke, I think.  

I get dressed and go see Brian in the back office, which is actually a storage closet under the staircase in the kitchen. It is cramped and he barely has room to sit upright under the sloping ceiling. There is no room for me to enter. I stand at the door and he tells me I have done a great job, and he’ll get me paid the flat rate for tonight. I’ve found out earlier, from the other dancers, the flat rate is $75 or $140, depending on what shift you work. I’ll end up getting $75 for my “early” shift, the other shift going until 3 A.M.

I change the ones for a twenty with the bartender and ride home to the beach. I won’t get back until 4:30 in the morning, exhausted. I don’t even have time to contemplate my day before I fall into a sound, dreamless sleep.