I’ve put this column on hold for a few months, simply because I didn’t like the direction it was headed—while I love listicles and clickbait, it’s not "Tales" in terms of what our readers want. So, I thank everyone who has put up with HazMatt’s absence and/or phoning-it-in recently. Thankfully, I’ve got some of the old spirit back and I hope our readers enjoy a return to old form.
I might not actually be going to hell anymore.
See, it’s not that I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my lifetime, but rather, how much horrible stuff I’ve allowed to happen without intervening. Take, for instance, the blind eye I purposely turn on asshole, coke-snorting hipsters as they attempt to break the slightest of rules while patronizing (literally and figuratively) the bars I DJ at. It’s not that I want nautical-star-tatted, goatfucking, Freddie Mercury wannabes putting their hairy palms on the girls I work with. Rather, it’s the sound that a pair of neon, non-prescription glasses makes when the bouncer uses the head attached to them to open the back door...god, I love that sound. In other words, if the end result benefits me in any way, I usually support it.
A few years ago, I arrived to DJ at (what was then) a brand new, centrally located, swanky club. Said club is in the tier of prime-shift clubs that are not quick to just hire random warm bodies off the street. It was partially my duty, even as a DJ, to facilitate the auditioning of new talent—especially (well, only) if such talent is up to the established caliber of the club. Translating this into layman’s terms, I was gigging at a new strip joint that was in need of dancers—but, only hot, talented ones.
Upon arriving to the club early (only two minutes late for my "hour before the night shift" slot), I made my usual rounds and eventually hit the dressing room. Standing next to the baby wipes and calculator was an impressively attractive young girl—one who seemed somewhat startled to see me.
"Hey, I’m Ray. What’s your stage name?"
Staring at me like a hot, unassuming deer in a G-string, the young fawn answered, "Which stage are you talking about, the one in the back?"
I stepped back a few paces in the conversation. "Okay, let me rephrase this. I am your DJ, my name is Ray."
She interrupted, "Oh, my bad, you must work here."
"Yes, I’m in your dressing room."
"What is your role again?"
I was somewhat confused as to what she meant by "role," but I took into consideration how the club occasionally featured bands, feature performances and the like.
Considering her apparent naivety (while avoiding a sarcastic response involving dungeons and dice), I repeated my initial response. "The role I play here is the DJ...disc jockey—I play the music. What kind of music have you been dancing to?"
Baby deer responded, "Classical mostly, but I’ve done a few plays."
Okay, this was getting a little odd. Slightly sexy, but mostly odd. I had to ask, "Have you been on stage at all?"
"Oh yeah, all throughout last year, before I graduated," she responded.
I came straight out with the condescending Ray tone that so many dancers in this city have learned to ignore by now: "Let me clarify what I mean... have you been naked in this establishment, at all, at any point today?"
"Oh god no," the poor fawn responded.
I expanded, "Have you been naked in any establishment, other than your own house?" She looked insulted and asked me to clarify. I went full McCarthy. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a stripper?"
The baby deer took slight offense to my question. "No, I just thought that I would try this out. I graduated from high school, like, three weeks ago and I’m only going to do this for a month, before moving to Chicago for art college. The owner said you guys were auditioning dancers."
"Meet me in the booth," I responded. "I’m going to show you something."
After I was done logging in to Facebook on my DJ laptop, the elfish (but extremely hot—like the kind of elf you’d want to bang) girl approached me and re-introduced herself. "My name is Lindsay* and I think I will go by ‘Fawn*’." I began with the passive-aggressive lecture, asking ‘Fawn’ where she went to high school and what her zodiac sign was. She probably thought I was flirting (and if she was a year older, I would have been). Then, I asked what her favorite band was and what she liked to do on the weekends. Within two or three clicks of my mouse (and without the assistance of any further line of questioning), I had her personal Facebook page pulled up.
"Fawn, I mean, Lindsay Middleinitial Lastname from Hometown, OR, who checked into Starbucks at 123 Main St. last night with her boyfriend, Clueless McSwaggy*, you’ve just given a man who used to DJ by ‘Statutory Ray’ enough information to wait outside of your dad’s house, with your double tall latte and immediate, short-in-duration future, sitting in the palm of his hand, next to the keys for a rental car and a legally concealed weapon. Not only are you naïve enough for any other creepy DJ who meets you to make this a reality, if given six hours to validate whatever lost piece of your sexuality you may be looking for—while frantically trying to hide tears and giving your first lap dance to a guy named after the limb he didn’t lose in Vietnam—but, I can promise you that the money you make tonight wouldn’t get you naked if put in front of your face at a friend’s birthday party. Yet, here you are, about to show your clit to guys who just left the porn theater next door for less than the price of a canned Pabst."
I continued. "Granted, you’ve never legally had a drop of alcohol, but by the time you are old enough to taste the stuff in three years, you will be so far down the cocaine rabbit hole that you will have skipped right past the Stella and into the Stoli, without even stopping for a cigarette. Just one swing around that pole and you will be branded a stripper for life. I love strippers— they pay my bills. Hell, some of my best friends are strippers. But, you don’t look like the type of girl who wants to be included in any category where the person describing it has to preface it with ‘some of my best friends are.’ Now, you’re gonna do me a favor and stand there, with your clothes on, and look pretty. As soon as a customer who doesn’t work here walks in, start looking stupid instead of pretty, point at my computer screen, and with a confused look, say ‘you don’t have the song.’ You’re going to do this for the next thirty minutes until your shift ends." Then, I told Fawn about how I was going through a simultaneous breakup and midlife crisis, before asking her to forgive me (and, echoing the sentiment to the club owner via text message).
The next day, Fawn/Lindsay accepted my Facebook request (I’m going to make sure my Chicago buddies don’t see her at The Booty, Glock & Pop or whatnot) and the owner had responded to my text ("I wondered about that when I saw her birth date—didn’t realize she had just graduated...good call"). A small piece of me had died the night before in that DJ booth (and twice next to the computer desk at home) and knowing that I could have been the guy who discovered—hell, created... literally and figuratively—the next Amanda Bynes was something that still keeps me up at night. Still, someone’s father is unknowingly very happy with me for having the gall to tell his teenage daughter to stay clothed and broke while she waits for college to start. So, I guess there’s a first time for everything. But, in terms of pole dancing between summer camp and swim team practice, it’s better for a girl who has been raised behind a picket fence to begin her pole dancing career in the safe, non-alcoholic, suburban con- fines of Jiggles—which is now, sadly, a Cracker Barrel.
