Lance gangles down Burnside. He vandalizes a building with a pentagram in Sharpie, on the way to work. A passerby mean-mugs him and his sunken eyes. Lance keeps on, flicks his cigarette into the street and lights another one. He puffs on the second ciggie and throws it at a car, when he yanks the club door open.
Lance picks up bottles and vacuums the floors. He wipes down the rack that wraps around the stage.
A patron enters the dim bar. A 20-something in a pink, button-down shirt with disheveled hair.
"We open in 30 minutes," says the bartender from behind the mirror-walled bar. He polishes glasses with a towel that glows in the blacklight.
"But, the door wasn’t locked," says the early bird.
The bartender points to the door. The guy grumbles outside, as a dancer in a sun hat swings a flower-covered suitcase through the door, simultaneously. In the narrow entryway, she removes her sunglasses with opera-gloved hands.
"Watch it," she says.
All the chairs stand on tabletops, so Misha sits at the bar.
"You’re early today," says the bartender. "That’s a first. I didn’t think you’d get here until an hour after your shift started."
"Skip my stage fee as a reward," she says and plucks olives from the fruit tray between the brass well rails.
"No one skips the stage fee," says the bartender, as he flips the tray lid on her fingers.
"A girl’s gotta try."
Misha floats to the dressing room. She plunks down her suitcase at a vanity station. A frame of bulbs shine around the vanity mirror. She disrobes, but leaves on the sun hat. She changes into a halter top and miniskirt—no panties. She’s already wearing go-go boots.
She heads to the bathroom, clutching a small pouch. She sits on the closed toilet. Black mold smears across the shower doors. She opens the pouch on her lap and rolls down one of the satin gloves. A constellation of bruised scabs. She presses to find an entrance—nothing’s left. She taps along blown-out veins. She finds a spot between spots. She fidgets a needle, half full with a light-brown liquid and stabs it in.
Connie knocks on the bathroom door that has notes to/from strippers pinned all over it. "Time’s up," Connie says. "My turn." She knocks again. "Girl, I’m telling you—I got to take a piss."
Misha opens the door and shoulders Connie in a stumble. She slaps on her sunglasses and applies more lipstick at the station.
Misha drifts across the checkered stage. She glides around the pole. The early bird, having returned, gawks, while he eats bacon on the rack. He smacks and chews the salted gristle. Misha slow-motion twirls to post-punk on the opposite side of the stage, with her back to him. She scales the wall of mirrors, instead of paying mind to him and waves her torso to the reflection of herself.
Lance DJs the next song without getting on the mic using a corny voice to say trite garbage to a room who ignores it. His reluctance to broadcast to the club makes him popular among the dancers. Connie grabs his ass in the DJ booth that faces the stage.
Misha, Connie and Lance smoke cigarettes outside the back door, just after closing. They agree to party at Connie and Lance’s. Connie eyeballs Misha during the stroll over to the apartment, but Misha misses it.
The three of them sit on the floor near a coffee table and an entertainment center. No seating exists in the whole apartment. No chairs. No couch. Not even a cushion.
They take turns flipping through a CD book. Lance picks Metallica’s Ride The Lightning, Connie picks Exit Planet Dust by Chemical Brothers and Misha picks Leonard Cohen’s Songs Of Love And Hate. They squabble over who goes first. Lance demands he does.
"It’s my CD changer and my CDs," he says.
"Just throw them in a shuffle on random," Misha says.
Lance complies. They play cards cross-legged on a stained carpet. Two tracks into their Metallica, Chemical Brothers and Leonard Cohen mega mix, Lance smokes from a glass pipe. A plume of sweet burnt-hair smoke invades the seatless living room, filled with empty beer bottles and food wrappers. The medicine cabinet, charred-sugar cloud wafts to Misha.
"Meth? You people are nasty." She snatches her bag off the coffee table. A capped used needle rolls out. Connie points it at Misha.
"You’re one to talk," Connie says. Waves it at Lance.
Misha tears the needle from Connie’s thin fingers.
"At least it’s not meth," Misha says.
"Is there really a difference?" Lance asks.
Misha surveys the seatless apartment full of trash and mildewed dishes. She stomps to the hall outside.
"Meth heads!" she shouts in the doorway of the apartment.
Connie pops out and decks Misha across the jaw. Misha’s hat droops in her face. Lance jumps between them. Misha swings at Connie and strikes Lance, instead. Lance cocks back his hand. Misha flinches. Lance laughs, then grabs Connie’s shirt, tosses her in the apartment, follows her and slams the door. Misha crouches in the hall, dry heaves in the corner and leaves.
