You almost wouldn’t notice the Midway’s front because it’s hidden by the sign that juts out and advertises DANCERS PRIVATE BOOTHS at the Hustler Club next door. Above the door is elaborate, multicolored florescent lighting that spells out “MIDWAY” above a seventies graphic of a drink. Jittery people stand outside flicking cigarettes and laughing a little too loud. There is one small window, and through it you can see the long, straight bar and the few patrons that sit toward the end of the bar, in the darkest corner. One woman, in her forties, with short, bottle blond hair, thick eye-make up and graying teeth, subtly sneers at me as I walk to the bathroom. Perhaps she thinks I am her competition. A man coos, “Come here, baby girl.”
Roy, the burly bartender with prison-esque tattoo on his left forearm, has to buzz you in to the bathroom, and once my companion and I enter, it becomes apparent why. Two young woman, slightly greasy and high as kites, bounce about the room. One is on her knees in a stall; her purse sits next to her. The other pulls her hair into a ponytail over and over again, almost violently, and expresses feverish concern over whether or not their belongings are blocking the stall.
“Can you get by, sweetheart? Can you get by? You need to get into the stall? You need to use the bathroom? We don’t wanna be in your way…”
“We’ll get in trouble…” the other says as she stands up and slips a plastic bag with a small white rock down her shirtt. She begins to wash her hair with a bar of hotel soap in the sink.
The graffiti is typical of places on the “down low”, as a security guard at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor characterized East Baltimore Street. Lots of limerick references to drugs, penned by someone named “Precious.” There is a furious, repeated buzzing, and the two girls dash out faster than you can say, “Crabs.”
Back out at the bar, Roy pours us drinks, 3/4 vodka, 1/4 soda. “I’ve never lost a customer,” Roy says. This year, there are two new waitresses, both of whom Roy describes as “pitbulls.” Everyone has that hard edge to them, that scratchy, nicotine-grated voice and dried out hair. Tough eyes. We strike up a conversation with the younger waitress.
“Were you buzzing because they were taking too long in the bathroom?”
“Yeah, those two girls like to do crack in the bathroom, but I don’t let it happen on my watch.”
A man walks in with one of the aforementioned girls-who-do-crack-in-the-bathroom trailing him, twitching. He sits at the bar and both crackheads, plus the older woman, whose get-up is straight out of John Waters, start to caress him.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Two years. I used to dance, before that.”
We assume dance also means “date.”
“How long did you do that for?”
“Twelve years. Things are different now, though. I’m older. 31. I got two kids, two little girls. Nevaeh and Tulia. ‘Nevaeh’ is ‘heaven’ backwards and Tulia’s just Tulia.”
“Did you make more money dancing or doing this?”
“Dancing. But I didn’t like it. This is better. And like I said, I’m older now.”
My companion goes outside to smoke a cigarette, and in the course of five minutes, tries to dissuade someone from snorting heroin and has to turn down a proposition for sex. I examine the glass cases neatly lined with bottles of Old Grandad and Jim Beam behind the bar. “Roxanne” comes on the jukebox. I look up to the framed portraits that line the top of the wall, fading glamor shots of old Hollywood pin-ups and movie stars. Their bodies are plump and nourished, butts popped, breasts pushed slightly forward. Their faces are calm and self-content. Their teeth are clean.
The last one is my favorite. Looking at pictures of tattoos makes me want another one. Not that that should be surprising…
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