Chapter 25: Greek to Her
Tacoma was a GI town, no question, during the Vietnam conflict. Olympia was closer to Fort Lewis, but Olympia was an uptight little state capital that rolled its sidewalks up at dark.
Tacoma came alive at night, topless joints and prostitutes, GIs in cheap PX clothing on the prowl for excitement. Esmerelda’s was legendary for the trouble you could get into within its beer-soaked confines. I was once washing up in the Greyhound bus station’s restroom while a soldier from the Fourth Division who had overindulged hugged a toilet in one of the stalls, and gave it all back in violent spasms to the city’s sewers.
When he finally stumbled out of the stall, pale and shaken, he said to his buddy, “We are shipping to Vietnam day after tomorrow and have a good chance of getting killed. And the last memory I will have of the country I supposedly am fighting for will be Esmerelda’s.”
“That or the Greyhound bus station,” said his unsympathetic buddy. “C’mon, let’s go get a drink to settle your stomach. The Mirror Room is hopping.”
The Mirror Room, a legendary watering hole in the basement of a local hotel, featured a higher class of skin show than Esmerelda’s. Dancers who could actually dance, and from time to time did a pretty good imitation of classic burley-cue fan-dancing and stripping routines. Plus the women were really good-looking. Hand-selected — urban legend said throat-selected — by another local legend. None of us GIs knew about the man behind the curtain. Newspapers reporting on him always appended the description “well-known nightlife figure.” Lawsuit-proof code for hoodlum.
Over a decade later, long after honorable discharge, after my faded field jacket no longer zipped, after my last pair of combat boots wore out in grass-mowing, I came to know a lot about this nightlife figure. My writing career had taken a wrong turning. I was a bureaucrat employed by his mortal enemy, the Liquor Control Board. Urban legend was now matter-of-fact grist for confidential enforcement briefings.
To get a job with his “talent agency” that supplied dancers to joints secretly owned by the mob, women had to furnish him a satisfactory oral-sex experience as proof of talent. Purely business, not lechery: easily weeded out undercover cops. The life agreed with him because he lived to a ripe old age.
As the supposed media expert I was consulted when an antic female reporter volunteered her throat for undercover work. She could dance, had a good figure and fairly pulsated with sexual energy. She was not dissuaded by the prospect that public-trial testimony would reveal she sucked off the aging hood to get inside the organization. She wanted on-the-job plainclothes security should things go south, but the risk — and the exposure — was worth a guaranteed exclusive when indictments were filed. The enforcement chief thought it tickled an exhibitionist streak in her; she casually mentioned a sexy book she might write.
Her offer was tempting. Undercover cops were out for the assignment because the defense would plead entrapment, never mind public humiliation for the female cop who provided oral. As working media with her own agenda, she could not be construed an “agent of the police” under entrapment law. The chief would happily nail the old crook but was worried about unintended consequences. So he called me for a consult. My immediate recommendation was drop the idea. Don’t know if that tipped the decision but the plan was scrapped.
Thing is, the plan would have worked if she stayed the course. I had zero doubt she would. I knew her. Sexual adventure and exhibitionism and a tell-all book was an irresistible triple whammy. I had wondered what she saw in the stodgy, stick-in-the-mud, often-stuttering reporter she married. One of the most church-going, credulous men to ever man a newspaper typewriter, repeatedly amazed at the wickedness he covered.
His wife had vowed to our chief that he was and would be in the dark until she broke the story. The chief was skeptical. I was not. It was my job to know the media’s tangled alliances and hot buttons; I was good at my job. He loved her desperately. She’d keep him in the dark all right. But I pictured his face when the news hit. Pictured cruel newsroom humor with which I was more than familiar. Felt in my gut the sick helpless twist he would feel. Didn’t offer my veto for professional reasons but for the peace of my own soul.
As strait-laced as her husband was, he was a competent reporter with good sources. Before a year passed he asked me in his slow cautious stammer about a rumor a newspaperwoman had sucked off the old gangster to get inside the mob. Gave me deep satisfaction to tell him the rumor was crap.
But when I was a GI frequenting the Mirror Room in a rain-logged GI town, all that was the unknowable future. I was just another GI at loose ends, mourning lost loves and looking for a good time to ease the emptiness. Mirror Room drinks were okay, the mirrors were cool, the hectic strobe of black lighting hallucinatory and the bodies very easy on the eyes. You could see them close-up if you bought a dancer a drink between sets. Any further delights were open to negotiation.
Another thing I didn’t know was the Mirror Room was managed by the well-known nightlife figure’s sister, who had first call on her brother’s best-looking dancers. If the girls had kids but no husband — a lot of them did — the sister ran a night-care center, if you will, for offspring. The girls could dance and negotiate in perfect trust their children were safe with a house mother, a reliable older performer off the floor for whatever reason, who had the mob’s tough guys on call. Brutal exes and stalkers who did not entertain a death wish left children in Mirror Room night-care strictly alone. An arrangement that earned grudging respect from cops, who hate domestic calls. It made for a well-organized establishment with happy employees who worked hard to keep the customers happy.
All I knew as a young lonely GI was the face — the lovely bodies too — of the franchise. Like many another GI, I entertained a secret hope of finding a dancer not only lovely and agreeable but intelligent enough for a real conversation when they came around the tables. My affection centered briefly on a tall lithe blonde stripper with the stage-name Electra. Her skimpy costume included little colored lights sewn in strategic spots. She said these were cleverly powered by invisible batteries hidden God alone knows where. For her finale, the black lighting would cease its frenetic flicker. The room would go almost pitch-dark. All eyes focused on the bright hallucination-inducing jiggle of her Christmas lights. It was a fine finale to her strip. Then she’d come around to accept drinks, tips and accolades.
In high school, a course I really liked was about Greek tragedians. I saw Greek symbology in her chosen name. Couldn’t wait to find out if it was intentional. “So, Electra,” I said casually one night between sets, “does your name stand for anything? Like, are you looking for a father figure?”
“It does stand for something,” she said with a saucy wink. “As for older men, some of them are pretty cool. Especially the ones with money! But you’re not an old man, so why the curiosity?”
“I just thought Electra might be indicating your preference.”
I could almost see the wheels go round in that pretty head as she tried to figure out what I was talking about. She pursed those lovely lips which — unknown to me — had satisfied the famous nightlife figure of her oral skills. She sipped her whiskey sour, which was probably cloudy iced tea so she wouldn’t get too soused to dance. She thought about it.
“I’m a student of the dance,” she said finally. “I chose Electra to honor Gypsy Rose Lee’s understudy. That was her understudy’s stage name, Electra, and I got the idea about the lights from her. Kind of a classic reference, you know?”
I was laughing at myself. She smiled brightly, having made the customer happy. “I guess there are all kinds of classics if you know where to look,” I said.
