| On a quest for a great night and with all of Friday night before me, I headed out to
the Visions Gentlemen's Club only 12 miles from my Collinsville
apartment straight up 157 in Centreville. Charles was managing tonight and another manager, Charli, was tending bar. Couldn't
miss with old friends already there and new ones to meet, I would not go anywhere else. This was the place, an upscale night club I
would never forget. It had never failed me, being one of two clubs I frequented that had never barred me.
Seemingly overshadowed by Crystal Palace and PT's next door, Visions lies back nearly a quarter mile down a little lane. One
might easily miss it, but shouldn't since it's the crown jewel of the three, or at least I think so. There's an ambience there that begins
with the drive down 157 either leaving the club or approaching it, a drive that takes one around the bluffs on high ground with a
flood plain just below you to the West and lit up on a clear night you see the St Louis skyline. I call it memory lane. Driving the
Miata top down with a good friend next to me or a girl from one of the clubs. Or a small group of us in a car or pickup hitting
Visions and some of the other bars in the area. Always----our focus was Visions and with good reason.
Visions had undergone two major restorations, first as the Paradise Club right after Platinum Club bought it and renamed it
Platinum Paradise Showclub, the second restoration last summer, after a restaurant consortium bought it, put another quarter of a
million dollars into it, and reopened it as Visions. I had just done my laundry and had found two free passes to Visions that a girl
named Selena had signed on the back (I owe you one Selena). The new entrance to Visions is impressive----the reception just
inside the door even more impressive. Mike was handling the door and I had only met him once----a week ago when Kasey
Karrington was featuring and I had come in just to see Kasey and her husband Vic. But he remembered me, accepting my free pass
with a grin.
Guess where my first move's to? If you know me by now----the bar and with it beer number one. I see a friendly cute face over
there and she's sitting at the optimal location for securing beer after beer with the minimum amount of distraction. Beer's important
to me and watered down stuff like Bud Lite just won't do. It's Poison, a little brunette, who used to dance with Brandy and sit with
us but that was over a year ago.
Got my priorities straight now. Have a beer in front of me. Pretty girl next to me. Now--food. And that's where part of that $250000
renovation comes in. A small kitchen. Charli places a small menu in front of me. I order a steak sandwich for around $5.50 which
comes with my choice of potato chips and either potato salad or slaw. Was going to grab food on the run from McDonalds and eat
it on the way to the club but this is going it in style. Smart business move on the part of Visions and here's why. Any club that
cannot offer its customers food, if only a micro waved pizza, had better be looking at changing its management. Customers get
hungry and if they can't eat in the club they are going to go elsewhere, often not returning to the club. Here I have a number of
choices from the menu. Touch of class here.
While waiting for my food I flip myself around so that I'm sitting on my bar stool looking at the stages and the rest of the room.
Getting analytical now, I'm studying the place--asking myself, "Why do I like this club so much?"
There's four stages, three of them in use, a dancer performing at each one, with two stages equipped with poles. Here, if a girl can
really dance, she can strut her stuff, and show what she's made of. The bar has four sides, the back side being a wall. Theoretically
girls and patrons can sit on three sides of the bar although the club is presently using only two sides for its customers and dancers.
Unlike last week when I came in to watch Kasey Karrington feature, the club is more dimly lit tonight which gives it the old
atmosphere I liked so much----pure glamour. The DJ has total control of the club's lights from his stand being able to dim or
brighten the lights. Someone tells me they have turned off the lights above the bar so it's not the DJ who has adjusted the lighting.
It's the four foot long aquarium in the center of the bar that furnishes the only lighting in this area. Perfect.
There are mirrors on three sides of the room and on part of the fourth, the rest being taken up by a lengthy VIP room bathed in red
neon where the girls can sit with their customers and do private dances. Inside the VIP lounge are several small couches and a few
small tables and chairs. Small lights that look like candles rest on each table. The VIP room is glassed in. You can look inside from
a distance and get an idea of who's in there if you have good eyes which most of us don't and if you really want to you can walk up
to it and peer into the large glass windows although you are going to look like a fool and might even trip over the three couches just
outside the VIP lounge or the small table and chairs which rest just below the large glass windows. Here men can sit alone or with
a favored girl while watching the dancers perform on the stages.
In the center of the room hanging from the ceiling are two large globe lights slowly spinning out multi-colored light in a mild
strobe like effect which gives the stage and the dancer performing on it just a touch of surrealism, but here the key words are "just a
touch". The whole effect with the kaleidoscope of lights ever changing throughout the room is what strip clubs were meant to
be--------a fantasy land carefully planned and created by its owners to take the clubs patrons into a different realm where everyday
problems are forgotten for a few brief hours.
Suddenly reality hits me in the back of my head. My hat is stolen from behind. I turn around to see Charli putting it on her head
adjusting it to a jaunty angle as she smiles at me. Have to say one thing, it probably looks better on her than on me. "That'll cost
you, Charlie," I tell her.
"You can't threaten me, Jack," she answers with a smile. "I"m your bartender and I'm the one who's getting you your beer."
"Still a manager here, Charlie?"
"Yes, but normally only one night a week. Most of the time I"m just bar tendering."
"For wearing my hat I want you to promise me to let me dance on your stage and do the pole. I'm a lot better at it now than that
time you let Nipples and I do it together."
"Not tonight," she replied.
"Which means possibly some other night?" I ask her to which there's no reply. I'm thinking now of both the past and the future and
if I handle it right someday she's going to let me do it. There was that first time a few years ago when Nipples who inspired the Lori
Mellon character in my novel "Death on the Wild Side" was working here. Charli was just as she is today, a hard working assistant
manager who was very competent. She could joke around with the best of them, was very fair the way she treated both the
customers and the girls, but at the same time she'd stick to the clubs rules and one of them I'm sure was not to let customers get on
the stage and do the pole. One night Nipples was drunk and I was even drunker and somehow I managed to convince Charli to let
us do the pole together. Went up on the stage with Nipples. Both of us grabbed the pole, nodded at each other as the signal to have
at it, then the two of us started rotating around the pole in tandem. Here I was with the best dancer in the house making a public
spectacle of myself. I still don't know what happened but after doing only one turn I fell right on my back--then just lay there trying
to comprehend how I had fallen.
Had a lot of practice since, taking girls to the back stage at Dollies where I spun around the pole by myself or did it in tandem with
them. Done it in Indiana too, showing off to a club owner friend of mine and others in the room. For me, it's easy and fun.
Especially that night a Dollies bartender and I did it for over half an hour as a manager took pictures of us. Got a stress fracture in
my right foot because I was wearing sandals. Didn't sue the club since that's not like me so if Charli has any hesitation, next time I
ask her I'll just remind her of that or bring 12 dozen releases and sign everyone of them.
Then I catch a glimpse of Charles who manages five nights a week, hop off my bar stool and going up to him ask "Want to talk
with you in your office, Charles. Whenever it's convenient for you, just let me know." He's got lots of things going on, he tells me
but will let me know when it's a good time, which is fine with me since I have a lot of beer I'm planning to drink.
Back at the bar a pretty blonde has just sat on the stool next to me. Immediately I catch her eye and ask--------"Wasn't that you who
went to Dollies last weekend with a date, then returned here where I saw you again after I came in to see Kasey feature?"
"That was me. I sometimes go there to have a few. I saw you at Dollies and was wondering what you were doing."
"I was online with my laptop. A group of us meets over at my table where we go online and chat with the group on my web site. I
also do a lot of digital pictures of the girls."
"They let you do pictures there?"
"All the time as long as I use common sense such as not doing them in the back room when a private dance is going on or taking
them in the front room where most of the customers are (here I was lying to her since I usually don't use common sense although I
follow these guidelines).
"What do you pay them?" she asks.
"Nothing. Done well over 100 girls and over 3000 pictures. I don't even know how many. Most of them like having their pictures
taken and put on the web site in our chats." Probably more than half of them I've taken there but I've taken lots of pictures of
dancers in Indiana, Las Vegas, and around here in the St Louis area at other clubs. Even here in this club."
"Not me. I don't want my pictures on the Internet."
"No big deal. Some feel like you do. Most want them taken and you'd be surprised at how often they come up to me first to see if
I'll do pictures."
Wanting to meet the club's new DJ I see him walking around close to the bar and jump off my bar stool. The man is close to my
height, wears his dark hair long and has glasses. "Hi, I'm Jack Corbett," I introduce myself while holding out my hand. He grabs my
extended hand and shakes it profusely, grinning at me. "And I'm Jesse."
"Been wanting to meet you Jesse. Knew your predecessor pretty well. Steve. Always liked him." The conversation then turns to
Steve, where he was working, and Steve's having his picture in my novel sitting in my Miata with its top down. That afternoon,
Steve had taken a few minutes off to drive my Miata, the two of us sitting side by side, on a warm afternoon with the little car's top
down. Then later on I took the pictures. Steve and I had become fast friends and my initial impression of Jesse is that I'm going to
like him. Seems eager to meet new people, has a ready smile and a firm hand shake.
Food arrives just as I'm returning to my bar stool. As I sit down to my beer, a good sandwich, potato salad, and the chips, I'm
thinking-----"This is a lot better than McDonalds. Good company all around. Pretty women and I've got a Budweiser to wash it all
down." This time facing the bar since I have my food to contend with while sucking beer from the bottle, a hand reaches up behind
me giving my arm a gentle squeeze. Turning around, I see it's Sahara, who was handling the bar last week while Kasey was
featuring. I had been hoping to find her here.
"Hi Jack. How are you?" Sahara's eyes smiled at me as she spoke.
Always liked Sahara. When you meet her you forget you are in a strip club. Laid back, with a nice smile, she's easy to talk with and
she never seems to care if you are buying her a drink or not. Kind of woman you could take anywhere, she's a lady through and
through and I don't want anyone to tell me you can't find ladies in strip clubs because you can. Besides...she's damn attractive.
Pretty in the face, with medium length hair, nice eyes that look right into yours, she's just hard to beat. Best part of it is, she's a real
kidder. I like sharp witted women who aren't sharp, abrasive or cruel but pleasant in a bantering kind of way. And see----------I said
all these good things about her because I meant them and didn't even mention her figure. But now I will. Dynamite. Okay...you got
it. She's slender and beautifully proportioned. Now I''ll just have to talk about her later on since I've got a meal to finish and another
beer to drink.
The food's good and the beer----that's always good. Just don't ever serve me Bud Lite. Too watered down. But now I'm starting to
feel sorry for myself. Charli's still wearing my hat. For two hours she wears that hat. Dancing behind the bar, or handling drink
orders, or hustling about, always on the go, that hat's going wherever she's going being firmly attached to her head. I feel denuded.
I'm bald. I feel complete loss sweeping over me.
But suddenly I feel better. Another blonde sits next to me. Earlier I had seen her walking around the room with a single flower in
her hand, then later I observed her on the stage, dancing a little unsure of herself as if she was wondering what to do. "She's
obviously new at this game," I had told myelf. "Still...cute. Appealing with that lost angel look about her. After several minutes of
conversation at the bar she has to get up on stage again. I watch her walk away thinking how she reminds me of another blonde I
know from another club who I had once felt close to.
A few beers later, I catch Charles's eye from the other end of the bar. He gives me a pleasant nod which means-------"Let's catch up
with each other in the office." It's a small office. Nothing ostentatious about it. There's a large camera monitor which he can watch
while sitting at his desk as he checks up on what's going on throughout the club. I know from previous experience what kinds of
things they can check up on and have been in that office a number of times. There are cameras all over the club. This time Charles
is checking to see what's going on in the VIP room. "Look like the judge is back there again and ready to do another private dance,"
Charles remarks to me as he watches the screen.
I've gone online in that office with a laptop and shown him my web site but that was a year ago. Done it several times. Once, with
PlOne with us visiting from San Francisco and Philip21 from Indiana, the three of us talking with Charles while we put the laptop
through its paces. Back then, Brandy was dancing. Worked at Visions since it was easy for her to catch rides back and forth to work
with Charles since they both lived on the same street. I remember how he had taken me out to show off his car stereo in the club's
parking lot back then. 1500 watts of amplifier power in his trunk with speakers all over the inside of the car. That car seat would
resonate with sound when he'd turn it up a bit. And if you'd sit in it when he gave it a little base it would about life you off your
duff, the bass coming right up out of that seat.
"Still got the car with the great stereo, Charles, " I asked.
"Got rid of it. Now working on another one and this one's really going to kick some ass."
Tell you one thing, it's easy to relate to a manager who's got a lot of kid in him. But just ask around about Charles and you will very
seldom find a dancer who doesn't respect him or like him. And you will never hear anyone question his integrity. It was a year ago
when the new restaurant group bought the majority interest in this club and renamed it Visions. Platinum Club in Brooklyn and the
Centreville club were owned by the same people and Charles had been General Manager of this club. Brandy was working here
then, and Brandy's one of the finest girls I've ever met from the dancing profession. A new man took over as General Manager. And
Charles went back to being an assistant manager at the Brooklyn Club. Just one of those things that often happens when a change
of ownership occurs. I remember how Brandy almost cried when she found out she would no longer be dancing with Charles as her
manager or that she would be catching rides with him. She worked a few days at the Brooklyn club--then quit dancing. And has not
danced since.
Visions still has Bob as General Manager. And Charles is back. It's like old times as I tell him my latest plans that can affect the
club and the two of us swap stories. There is a knock on the door. Every so often there's a knock on the door and it's almost always
a pretty dancer. This time it's a brunette and she sticks around. I offer her my chair telling her I can stand. After a few minutes
Charles pulls out this large glass jar that is full of chocolates. Some of them enclosed in their individual wrappers, others bare,
ready to be eaten. He offers me the jar and I take one or two when the door opens and Jesse, the DJ comes in.
"I came in for some candy, Charles," Jesse says grinning at us all.
"Have all you want," Charles answers as he extends the jar to Jesse.
Now it's four of us in the office talking with Jesse and Charles kidding each other about an embarrassing incident that Jesse blames
Charles for as the two men laugh it up. Don't remember how it came up but somewhere along the line Jesse starts kidding the girl.
"I will not and do not go out with you dancers," he tells her.
"Why not?" the girl asks.
"Because you are all crazy. That's why."
And wouldn't you know it and I know you aren't going to believe this but within five minutes of Jesse's saying that the girl
somehow sends Charles' jar of chocolates crashing onto the floor. Glass all over the floor now, we start picking up chocolates and
shards of broken glass. "That's exactly what I meant," Jesse announces good naturedly. "You girls are all crazy."
We are all throwing the chocolates whether wrapped in paper or not into the waste can along with the glass. "It's a liability thing,"
Charles explains to us. "One little bit of glass on a chocolate or wrapper and a customer or the wrong employee gets into contact
with that glass and this club can be sued." But he takes it in stride, never showing a moment's anger to any of us. But what a waste.
That stuff was good and now I can't have another piece.
I turn to Jesse and ask: "Where are you from, Jesse?"
"Missoula, Montana, he replies, which sends back memories of a woman I had met on a frigid morning in Sun Valley, Idaho where
I had rented a condo to ski for a month. It was thirty three below zero that morning and deciding that skiing in that cold of
conditions was total insanity I had started walking and running to the local library where I could warm my feet by the fire while
reading ski magazines (I was slightly into skiing in those days). I ran around a corner and almost knocked a blonde off her feet.
Later on, meeting her in the Ketchum drug store I asked her to have lunch with me. That night I was moving her stuff into my
condo after first telling her she'd have to move out before the next weekend since I'd be having friends coming in from Illinois. She
had hitched a ride from Missoula, Montana to Sun Valley with two guys she had just met and started working at Adkins Market,
the local grocery store.
That started Jesse and I swapping stories about skiing-----how we had both skied Big Mountain in Montana, Grand Targhee and
Jackson Hole in Wyoming. I then told him how the blonde just wouldn't leave when her time was up and my friends were about to
arrive. And how I dealt with it. "What's her name?" Jesse asked. "I might know her."
"Don't remember," I replied. "That was awhile back."
Finally I excused myself and returned to the bar. Plunged in thought I thought about writing. Time for another beer, then another.
Taking in the music now, I watched the room. This club's got good music and after awhile it just becomes a part of you. The
music's non stop and with the lights with their strobe like effect it creates just the right mood. Seductively it all sneaks up on a
man----or a woman. I say a woman because right now a pretty blonde has come in out of nowhere and is sitting at someone's stage.
At first I hardly notice since I'm consumed in my thoughts and letting the club's sounds wash over me as I become part of the scene.
Thinking too that in any club in this area at any time I never know what the night will bring-----who's going to be in the club or
who's going to walk in the door. Always..there's that adventure lurking around the next corner. I never know when it's going to
happen or who's going to share it with me.
A few minutes later I notice that the blonde is sitting a few stools down from me at the bar looking at me with a puzzled expression
on her face. I remember her. She's a nurse-----an RN living over a hundred miles from the club. We've not seen each other in years.
A mother and a nurse she was well respected in that town but she had always dreamed about what it would be like to be a stripper.
Until she finally took the plunge and would come in on weekends, living out of a close by motel. There had been an intellectual
side of her that was painfully obvious at times but she was a pretty woman and I had met her here when Visions was Platinums
Paradise Showclub. Back in those days I used to go to dancers' stages. The nurse often wanted me at her stage but refused me when
I offered to tip her. Back at the bar she had once told me: "You are very intelligent and I love talking with you. You don't ever have
to give me money."
She often told me about how she had two lives and had decided that October 2nd would be her last night dancing. That was months
before the final day of her dancer's clock. I have often regretted that last night she danced. Blew it. No one's fault but my own and
I'm not going to tell anyone here what I did. But it was one of the cruelest things I've ever done to a woman. Months later I called
the hospital she was working at. Her voice was cold. But I still got her home address and sent her one of my novels. Never heard
from her or called her since.
No time to waste-- I walk right up to her. "What are you doing here?"
"In town so I thought I'd stop in to see if anyone was still here I knew."
"Sorry I was such an ass that last night you worked."
"You are an ass, Jack. Admit it."
"That night was the worse ever. Just sorry it had to be you. Wish I could make up for it."
"You can start by buying me a drink."
"I have a better idea. At least I hope you think it is," I suggest to her.
"Oh no. Something tells me I don't want to hear this."
"I wish it were summer. I'd have the top down on the Miata. Let's just go out and drive around. We have a lot of catching up to do
and it's a nice drive."
"What? Me drive around with you. You are crazy, Jack. Absolutely nuts."
"What do you mean you driving around with me. I have two DUI's," I tell her as I hand her my car keys. You are driving me
around, and by the way, I just happen to have both tequila and beer in the car."
"Okay," she replies doubtfully, but if you try to pull one of your old tricks on me, I'm bailing."
"I don't think you'll mind. Let's go."
Outside the Miata's parked looking low slung and fast. Had a lot of work done to it having had it lowered and racing springs put on
all four corners. Oversized wheels with low profile tires and stabilizer struts put in both the front and rear of the chassis to make
her corner even flatter. A little work under the hood too--such as a header, an air intake, some porting of the cylinder heads, and a
couple other modifications to give it more horsepower. Used to run a supercharger on it for an additional fifty horses which made
the car really fly but after blowing three engines I took it off.
Heather got in behind the wheel as I opened the door for her. Then I got in the passenger seat from the other side. Reaching back
behind the seat I pulled the six pack out. "Beer for the road?"
"Why in the hell not?" she laughed. "Just don't tell anyone back in my home town I was drinking and driving if you ever meet
anyone there. Remember back there, I'm not Heather. Heather was my stage name. I'm Lillian, a nice and proper nurse who works
in the cardiac ward of the local hospital. I have children. I go to PTA meetings and do all the nice things that good parents are
expected to do."
Handing her the beer, I pop open my can and take a deep swallow. "Just take 157 straight out north around 10 miles or so. Go
straight through Collinsville. I'll tell you where to turn. Trust me."
"Trust you, Jack! Not on your life."
Within five miles she's grinning as she revs the car up through the gears. I tell her to shift at close to 6000 rpms where the Miata's
got good power. Didn't think she'd be taking the corners this fast. Had the matronly nurse in mind and had forgotten that she had
been a stripper.
"I love this car Jack. You are forgiven if you give it to me."
"Sorry, but I don't tip."
A few minutes later I tell her to turn left on Collinsville Road. Then have her park the car in a lot several miles later. She looks at
me as if I'm crazy and asks---------"Are you out of your mind? If you've got sex in your mind you sure picked the wrong car to do it
in." Which she was right on since Miata's are not much bigger than go karts.
"Trust me," I reply.
"Oh God. Do I have to?"
Luckily I have two dark blue quilted jackets in the sports car's little trunk, coats I had been using down at the farm, dusty from
wearing them while working on tractors and other machinery. I also have a wine skin full of straight tequila.
"I'm not wearing that dirty jacket, Jack!"
"You will if you don't want to get cold."
Don't know how I did it but I somehow convince her to walk with me a mile to Monks Mound, site of possibly the most advanced
and definitely the most populous Indian civilization ever seen on the North American continent--------and easily within four miles
of the Washington Park clubs. "Cops would pick us up if we parked next to the mound," I tell her, "and we are going to need these
coats since it's too cold tonight and their dark color will help hide us as we climb the mound. They constantly patrol around here
and the museum does not want people climbing this thing at night."
There was another night more than a year ago when a pretty girl who worked at Dollies drove me to the mound after the club
closed. I had started walking toward the Mound with the girl following me. But the night's chill was too much for her and she told
me she didn't want to do it after we had walked only fifty yards. Heather and I didn't take the large concrete steps but climbed the
side of the mound thinking once again of the cops. Minutes later we were at the top looking at the St Louis skyline lit up
majestically to the West. The view-----incredible
Thinking about how most motorists driving by the mound on I-55 either didn't notice it, or thought someone had just planted it
there from the sky, I start to tell Heather about its history. How the Mound Builders or Mississippians as they were often called
worked for six hundred years to build the huge earthen edifice which rose over a hundred feet in the air and had a larger base than
the Great Pyramid in Egypt. "There were over 20000 residents here who had this mound as its center. In 1250 AD there were more
people here than the City of London had at the same time. They called this Cahokia.", I explained as she asked me countless
questions.
Sometimes we wandered around the top of the mound trying to peer off into the distance but it was a cloudy night and we couldn't
see much. Most of the time we sat huddled close together with our arms around each other talking quietly--not that it mattered
since there was no one out there but us. At last the sun started to come up and we began to see the trees slowly appear. A heavily
wooded area began to take shape off to the South and then the other mounds started to appear. The last thing to take shape out of
the darkness was the museum just across Collinsville Road, a striking building in which one could learn about this advanced
civilization that disappeared more than six hundred years ago-----the cause for its decline and disappearance unknown.
"Can you imagine what it would be like sitting up here on the Fourth of July at night while watching the fireworks display on the St
Louis Riverfront?" I asked.
"Incredible," she replied.
"And we can sit up here with some of our friends imagining all those thousands of people on the other side of the river like rats in a
trap fighting traffic to get home."
Sitting up high like the Great Sun himself, who was the absolute ruler living in a house on top of the Great Mound we then started
talking about the club and clubs in general. We watched the sun climb higher into the sky imagining ourselves living 800 years ago
and joked about how we would have lived where we were presently sitting, not down below with the common men and women
who toiled for the Great Ruler.
"There were no stars last night." she said to me and I replied, "Yes there were and they were us. We had fun. I picked this place.
Time for breakfast. Your turn. I'll take you anywhere you want."
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