G-Is for String

Chapter 6

Soon after I began putting together my new shows, Don, my agent, decided it was time to send me on tour in Ohio. Four cities, one week each in Akron, Columbus, Cleveland, and Youngstown. The big times. I packed up my new music and costumes and boarded the bus to Ohio at the Greyhound station on a drizzly, gray Sunday afternoon. Sunday would be my traveling day for the next thirteen years whenever I was on the road.

The once-infamous Astor Theater in Akron, Ohio was where I made my touring debut. The theater was a beautiful art deco throwback with red carpeting, gold-striped wallpaper, and crystal chandeliers dripping over the lobby. It seated 500 without the balcony rows. The stage was at least thirty by twenty feet of lovely hardwood, and when the dancers performed, luxurious red velvet curtains descended over the movie screen.

Having changed hands several times over the years since its grand opening in 1920, the Astor landed on hard times in the 1950s and never fully recovered. After several decades of fumbling, the theater brought in X-rated films to pay the rent. When that novelty began to wear thin, the owners brought in live dancers, which was far better than the dead ones, who would smell and probably require a lot of paperwork.

I didn’t care about its history back then. All I knew was this was an adventure that I was going to savor. Even though it was a theater and they insisted on nudity, the management seemed to be agreeable to my modest nudity at the very last minute of my shows. Whew. No nasty exposure needed. Just truth in advertising: strippers who were alive.

Armed with my new shows and an audience full of people who had never seen me perform I was free to experiment with fresh moves and styles. If I didn’t get my fishnets stuck together or slide off the stage onto a fellow’s lap it was all good. The dressing room was bare bones unfinished wood, with a long, plywood makeup counter and cracked smoky mirrors. It was situated behind the stage with just enough room for three strippers to change in if we all turned sideways. Because I was new to the road and had no promo photos my shows were first, so I had no idea what competition I would be up against.

It would have been nice to know that the featured stripper was going to be playing pong with the audience's drink cups before I went onstage. While I twirled and whirled, kicked and drop split, giving them a prim and proper burlesque performance that Gypsy Rose Lee and Dita Von Tease would have been proud of, nothing was going to make the audience beg me for an encore after catching Annie Sparkle’s balls in their soda pop. The other stripper and I were horrified when we saw Annie’s show. Ping-pong balls flew furiously into the crowd, shooting out from between her legs.

No wonder the audience was double its normal size and the soda pop was selling out like donuts at a policemen’s ball. The concession stand finally gave up about midway through the week and just started ordering bottled pop because they ran through the carbonation canisters twice before Wednesday.

The other stripper and I were curious as to why this Anna chick was the feature when we saw her unpack her huge costume trunk. Both Joanie and I had hauled in a couple of suitcases of our own, filled to the brim with costumes and music. We just assumed a huge trunk meant the star stripper would have all kinds of fancy, expensive costumes. However, Anna had only three items in her steamer trunk, one weird hill Billy ruffled jumper, a floppy hat, and a gross of ping-pong balls. She had wild, curly red hair and big boobs but that didn’t make you a star.

Apparently, the thing that made Anna Sparkles a star was her ability to fling ping-pong balls five rows into an audience from her lady parts. I’ve read that since her rise to burlesque stardom she has become an avid environmentalist. I wonder how many little plastic balls she littered the earth with before becoming environmentally conscious and if her act now involves the audience depositing their recyclable paper cups into her nether regions.

That was all right. I was getting a master class on shameless self-promotion and marketing from that talentless woman. She was making a fortune traveling all over and dotting the countryside with her little plastic balls. As Gypsy Rose Lee once said, ‘If you want to be a star you gotta get a gimmick.’

Time to step up my game…not ping pong though. Over the next dozen or so years I was going to build a repertoire of over two dozen mini musicals, which would put me at the top of the stripping business all over Canada and the States.

However, during my first road trip to Ohio, the only real shows I had were my White Satin show and the unfinished Doll show. I had much more work to do on that show.

The sound and light man was very friendly and liked the other stripper, Joanie, and me, so he let us search through his stacks of records for our shows. My co-worker was looking mainly for recent top forty hits, but I dug deeper for future show ideas. For my doll show, I rummaged around and found forty-fives of Elvis’ song, I don’t have a Wooden Heart. What a treat. In the bottom of one pile, I found an old copy of the Purity Brothers’ I’m your puppet, which had been redone by half a dozen other singers, but this rendition was my favorite. To end the show with a blazing finale the sound guy steered me to the theme song for Valley of the Dolls. It would be perfect for my floor routine. I started out the show with the record I scooped up in Rochester of Hello Dolly. We tallied up the total dance time and it was just long enough. I had my first official themed show and couldn’t wait to finish last-minute alterations on my costume and introduce this act as soon as I perfected my robotic moves.

The talent stayed next door in an abandoned hotel, which was luxurious in an earlier era. Now it was just a sorry, hollow shell of a hotel with the bare necessities. Picture the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, with long, darkened corridors leading to cavernous stairwells that our footsteps echoed in as if ghosts were chasing us. Creepy, but usable. Annie spent most of her time with her stage door Johnnies, doing God only knew what with them. Maybe they were playing ping pong.

My other co-worker, Joanie looked at stripping as purely a financial move. She liked dancing and didn’t really care what she was asked to expose. She was far more interested in paying her rent and keeping her head above water with her bills so she could continue her art classes when she wasn’t on the road.

We had three shows a day, leaving hours to kill between the noon and seven o’clock shows. I hated spending time at the theater in the dressing room because the porn movies played non-stop between shows and the noises were so annoying. I’ve never been able to watch porn since because of the smacking, grunting, and obnoxious mouth noises. Ugh. It was like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet, with no music playing in the background to muffle out the sound of people slurping, burping, and chewing.

With the hotel being next door, I preferred to hang out in my room and read, when I wasn’t working on costumes or my new robot moves. Joanie worked on sketches to paint when she got back home.

Just before the end of the week in Akron, I called Gypsy’s house and got Judi on the phone to see how everyone was. Judi said while Gypsy was at work that week, Frank’s brother, Ted, came to the club she was at, asking around about me. He wanted to talk with me about Frank.

It was strange that he and Frank, my ex, weren’t communicating. Frank always called Ted when he was out of cash and with me gone that must be happening frequently. So, why the hurry to talk to me? I didn’t know where Frank was anyway, and I was happy not knowing.

The week ended uneventfully, except that a member of the audience had to be rushed to the hospital after a ping pong ball broke his glasses and sent slivers of glass into his eyeball. Ouch. No charges were filed. No lawsuits were engaged. The last thing he wanted was for his wife to find out where he’d been spending every afternoon after work the past week. Ah, the land before litigation.

The next stop was Cleveland, Ohio and the theater was another one of those 1920 art deco monstrosities that had been sitting for decades waiting to be reimagined as pleasure palaces for the socially awkward males in our society. These theaters were absolute architectural wonders- if you ignored the DNA-stained seating and the sticky floors.

Gold-painted, plaster ornamental frills and crystal chandeliers dangled over shredded oriental-style carpeting and filigreed railings, while exotic dancers wriggled and writhed on stages decked out with sumptuous velvet curtains. These places must have cost a fortune to build and at one time had to be the finest destinations in their respective downtowns. How sad, truly, that these beautiful wonders had fallen to this state.

The theater in Cleveland was called The Paris. Someone must have thought that calling it something Continental would elevate its social standing. What I loved about this theater was the beautiful hardwood stage with the wide runway flowing from the apron. I was ready to hop onto the stage and start dancing as soon as I arrived.

The manager, Charlie, was an elderly man suffering from lung cancer. He had recently returned from a trip to Mexico for cancer treatments he couldn’t find in the States. Charlie was kind, hairless, and harmless. While we were waiting for the other dancers to arrive, he showed me around the sound booth. To my delight, they had a new-fangled cassette tape deck wired directly into their speakers. This week was going to be a dream.

The other girls showed up later in the afternoon, coming from farther away than I had, and we all went to the apartment we were sharing down the street. I was a bit concerned that the apartment also included Charlie, but because of his condition, it wasn’t too worrying. Charlie spent most of his time in the bathroom vomiting after his treatments in Mexico. Maybe it was good that he wouldn’t be alone. Although, we were a little creeped out by sharing the apartment with a man. Weren’t we an odd lot? Here we were, making our livings by enticing men in our undress. Yet, we were squeamish about sharing an apartment with a man.

Once again, the featured stripper dragged along her huge steamer trunk to the dressing room and when she opened it up it contained exactly one dusty, wrinkled black sequin gown, a feather boa, several threadbare G-Strings, a pair of worn spike heels, and piles of promo-photos. Sheesh. I guess the secret was if the management thought you had an endless wardrobe in that trunk, they would believe you were star material. Once the trunk was in the dressing room, they’d never know you had diddly squat. She had promo photos and I guess that was all they wanted from a feature.

The feature’s performance was as empty as her suitcase. She sort of slumped along, back and forth, up and down the runway, playing with her feathered boa. She was passably attractive with long black hair and a pleasant face. But she was a bit bottom-heavy with short, stumpy legs. The finale of her show was her lying on her back nude, flossing with the feathers, which totally grossed me out. That boa was going to be wrapped around her shoulders the next show. I made sure to keep my costumes and makeup far away from her. She wasn’t a terrible person, just highly unhygienic.

If you haven’t guessed already, I’m a mess of germ phobias and obsessive/compulsive irregularities. I was fearful of stair railings, toilets, anything near a toilet, door handles, water faucets, and now feather boas.

The other stripper, Billie, looked like a pretty housewife from a cleaning product commercial. Seriously, she was a bit taken aback by my observation. She wasn’t too upset by it because we spent the week hanging out together. She and I went to the Kresge’s downtown for meals and after work the three of us invited Charley to the all-night diner up the street from the apartment for breakfast.

Phil, the sound and light man helped all three of us make show tapes with the fancy equipment. He let us dig around in the record bins and I found my White Satin music and music for a new show idea, Singing in the Rain.

In Cleveland, I was able to work the kinks out of my Doll Show onstage because it was Thanksgiving week, and the theater was a little slower than usual. Charlie explained that the term ‘turkey audience’ came from performers trying to entertain people who had just devoured half their weight in turkey and fixings. Sometimes everyone in the audience would fall asleep during shows.

We also learned that the Paris Theater was haunted by a ghost. According to lore, a heartbroken young actress in the 1930s had committed suicide by diving headfirst off a balcony and landing on the back row of seats. The management removed the seats and declared that no performers could wear yellow from then on. It was the color of the gown worn by the actress during her fatal fall. Legend claimed that if the ghost saw that color, the wearer would face the same fate.

Sounds silly, right? Until you’re the last stripper in the dressing room after the midnight show and saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of your eye and heard the curtains rustling. This was an empty, creepy auditorium after the midnight show and all we wanted was to get the hell out of there and eat breakfast someplace busy and bright.

Charlie, bless his heart, made sure we celebrated Thanksgiving together at the apartment. We all pitched in to help him put the meal together. He was happy to have the company, I’m sure. We were happy someone cared enough to make certain we had a normal Thanksgiving meal, even though we still had two more shows to do that night.

It’s funny how certain smells can rustle up memories. A roasting turkey always reminds me of holidays with my family and that Thanksgiving was the first I’d ever missed with them. It was a tough meal to get through, as I wasn’t sure if they would ever want to see me again.

Cherry Sweet told Billie and me that we had dodged a bullet by being sent to The Paris. She had just finished two weeks at the Roxy on the other side of Cleveland and it was awfully raw there. She said the dancers barely got onstage before they stripped down completely and began doing spreads for the audience (naughty gymnastics in the nude).

The strippers at the Roxy made tips from the audience because the seats were within touching distance of the stage. The girls wore garters high up on their thighs and let the customers touch them, ‘accidentally’ while inserting bills in their garters. The more touching they allowed the more tips they got.

Billie and I were shocked and glad we hadn’t been sent there. Billie was from Dayton and hadn’t danced too far from home yet. Even though I’d danced in Texas and Arizona, the worst I’d seen so far was the ping-pong player.

Two more days to go in Cleveland and I was already missing the other dancers, Charlie, Phil, and Sandy, the cheerful gal at the concession stand and ticket booth.

Friday night in Cleveland was predicted to be a blow-out ice storm, coming in off Lake Erie. The other dancers were keen on going out on the town after the midnight show, no matter what. Being from lake country near Rochester, I knew what was in store for us with the weather. So, after the midnight show, I hunkered down with a cup of hot tea and a game of Rummy with Charlie in the apartment, while Cherry and Billie went on the prowl at the local bars.

Over a glass of Jack Daniels on ice, Charlie told me about his life growing up in rural Tennessee, running around barefoot in the grass and killing rattlesnakes with pitchforks. He had to work to help his mother raise his brothers, so he quit school in the tenth grade and went to work for the railroad. After many years of hard physical labor, he moved up to a dispatcher position in Knoxville. He had been married and divorced. When he retired from the railroad, he moved to Cleveland to be close to his daughter, hoping to mend fences with her. I encouraged him to keep trying.

I told him a bit about the trip with Frank, which, to my surprise, made him furious. Charley was washing down painkillers with his Jack Daniels. I was beginning to see a disturbing pattern of instability emerge. As he became more agitated and unpredictable, I was hoping the other girls would get home soon. I was not comfortable with this new version of Charley. I preferred the sweet, kind version.

At one point in the conversation, Charley jumped up from the table and told me, “If that asshole Frank tries to hurt you, I have a surprise for him.”

He jumped up from the table and ran to his bedroom, returning with a gun in his hand. Great. Now we have a doped-up, drunken, angry old man waving a gun around. What could possibly go wrong?

“Don’t worry, Charley. Frank is long gone with his new girlfriend, and he doesn’t even know where I am.”

“You don’t know that Tina, baby. He could be waiting outside the apartment for you- just waiting to steal you from me.”

Steal me from Charley? Tina, baby?

Oh, boy, Houston, we have a problem. Now I apparently belonged to Charlie and was his, ’Baby’

Where the hell were the other dancers? I prayed they would come back soon, as I wasn’t sure how to handle this new development on my own. I tried changing the subject, to no avail. “I’m worried about Cherry and Billie. Don’t you think they should be back by now?”

“See, Honey, that’s what I love about you. You care about other people. If the shoe was on the other foot, those whores wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about you.”

Now the other dancers were whores, and I was his Baby-Honey. How the heck did that happen?

“That’s not true.” I tried to defend them, “Cherry and Billie are good people. They just needed to get out of their routine and let off some steam. That doesn’t make them bad.”

“Well, you stayed with me tonight and I know why.” He assured me with a sly smile.

You do? Do tell.

“Charley,” I replied, “I grew up near Lake Ontario and know what the lakes can do to the weather, and I wanted to stay and keep you company because I think you’re a very nice man.”

“Come on, I know how you really feel. I get it. I really do. You were with a loser who cheated on you and treated you bad. You need a Sugar Daddy to take care of you.”

Sugar Daddy? I may have been able to do better…

“No. I like taking care of myself. I could never go the Sugar Daddy route, Charley. That’s not how I am.” I protested.

“See? That’s what I love about you. You’re independent.”

No matter what I tell him tonight he is going to love that about me. I’m just that lovable.

‘Charley, I like to choke kittens and cook them for breakfast.’

See? That’s what I love about you.

‘I like tripping blind people on the street and stealing their pencils.’

See? That’s what I love about you.

I was panicking big time now. He was certainly a determined, little bugger. “Seriously, though, Charley. I think you and I should go look for the girls. I’m really worried they couldn’t find a cab with the weather tonight and they don’t know their way around. What if they’re lost?”

He patted me on the shoulder sympathetically and said, “Hey, hey, hey. Relax. They’re fine. They wanted to go looking for guys to sleep around with, and you wanted to stay here with me because you’re lonely and need a man for more than just one night.”

“Okay,” I ignored him, “if you won’t go with me, I’ll go find them myself.” With that, I jumped up from the table and headed for my bedroom to put on outdoor clothes- hoping that if an opportunity to escape presented itself I’d be ready to run.

“Where do you think you’re going? Come back here. We’re not done.”

This was not a kindly request from a sickly, old man, who wanted to be my Sugar Daddy. He waved his gun at me and ordered me to sit back down. “You’re not going anywhere unless I tell you. Now, take those clothes off. You’ve got one minute to get to my bedroom so I can love you.”

Fending off a wave of nausea, I said, “You can’t love somebody at gunpoint. That’s not how it works.”

“It works however I say it will. You’re wasting time,” he said, waving his gun at me and leering.

I wasn’t sure how much I could manipulate the situation, but it was worth a try. “Hey, why don’t you let me get out of these sweatpants and into something a little sexier for you? Just let me go change and I’ll be right back. How about pouring me a drink of that Jack?”

“Now you’re talking, Baby! Yeah!” He happily poured about four ounces of Jack into my teacup. Yum. Then he insisted I down it all in one gulp.

I probably could have put an end to the entire thing by vomiting it back up all over him. Instead, I took his new willingness to cooperate as a chance to go to my bedroom to grab my purse, throw on jeans, and a hoodie, and slip my snow boots onto my bare feet. When I walked back into the kitchen, I found a pale, scrawny Charley naked as a jaybird, sitting at the kitchen table.

Wow. If that wasn’t a sight to behold. When he looked up and saw me dressed in something not sexy, he became irate and started up out of his seat after me. I don’t know whether I was more concerned about the gun he was pointing in my direction or the possibility of him touching me with his private parts.

Round and round the table we ran, like Tom and Jerry of cartoon fame. There were times I’d gained on him and ended up chasing him, at which point I probably could have tripped him and grabbed his gun. At the moment, though, I just wanted to stay as far from him as possible. Fortunately, he tired out before I did and collapsed into his chair, winded and wheezing. That was my opportunity to make a run for it before he caught his breath and could aim his gun. I fled out of the apartment and just about flew down the stairs, my feet missing most of the steps on the way. I still have nightmares about flying down stairways.

I stumbled out of the front door and onto the ice-slicked sidewalk, almost landing on my ass. There was a quarter of an inch of ice coating the sidewalks, the road, and the power lines. The sleet was falling sideways, slapping me in the face. The streetlights were flickering on and off, threatening power outages. The stop lights at the corner had gone dark and were swinging dangerously in the wind. Cleveland was getting pelted by this storm. I hoped the all-night diner was still open because I had no backup plan. All the way to the diner I kept expecting to hear a gunshot behind me.

Fortunately, the lights were still on there and the diner was open for business. I slid into the doorway and ran immediately to the pay phone, jostling wet coins out of my pocketbook. With shaking hands, I dialed the operator and asked to be connected with the Police Department. The Police desk clerk immediately put me on hold before I could even start telling her what was going on. After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity to me, she clicked back on the line, "Name and address."

"Tina D'Angelo, but I don't live here. I mean I'm at a diner calling."

"So, they have bad coffee or something? Look, we're busy tonight. Call the Health Department, lady." Click.

I was dumbfounded. Seriously? She made a joke and hung up on me? What kind of Police Department do they have here? I was about to find out. Pulling out some more coins I repeated the procedure and got the same desk clerk on the line. "Hello, I just called, and you hung up on me."

"Yeah. We are in the middle of an ice storm and all units are responding to emergencies. What's your problem, lady?"

"A man has been chasing me for a half hour with a gun. I need help," I cried into the phone, hoping she would finally see that I, too, was an emergency.

"There's a man with a gun at a diner? Where?" she asked, suddenly alarmed.

"No. No. Not here. He's at the apartment I just escaped from."

"So, he's not still chasing you with a gun?"

"No. That's what I'm telling you. I need a police officer to go and take his gun so I can get my things out of his apartment," I explained to her.

"So, he's not at the diner?" She grilled me.

"No."

"He's not still threatening you?" She was beginning to sound like my mother when I’d had a bad dream.

"No."

"Call us back after nine o’clock tomorrow. We're only taking emergency calls now." Click.

"What...wh... NOO," I wailed.

She hung up on me twice. I'd just been chased around a kitchen table with a gun, and it wasn't an emergency? It was only two o’clock and I had to wait until nine o’clock in the morning to call for help.

Unbelievable. I found an empty stool at the counter and ordered a coffee, so I wouldn't have to leave. It was hot and warmed my hands up from the freezing walk from the apartment, but it did nothing to calm my already jittery nerves. I couldn't lose this counter seat. As long as I kept ordering all night I could stay inside and keep a lookout through the plate glass windows for signs of Charley trying to find me.

Now, that would be a sight. Naked Charley sliding down the sidewalk on his scrawny, white ass. My knight in shining armor...

I ordered two more coffees, some pie, and toast before two police officers wandered into the diner at about four o’clock. Thank God.

As they settled into a newly emptied booth, I approached them and told them what had happened at the apartment and explained that I called the Police Department twice and got hung up on. They asked me the name of the guy with the gun and gave each other the look after I told them who it was.

The older officer said, “We’ve been out on the highway pulling people out of wrecks all night. Give us a chance to warm up and get breakfast. We’ll call it in and see what they want us to do. Okay?”

I thanked them profusely and went back to my coffee. When they finished eating, they told me to wait for them while went out to their car and talked with dispatch.

When they came back the officer in charge said, “All, right, you stay here at the diner, and we’ll go check this address out and see what’s going on.”

With that, they took off down the street toward the apartment. At the time it didn't occur to me to wonder how they knew where the apartment was or why they never questioned the reason I was staying at this maniac’s place. I was too shaken up to even register the conversation. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that was probably not Charlie’s first gunslinging rodeo.

When the officers returned to the diner, they told me all they found was a harmless, naked, old man sleeping peacefully with his gun in one hand and his dentures clutched in the other. No need for police intervention. Great. How was I going to safely get my things out of the apartment and get my costumes and music back out of the theater? They left the diner chuckling between themselves, and I was confused and furious.

By six o’clock, the road crews had cleared the ice and debris from the streets and the buses had begun their routes. I jumped on the first downtown bus and spent time in a different coffee shop, then wandered around downtown until I was sure Sandy, the lady at the concession stand would be at the theater. If I stayed near her, I’d be safe, even with Charley around. He wouldn’t dare do anything to me with her there. She’d deck him.

When I hopped off the return bus a block from The Paris, I checked both directions, to make sure Charley was nowhere in sight before making my way to the theater. If I was lucky, I could get my stuff from the dressing room and be ready to slip back into the apartment after Charley got to work.

That left me with no pay for the week, but I just wanted to get out of there. Sandy was at the concession counter when I walked in, as were Charley, Phil, and two police officers I hadn't seen before.

I stopped in my tracks and almost ran out until Phil came over and said, "Tina, we're so sorry for what happened last night. Charley told us all about it and he couldn’t feel any worse. He called the Police on himself this morning to turn himself in.”

At that point, one of the officers took over the conversation, "Ma'am, is this the man who threatened you last night with a loaded weapon?"

"Um...yes...um. I don't want to cause him any trouble. I just want to get my things and go home without any more problems."

"So, you are saying that you do not intend to press charges for unlawful imprisonment and second-degree menacing with a deadly weapon?" He asked.

"No. Um. Yes?" I mumbled, not sure what the right answer was.

"Will you please sign this form, relinquishing your right to press charges?" He held up a piece of paper.

While I signed the water-stained papers, Charley blurted out, "Tina, I am so sorry. When I'm taking my meds and drinking, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Sandy, ring out Tina's pay for the week, including today. I don't want her to miss out on her pay because of me.”

One officer walked me back to the dressing room to collect my suitcases and costumes while the other stayed up front with Charley and the crew. Charley gave the officers the key to the apartment so I could get my street clothes packed up.

Then Charley said, "Grab your bus to the next stop today. You deserve a day off after what I put you through, poor kid. Thank you so much for not pressing charges. That’s what I love about you, Tina. You have a good heart.”

Yep...that's what he loves about me. Now I have all afternoon to choke kittens and steal pencils from blind people.

I called a cab from the apartment while the police were still there. They confiscated Charley's gun and slipped it into a plastic baggie before they left.

I rang Don long distance from the bus station and told him what had happened. He told me to just come home. He'd find someone else to take over the Youngstown job. "Tina, do you ever NOT have bad luck? Sheesh."

If he only knew.