Brett Battles - The Pull of Gravity

Without the illusion, no one would ever have come within fifty miles of Angeles. Instead of being hypnotized by the parties and the girls and the perpetual buzz and flashing neon, they’d see the dirt and the beggars and gray, ugly buildings and brown, run-down shacks. They’d notice that some of the girls were just going through the motions and others tackled their “job” like trained professionals. They’d realize that, given the choice, most of the girls would have never come to Angeles, but because of the money, there was nowhere else the girls wanted to be. The men would see the tricks the girls used to get by, the ploys they’d learned to get more money out of their customers, the shabu-shabu -what they called the Filipino version of meth-some abused to make it through endless nights of drinking or just to forget about things, the prejudices they’d built up after months and years in the bars so they could still stand a chance of picking up a date.

It wasn’t just the guys who were blind. The girls, too, had their own sense of tunnel vision-eye always on the game, with the easy prize being the peso, or, better yet, the almighty dollar, pound or euro.

Others eyed the ultimate achievement, the grand prize: escape. So much so that many times they would end up giving themselves away for free to a man who promised much but had no intention of ever delivering anything except his own orgasm.

And like the guys, the girls, too, found themselves getting wrapped up in the atmosphere of Angeles. The life itself becoming a kind of drug, even more powerful than the shabu-shabu they got from their trike-driving boyfriends. And despite the fact that they were trying to sell themselves every night, if given the choice after only a few months working the bars, most of the girls wouldn’t want to leave. You can take the girl out of the bar, but you can’t take the bar out of the girl.

So we were all myopic in our own ways, even the papasans. I can’t tell you how many of us had girlfriends at one time or another who were bar girls, ones who said once they were dating us, they would no longer go out with any customers on bar fines. And for a time we would believe that, forgetting why the girls were there in the first place. We, of all people, should have known better.

Blind, yet all of us knowing the truth. We were living the illusion. That’s why we were all there. “Believe,” the fairy would whisper in our ears when we arrived. “Believe and you are in for the experience of a lifetime.”

So when someone showed up who seemed not to need the illusion, we got confused. That’s how it was with Larry.

I met Larry, as he used to always remind me, at the swimming pool at The Pit Stop. It was hot (when wasn’t it?) and my day off. Long before, I’d begun the habit of leaving a swimsuit at The Pit Stop in case I was on Fields and in the mood for a swim. That was one of those afternoons.

As he told it, he was sitting at a poolside table reading a book when all of a sudden this big fat guy did a cannonball dive into the water. The splash apparently reached record proportions, soaking not only Larry and his book, but the remains of his lunch as well.

The fat guy was me, of course.

My memory had me splashing only a little water on his book, but I guess I was chastened enough to buy him a beer. I barely remember the incident at all so it was really Larry’s version and the way he told it that stuck with me. Whether it was true or not, that’s how it happened.

Whenever we were in a group with three or more people who hadn’t heard the story, he’d tell it. He would impersonate the wave as it grew in the air, then came crashing down on him. And when he played the part of me, I suddenly became this aw-shucks oaf who had no idea what had just happened. As far as I could tell, Larry never had a mean bone in his body. So when everyone laughed, I would, too. Even though I’m sure I heard the story a hundred times, it was always funny.

The first time I remember meeting Larry was about three days later at The Lounge. It could have been ten p.m., it could have been eleven. I do know it was before midnight because every night at that time we’d play “Love Shack” by the B-52s, and the girls did a special dance Bell had choreographed for them. It was the only organized dancing that we ever had, and I remember that night I watched it with Larry.

I didn’t see him come in. I was in the back dealing with a problem with one of the girls, a dancer named Tessa. She’d received a text message earlier from her boyfriend in England telling her that he’d found out she was still working in the bar, so he was dumping her and not sending any more cash. Something like that happened on Fields several times a week.

Tessa had spent the next two hours furiously texting back and forth trying to convince him he was wrong.

“Either go home or put it away,” I told her.

I’d found her in the changing room, sitting on the floor, her back against the wall and her knees pulled up in front of her. “I’m almost done,” she said.

“You’re done now,” I said.

I started walking toward her, intending to confiscate the phone for the rest of the evening. But she was quick and whipped it behind her back before I could make my grab. Mobile phones were a disease among the girls, and texting each other was so common that some girls could type a message on a phone keypad faster than most people could type it on a computer. But we had a rule at The Lounge: No mobiles while on duty.

“Papa Jay, please,” she pleaded.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve told you before,” I said.

On cue, water began gathering in the corners of her eyes. “He want to break up with me.”

“Tessa, enough.” This wasn’t the first phone violation she’d had. “Either give it to me or go home and start thinking about finding a new job.”

She was silent for a moment. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”

I stared down at her, my face blank. I put a hand out so she could put her phone in it. “Do you really want to find out?”

“Papa, please.”

I learned a long time ago from a buddy in the Navy that sometimes you got more out of someone when you said nothing, so I continued to stare. After a moment, she pulled her phone out from behind her back and put it in my hand.

“You’re so mean,” she said.

I put the phone in my pocket, then put my hand out to help her up. Once she was on her feet, she pushed up on her toes and kissed me on the cheek.

“Just joking,” she said, the tears magically gone and a smile returning to her face.

“I’m sorry your boyfriend’s breaking up with you,” I said. No matter what, I still cared about the girls.

“Oh, he don’t break up with me,” she said. “I tell him, no one love him like me. He finally say he’s sorry and everything okay.”

“Then why didn’t you just stop when I came in?” I asked.

“I was telling Natalie what happened.” Natalie, I knew, was a friend of hers who worked down the street at Torpedoes.

We walked back out to the main room, and that’s when I spotted Larry. He was sitting at the bar talking with Cathy, but he didn’t look familiar. I said hi to a couple of the regular customers as I made my way back to my normal spot at the end of the bar. Once I was sitting again, I motioned for Cathy to bring me a bottle of water.

The music was right at the level I liked it, loud enough to create the illusion of a potential party, while low enough that conversations were possible. At The Lounge, we played a mix of contemporary and retro pop: Hoobastank, Shaggy, Duran Duran, the Gorillaz-stuff the girls could really dance to. Thankfully, by then, “Livin’ la Vida Loca” had long since left our playlist.