Johnny America

 

What You Do When You’re Not Do­ing This

by

“Where do you go when you leave here?”

“Places.”

“Nice places?”

“Some­times.”

“When they’re not?”

“That’s when I stay the longest.”

“Why?”

“What else can I do? That’s where they need me the most.”

I hand­ed her twen­ty dol­lars, which she tucked in­to her g‑string. Her eyes were shiny, re­flect­ing the club lights back at me. I could­n’t even tell where she was look­ing. Then she turned and left, climb­ing the stairs to re­turn to the stage. I saw my twen­ty trav­el with her.

I could­n’t tell if she was the deep­est per­son I’d ever met or the stu­pid­est. I knew that she’d cost me four hun­dred dol­lars in the last two months. I imag­ined she treat­ed me dif­fer­ent­ly from the oth­er men at the club, but maybe that was naïve. Maybe every­one in the place was se­cret­ly hop­ing to fig­ure out her secrets.

Filed under Fiction on March 13th, 2007

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