I wrote this story for one of my required Creative Writing certificate classes a few years ago. The assignment was listed on the syllabus as, Working for a Living Exercise, and it could be about a real or made-up job. It’s definitely not about the kind of jobs you’re used to seeing on LinkedIn or Indeed! It is about my life though, and was well-received in class so I thought I’d share it.

The pic is one of me from around that time period, during my first trip to The Gulf of Mexico.

The Good, the Bad, and the Gilded

Gentleman’s club my ass. There’s nothing like working as a nude dancer at a popular strip club to send that misnomer into exile. While there weren’t many gentlemen at Atlanta’s infamous Gold Club back in the late eighties, I found there are good people everywhere.

The Gold Club was all over the news back in the mid-nineties when a LOT of pro-ball players were subpoenaed to testify after the owner and several employees were indicted under the RICO Act for allowing prostitution, drug use, credit card fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribing City of Atlanta Police and Delta employees, and failing to report earnings used to pay the Gambino crime family. Yikes! If any of that was going on when I was there, I was too young and naïve to notice. I had heard rumors about the VIP rooms upstairs, which at times had their own bouncers and a two-way stream of model-type girls. I was never asked in, for which I am grateful. Sometimes it’s good to be moderately good-looking. And pretty flat chested:)

The Gold Club opened in 1987 – the same year my dad died suddenly from a heart attack – and I started working there not long afterwards. My mom and I were pretty much just barely getting by between her wages from managing the Flowers Bakery Store, and mine waitressing at the Western Sizzlin’. When a former co-worker came to visit and told us how much money she was making dancing in a club, I wondered if I could do that. Being an introvert by nature, when she told me I ought to come down and enter an amateur contest I was tempted but terrified.

The Cheetah Lounge was originally located at 8^th and Peachtree Street, and that is where the amateur contest took place. I wore a soft-turquoise colored denim skirt that came up a few inches above my pale white knees; an off-white, lace, button-front, tie-neck, blouse; and tan, suede, cowboy boots. I was so nervous I don’t remember what song played. I got a really good response, and when I didn’t win, there were some boos! They offered me a job at their other location, which was down off of Baker, near Courtland as I recall. I think I worked there less than a week, before following my former Western Sizzlin’ co-worker to the Gold Club.

Fair skin, freckles and braces, made me look a good bit younger than my nineteen years. I wasn’t as tall, tanned, or rounded up top as most of the other girls. Nor was I as confident or ambitious, so I worked the day shift with lonely old men, and businessmen exchanging the 9-5 grind for a different kind. You never knew who the day might bring. One day this older guy came up to the bar I was dancing on, slipped a $20 in the garter of my tiny blue sailor suit, and after asking me to do a table dance for him, proceeded to tell me I looked like his daughter when she was my age:O Creepy and awful as that is, worse things happened to other girls. On at least two occasions, men were thrown out after they were caught whacking off right in their chair. Disgusting.

Most of the other women weren’t very friendly, with the exception of the “house mom.” That’s the lady who helps you with your outfits, gets you Advil if you need it, and talks to you if you’re having a bad day. She makes sure the girls aren’t too intoxicated and lets you know if you missed hearing your name – it takes getting used to being called by a different name. My stage name was Jaime – taken from Van Halen’s Jaime’s Cryin’ – a song I really liked, and still do.

Many of the girls were in their twenties, but were already kinda hardened and surprisingly insecure. I was sitting on the toilet in one of the dressing room bathroom stalls and overheard one of the prettiest dancers there muttering to herself in earnest about her nose, her boobs, and her tan. I could see her through the crack in the door inspecting every inch of the mirror in front of her for flaws that didn’t exist. I never liked that job for a lot of reasons, but that irked me more than most things – the competitiveness between the girls. Despite some of them being truly gorgeous, they never seemed satisfied. It was kind of sad and annoying at the same time! I didn’t feel the need to compete with the other girls, because I didn’t think I was in the same league, looks wise, with a lot of them.

I hated doing table dances, and one day when I was working the floor a guy invited me to sit down with him. The general rule was if a customer hadn’t asked you to do a table dance or offered to buy drinks within one or two songs, it was time to move on. I enjoyed sitting and talking with people, wasn’t old enough to drink, and was terrified of falling off of those tiny tables, so we sat there and talked for a good while as I sipped a coke, he ate his greasy burger and fries, and drank a beer.

While there were a lot of sleaze bags that came through the door, I believe some of the men who came in ended up feeling kinda guilty or ashamed. I believe I had that effect on some of the men who came in there. I was very fair skinned, had braces and was 19 or 20 when I worked there. By the time he finished his burger and beer, four or five songs later, he had offered me a job at his Apartment Finder business and that was the end of Jaime’s short run at The Gold Club!