Hard Work, Pain & Stripper Drama

It is now the wee hours of Wednesday morning and I am still recovering from the weekend. Saturday night was our annual Winter Wonderland theme party and Sunday night was our staff Christmas party. Let's start with Saturday;

I work the day shift every Saturday. I arrive at the club at 11:00 am, one hour before we open. I do all my opening duties such as verifying the safe count, getting the till ready for the bar, etc., etc. Normal stuff to get us ready to open at Noon. On theme party days I also have to help with the decorations, (we go ALL out), work the phones to make sure we will have plenty of Entertainers, all while running the club and working the floor as usual. Saying it's a hectic day is a massive understatement. Normally, my day ends at shift change at 7:00 pm, when I close out my day bartender and count her till. Not on theme party days, and this Saturday was no different, with one exception.

I basically had to run the shift for the first two and a half hours of the party, because CeCe, the manager working the night shift, was dealing with a "situation" in the dressing room from 7:00-9:30. The "situation" has a name and her name is "Heather". "Heather" is a blonde, six foot tall, drop dead gorgeous, bi-polar Entertainer with a penchance for violence when she drinks. We've had "situations" with "Heather" in the past and she has continued to work for us on the contingency that she not consume any alcohol while in our building. The last time she drank, she threatened to choke out CeCe and CeCe had to hide in the office for an hour while the bouncers tried to get "Heather" out of the building. It wasn't pretty and it scared CeCe. CeCe is my best friend. She is a beautiful, smart and funny 33 year old woman and she has taught me so much over the years. She has worked for the owner of our club for over 13 years and she knows her shit, let me tell ya.

(That's CeCe on the left & me on the right, shortly before our "situation.")

Anyway, back to "Heather". I wanted to be the one to deal with "Heather" in the dressing room. Since CeCe was her target last time, I was worried that she would turn violent on her again. CeCe, being the caring friend that she is, wouldn't let me because of my back problems. She was worried that if "Heather" turned on me, she would injure me further and cause me to be in more pain than I already am. Bless her heart. I ran and got Gino*, my favorite muscle-bound bouncer, and told him to stand by and watch over CeCe from the door to the dressing room just in case things got bad.

I checked on CeCe frequently and every time I went into the dressing room, I saw that "Heather's" mental state was getting increasingly unstable. It took over 2 hours of CeCe constantly reassuring "Heather" that everything was fine, to get her dressed and out. At one point, I had to physically pry "Heather" off of CeCe because she was hugging her so tight that I thought CeCe was going to suffocate. Here's a visual for you; "Heather" is a six foot tall Nordic giant and CeCe is barely five foot two, on a good day. Not a fair match, not by a long shot.

It was when "Heather" was finally walking down the stairs from the dressing room that her internal switch finally flipped. "Get out of my way, bitch!!" When "Heather" yelled that at the top of her lungs, CeCe got the fuck out of her way. "Why are you always such a bitch, CeCe?! Why are you always so MEAN to me?!?!" At this point, CeCe ran outside to the parking lot to warn "Heather's" husband, who had been called to come get her. "Heather's" husband is a creepy little 50+ year old man. As soon as CeCe advised him of the "situation", he took off his glasses and said, "Oh no. Not again." I imagine he knew he was in for an ass-whipping when he got her home, since "Heather" was unable to vent her violent tendencies on CeCe.

In the meantime, I'm running all over the club, calling drink specials, getting change for the bartenders and cashiers, getting fresh bottles of liquor for the bar and generally putting out fires all over the place. Our theme parties are always a smashing success but damn, they are a lot of work. By the time CeCe was finished with "Heather", I was running on empty. I had been too busy to eat, too busy to take my pain medicine and my back was screaming in pain. I was supposed to be in charge of taking the pictures of Santa posing with the customers & their favorite Entertainer. I couldn't even do that. Put a fork in me, 'cause I was DONE. Luckily, it was about this time that our owner showed up and he told me to go ahead and take off. He also told me that I needed to open up the club at 1:00 pm the next day. What?? I ALWAYS have the day off on the day of our staff Christmas party. Not this year. He did not arrange to have an acting manager for the day and as Sundays are my shift, I was the one to do it. Sunday was going to be a looooong day.

I spent Sunday doing all my usual stuff, in addition to taking care of all the finishing details for that evening's party. Normally, we have our staff party at a beautiful restaurant that our owner's good friend owns. Not this year. This year the party was held at the club. Not in the strip club part of the building, but the other half of the building which used to be a regular night-club. We rent out that side to a group of swingers for private parties, but that's a story for another day. It's a huge, beautifully decorated club with a dance floor right out of "Saturday Night Fever." Washing glassware, pulling liquor for the bar, blowing up dozens of balloons with our helium tank, etc.,etc.,etc. By the time 7:00 pm rolled around, I was in more pain than I had felt for months. It was bad. Really, really bad. I'm not a complainer, not by a long shot. In fact, most of the time people have no idea how bad I really feel most of the time. I've gotten very good at hiding it and appearing to be just like everyone else. Sunday night I could not hide it. At one point, early in the evening when my G.M. asked me if I was okay, I started crying because I was so far from okay that it wasn't even funny. I was able to compose myself and put on a happy face in no time. I smiled for all the pictures, hugged everyone and behaved as if everything was hunky-dory. If you or anyone you know deals with chronic debilitating pain, you know how hard it is to do that.

The drama began when our owner began an award's presentation that none of us managers knew he was going to do. He presented beautiful etched glass awards to all of us on the management team, our House Mom and the hardest working Entertainer. All the while, during his speeches, one of the Entertainers, (drunk, of course), became increasingly louder and more obnoxious. She even had the audacity to go up to the platform where he was speaking and interrupt the speech he was giving about our House Mom, June Bug. The last award given was to "The Hardest Working Woman in Show Business." It was an award given in honor of one of his dear friends who passed away three days after our party last year. His friend was the "hardest working man" he had ever known. He was an amazing man and this first annual award in his name was mighty special. "Lyrics" won this award and from there the drama ensued.

Another Entertainer "Nevaeh", (yes, it's heaven spelled backwards. Tacky, I know), the same one who disrupted the award's ceremony, felt that she should have been the recipient of this award and promptly let "Lyrics" know exactly how she felt. CeCe arrived where they were, just in time to thwart an all out punch-fest between the two girls. Insults, threats and expletives flying, "Nevaeh" was quickly escorted out the door. She continued to rage in the parking lot for another hour or so and none of us escaped her vicious tongue. All of us on the management team were highly dissapointed, as we had just given her an award of our own; a beautful engraved lucite Christmas ornament, with her name and "Loyalty & Highest Attendance." Loyalty, my ass. She was an ungrateful little bitch that just couldn't stand it that she was not the center of attention and adoration. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned. CeCe texted me a little while ago, saying that "Neveah" was supposedly going in to work tonight. I feel bad for CeCe that she's going to have to deal with that drama tornado, but I'm glad it's not on my shift. At this writing, I have not heard back from CeCe if she actually showed up. "Lyrics" worked my shift last night and I assured her that she was more than deserving of the award. I felt bad for her that what should have been a very special night was ruined by a woman who used to be her friend.

I wanted so badly to be able to just cut loose and have a good time but I was in too much pain to enjoy the party. I didn't even have a drink, afraid of how it would mix with the high dose of pain meds that I have to take regularly. All in all, the weekend was a success for the club, but a personal dissapointment for me. I am glad it's over and will be even gladder when the Holidays are finally past us. Like I said in an earlier post; I'm feeling a bit like Scrooge this year. But hey, tomorrow is another day, right?

*Some names have been changed to protect the innocent, who have no idea I'm writing this & Entertainer stage names are in "quotations"