The Pull of Gravity

“Bullshit.” I turned to Cathy. “Can you get me a cold glass and a bottle opener?”

“Sure, Doc.”

“Have one with me,” I said to Larry.

“No, thanks. This will do me just fine,” he said, raising his San Miguel.

He and Isabel stayed for an hour, maybe two. After a few bottles of Marzen and a lot of laughs, I mentioned my upcoming vacation. When he asked me where I was going, I said, “Boracay Island, I think. Haven’t been there in over a year.”

“I heard of that place,” Larry said. “Nice?”

“One of the prettiest spots in the world.”

He asked me when I was leaving, and I told him I didn’t know yet, that I hadn’t bought my tickets. Not long after that, it was time for them to leave. And for the second time since she began working in Angeles, Isabel allowed herself to be bar fined. Only it wasn’t just a one-night EWR. Larry paid enough so that she could be with him his entire ten-day stay in the Philippines.

About an hour after they left, Mariella showed up. Whereas Isabel could have been a superstar but refused, her cousin, who’d been granted the same opportunity, grabbed onto it with both hands, nails dug in deep. She strode into The Lounge, a beauty-queen smile planted firmly on her face, instantly drawing the attention of everyone. Several of the girls screamed in delight at seeing her, while I noticed a few others moving quietly toward the back of the room, having no desire to talk to the woman who now commanded center stage.

Mariella had never been one of my favorites. Everything was drama around her-everything. And while she brought in more than her share of cash when she worked at The Lounge, there were days when I couldn’t help wishing she was someone else’s problem. When she finally did leave, the reason for which is still not clear to me, Cathy and I toasted quietly at the bar with champagne. She probably had more reason than anyone at that time to hate Mariella.

“Papa Jay, how are you?” Mariella had finally found her way to me, her voice dripping with all the false concern it had the last time I’d seen her.

“I’m fine,” I said, more subdued than I’d been just prior to her arrival. “How are you?”

“Good, thank you.” She leaned in and kissed me on each cheek, European style.

“Night off?” I asked.

“I make my own schedule.” Which, at The Lotus Club where she then worked, was entirely possible. “How about you buy me a drink?”

I considered saying no, but what the hell. “Sure. What do you want?”

“White wine.”

I turned to the bar, expecting to find Cathy standing there, but she was nowhere to be seen. I called over Analyn, one of the other bartenders, and had her get Mariella the wine.

There were a few moments of awkward silence. I had no desire to continue in conversation with Mariella, yet she seemed to be waiting for me to ask her something. When she finally realized I wasn’t going to, she said, “I hear Isabel was here with her new boyfriend.”

“For a while,” I said.

“That’s good, that’s good,” she said.

More silence.

“What’s his name?” she asked. “I can’t remember.”

“Who?”

“Isabel’s boyfriend.”

“I can’t remember, either.” I don’t know why Mariella was so interested in her cousin’s business, but it just didn’t feel right and I was in no mood to help her.

“Do you know where they went?” she asked. “I thought maybe I’d join them for a while. Say hello.”

“Sorry. They didn’t say.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay.” The beauty queen smile again. “I’m sure I’ll find them.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek again. “Papa, it was great to see you.”

“It was good to see you, too.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. It was good to see Mariella every once in a while. It reminded me why I was so happy she was gone.

She headed for the door to a chorus of “Bye, Mariella,” “Come back soon,” and “We miss you.”

I noticed Cathy peeking around the corner of the storeroom door behind the bar. She watched silently, her expression blank, as Mariella left.

CHAPTER TWELVE

When I arrived at work on Sunday night, the day after Larry’s return to Angeles, I found Larry and Isabel already there. They were sitting at the bar, having what appeared to be deep discussions with Cathy. When Cathy noticed me, she said something to them, then all three turned to me, grinning.

My altered, anti-Angeles mood had only increased since the previous evening, exacerbated by the fact I had overslept and was running about forty minutes late. So instead of walking up and seeing what was going on, I went directly to my little office in back where I stayed for fifteen minutes before reappearing.

Once in the bar, there were things to do. A couple of the girls wanted to take a few weeks off to go back to their provinces. Even when I was in a bad mood, I never denied the girls their wish to go home.

Then Nelly came to me with a guy already lined up who wanted to pay her bar fine. She was quickly becoming our new superstar-a spinner superstar. Some guys would say those were the best kind. I went through my routine of making sure she really wanted to go, but knew before I even said anything what her answer would be.

Wilma was still pissed off at Rochelle for ruining things with a guy she’d had lined up a couple nights before. Jocelyn and Helen were having their period-“mens,” they called it-but didn’t want me to tell any guy and hurt their chances at being bar fined. That way, they would at least earn their share of the bar fine, then wait until they got to the guy’s hotel to reveal their condition.

Most of the time, if this happened, the guy would send the girl home. For the girls, that meant money, no sex and early to bed, unless, of course, the guy came back to The Lounge and complained. If that happened, we always gave a refund, and that meant no cash for the girl or the bar. I probably should have insisted the girls be honest upfront, but where do you draw the line between lying to someone so they’d pay for a service they wouldn’t receive, and denying the girls a chance to make some pesos without having to spread their legs?

It was things like this, the stuff you faced only in Angeles, that would always push me to the edge. It was being surrounded by hundreds of beautiful, sexy, young, bitchy, catty, innocent, manipulative, desperate, greedy, hopeless and hopeful women every single day. It was hanging out with tired, fat, old men like Dieter and Dandy Doug, or young uber-studs like Josh and Scotty P who thought they were living out a porn star’s dream. It was dealing with the visitors, the customers, the goddamn sex tourists, and all the bullshit they brought with them. But without them, without their dollars, euros, pounds and yen, there would be no Angeles. And if you took a vote-of the girls, the guys, the nearby businesses-no one would want that. Because sex was easy. It was money that was hard to come by in the Philippines.

Sometimes, even now, it’s hard to believe I ever let myself get sucked into that whole world. Yet, when I’m in one of those lost moments, the ones that happen while I’m riding in a taxi alone or waiting quietly at a restaurant for a friend or staring at the screen of my computer, fingers paused between keystrokes, I find myself wishing I was back there, if only for a night. It doesn’t last long, but the thought does come. Even when we turn a page, find that new path, temptation never completely goes away.

So as I moved through the bar, dealing with the girls’ problems, avoiding my friends-not because I was mad at them, but because I didn’t want to subject them to my foul mood-I wondered, not for the first time, how long I would be able to do this. The problem was, if I did stop, I didn’t know what I would do next. I was still too much in the clutches, too much in Angeles. I was Doc. I was Papa Jay. All the girls knew me. I guess in my own way I was a superstar.

Finally, I made my way over to the bar where Isabel and Larry were sitting on stools on the customer side,