in a wooden cup in front of me. My tab for the evening had begun.
“First time here?” she asked.
“Here, yeah. But not Angeles.”
“I didn’t think I had seen you before. What’s your name?”
“Jay. What’s yours?”
“Cathy.”
I unscrewed the cap from the bottle and took a drink. “I’m supposed to meet Robbie. Do you know if he’s here yet?”
“Robbie?” she asked.
“Said he was the owner.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Papa Rob?”
“Sure, I guess. Is he here yet?”
“Not yet. But not long, I think.”
She moved away to help another customer, so I turned around to watch the show. Some loud pop song I’d never heard before was blaring over the sound system. (Months later, after hearing the same song at least twice a night every night, I knew it was “Livin’ la Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin. By then I had become an involuntary pop expert.)
Unlike strip bars in the States, where it was usually a single girl on stage dancing a choreographed routine, in Angeles there were always multiple dancers, none of whom seemed to have a real plan of attack. There was a lot of swaying back and forth, and some swinging of the hips. A few of the girls danced with each other, occasionally with moments of mock foreplay that would inevitably end in laughter, while others just seemed bored.
As I watched, a couple of the girls closest to me on the stage started aiming their attention in my direction. One was tall for a Filipina, maybe five foot seven, the other was several inches shorter. Each had black hair, the tall one’s coming down to just above her shoulders, and the short one’s going halfway down her back. Both were thin, but the shorter one had the larger set of breasts and the better smile. The taller one had one of those mouths that curved downward, giving her that just-smelled-shit look anytime she smiled.
I think the tall one realized pretty early on that I wasn’t really interested in them. She soon turned her attention elsewhere, but the shorter one continued to work me as hard as she could. She began rubbing her hands slowly up and down her body, then dropped her chin toward her chest, giving the appearance that she was looking up at me. She
As the song ended, she pointed at herself, then at the chair next to me, looking hopeful. I laughed, then said, “Not now.”
She stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. “Come on,” she said. “Just one drink.”
“Maybe later,” I told her.
“Really?” Her face brightened.
“Maybe,” I repeated.
A new song had started up, so the short one began dancing again. She continued to focus her efforts on me for several more minutes, then melted back into the pack of her friends.
An hour later, after I’d ordered a couple of beers from Cathy, Robbie finally showed up. No matter what the girls were doing, they all seemed to stop and shout, “Hi, Papa Rob!” It was like a rock star had entered the room. I watched as many of the girls ran up and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. Robbie, a huge grin on his face, was obviously loving it. At one point he picked up a girl in each arm and lifted them high off the ground. They screamed in delight.
“Cathy,” he called out as he set the girls down. “A round for everyone.”
Another cheer went up, and suddenly everything went from lively-bar mode to wild-party mode. Cathy and one of the other bartenders laid out dozens of shot glasses on the counter and began filling them with tequila. A third bartender pulled out a stack of sliced limes and several salt shakers, while whoever was in charge of the music turned up the volume several notches. Any attempt at conversation now meant screaming in each other’s ears, but no one seemed to care.
On stage the dancing became raucous. After the girls drank their shots, several bikini tops came off. Sex radiated from every grinding hip and sultry pout. Somewhere, someone pulled out a spray bottle full of water and began squirting the girls on stage. More squealing, more laughter.
Cathy set a shot in front of me, and I gave her a questioning look.
“He said everyone,” she shouted.
I made a fist with my left hand, sprinkled some salt on top of it, licked it off, downed the shot, then chased it with a lime slice. I could feel the heat of the alcohol as it traveled down my throat.
I smiled. The boredom of the past several months was suddenly a distant memory.
It was like The Lounge had become the place to be that evening. Guys seemed to be pouring in the door. Robbie had only been there for twenty minutes but the room was packed. Hal had told me that some nights it seemed like you couldn’t get anyone to come into your bar, while other nights there weren’t enough seats to go around. It was like a wave you couldn’t predict.
That night, a tsunami hit Robbie’s place. By midnight the bell had already been rung three times-tying a one-night record, according to Cathy-and the vibe that started with Robbie’s arrival showed no signs of ebbing. The bikini tops that had come off earlier had been joined by others until it seemed all the girls, save the bartenders and the waitresses, were topless. And while the guys loved every minute of it, it was actually the girls who seemed to be having the most fun. You could see them, even when they weren’t with a guy, joking or dancing with each other or just smiling large infectious smiles. It was a goddamn all-out party, and no one was going to ruin it.
I was having so much fun watching everything, I almost forgot that Robbie had asked me to come by for a conversation. Not surprisingly, we had yet to have any one-on-one time. He had said hi at one point, but was quickly pulled away by a pack of roaming dancers.
The second time he came by, he said, “Don’t leave. I still want to talk to you.”
He then pulled my drink slips from the cup and handed them to Cathy, motioning to her that all my drinks were on the house. I didn’t see him again until close to two in the morning. I was talking to the short one who had been working me hard earlier. She was leaning against me, her hand resting high on my thigh, when Robbie walked up and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said into my ear.
I nodded, then gently removed my new friend’s hand from my leg and stood up. “Sorry,” I said.
She stuck out her lip again, but I knew the moment I left she’d move on to the next guy. That night, there were plenty to go around.
I followed Robbie through the front door and out onto the sidewalk. Suddenly I could hear myself breathe again. Up and down Fields Avenue, groups of Filipina girls and mostly white men moved from bar to bar. Trikes- small motorcycles with attached, enclosed sidecars-roared loudly as they drove by taking their fares to God knows where. Occasionally a jeepney-a privately run bus that kind of looked like a squished school bus-would pass by. But mostly it was the trikes and foot traffic that dominated.
Within a five-minute walk of Robbie’s place, there must have been nearly two dozen more bars, each lit up with neon, and their entrances enhanced by beautiful door girls trying to get the traveling hoards to go inside.
“Hungry?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said. In those days I was always hungry.
“The Pit Stop, then.”
The Pit Stop was action central. It was a large, informal restaurant sitting at the corner of Fields Avenue and Santos Street, right in the middle of the most popular section of Fields. It had a swimming pool out back that had been home to some famous wet T-shirt contests, a small hotel on the second floor, and the famous Immortality go-go bar on the east side. But when someone mentioned The Pit Stop, it was the restaurant everyone thought of.
On the first floor where the restaurant was, along both the Fields and Santos sides, there were no outer walls. Instead, there was a four-foot high rattan-covered counter that allowed customers to sit and watch all the action on the streets. Inside, there were tables, a few booths, and several pool tables.
It looked like the place was about half full, mostly with guys and their current girls. Several people called out
