The Bucket, Lennox, California

It was 1969, a turning point year in my life.  It was a good year for
living.  It was a bad year for dying.  I would spend the first six
months of the year nearly flunking out of UCLA because I dreaded the
next six months.  I would spend the last half of the year living in the
swamps of Viet Nam shooting people and getting shot at.

The month of May was a blur.  I didn't have much to look forward to,
knowing I was getting called up for active duty.  I spent the mornings
surfing.  I spent the nights drinking.  The month was one endless drug
binge, smoking joints like a bad cigarette habit, supplemented by acid,
downers, speed, and whatever else came my way.  I went to class only to
take mid-terms and finals, it didn't seem very important.

Back in those days, there weren't many strip clubs.  There was the
Carolina Pines by LAX, now the Century Lounge.  It was bowling with
lunches served by topless waitresses.  There was the Seventh Veil in
Hollywood.  There was Lee's in Chinatown.  I had never been to a strip
club.  I knew I had to go to one before I left home.  It might be my
last chance to see some American flesh.  I knew I wasn't going to see
any big buxom blonde valkyrie type babes in Nam.

My friend Johnny was in the same rut as me; his dance card said Uncle
Sam on it too.  One night when we were completely fucked up, but not yet
toast, he asked me "Wanna go to the Bucket?"

I replied, "What the fuck is the Bucket?" He said, "It's a strip club,
dumbshit.  It's is a nasty ass strip club." He didn't have to twist my
arm.

Back in those days, I drove a Vette.  Not a very nice Vette.  A '57
vette to be exact.  I got it in exchange for a perfectly cherry 12
second '57 Bel Air.  The Vette didn't have a top, it had white wall
tires, a 3 speed trans, cracked fiberglass, and I had no bread to do it
up.  But I wanted it, and it was my ride for now.  Johnny and I piled
into my car, and we took a ride from the Crenshaw Area where we lived,
up through Baldwin Hills, and into Inglewood.

Driving around in a convertible is a great way to sober up, but it is
completely fucked up trying to smoke a joint when the wind is blowing
all over the place.  I had a Temptations jammed into the 8 track,
blasting out of my Jensen speakers.  It didn't take long before we
arrived at the Bucket.

The Bucket sat on the westside of Hawthorne Blvd. in Lennox, a part of
town that seemed suited for broken down cars and people without faces. A
one sentence description for Lennox could be "Keep driving, don't bother
stopping."  It was a nondescript town.  And the Bucket was a nondescript
club.  From the outside it looked like a welding shop.  A single neon
sign hung over the front door that said "The Bucket."  The outside was
stucco and gray.  If Johnny hadn't told me what the place was, I would
have wondered how a place could make a living selling buckets.

We parked around the block, lit up another joint, and exchanged
superchargers.  And then we broke out a bottle of tequila and sat there
listening to the music and talking shit about shit.  After awhile we
decided to go in before neither of us could walk.

A big ugly fat bald headed white dude was at the entrance.  Some things
never change about strip clubs.  We paid admission, $2 if memory serves
me right.  The bar was to the right.  The stage was to the left.  There
were about 30 guys milling around.  A dancer was on stage, naked.

"Whoa, Johnny, that bitch ain't got no panties on!" "Hey, where the fuck
do you think you are?  This is a strip club, mother fucker!" "Yeah, but
she's butt naked."

Oh yeah, it was my first time in a nudie bar.  I wasn't prepared to see
pussy, just boobage.  Up until then, I had only seen one pussy up close,
my girlfriend's.

I beelined it to the stage and pulled up a chair.  Johnny was right
behind me.  I was mesmorized by a red head up on the stage.  A real
readhead.  A pitcher and a mug of Budweiser draft appeared in front of
me.  I guess Johnny must have got it because I was too busy gawking at
red.  She must have liked my gawking because she kept standing in front
of me with one foot on the railing and the other foot on the floor.  I
was hypnotized by her pussy and stared at it in a trance, as if I wanted
to see all the way up to her ovaries.  Finally her stage ended. I threw
out a buck, she thanked me, and I exhaled.

"Hey, dude.  This is fucking baaad." I said to Johnny.

We laughed and toasted each other with our beer mugs, slapped some skin,
and laughed some more.  The night went on and girl after girl came out
on stage.  Back then, there wasn't such a thing as lap dancing couches.
There were booths, but the girls weren't naked.  So the stage was the
place to be.

After awhile, the word spread that Johnny and I were draftees, about to
leave to go to war.  And we started to get more attention than the
parolees lookalikes that were milling around the joint.  There were
about 15 girls.  The best looking one was a blonde.  She seemed out of
it.  She sat next to the bar, alone most of the time.

Johnny and I watched the dances, mingled, and drank.  After awhile, the
blonde took a seat next to me.  I could smell her perfume.  It was
familiar.  She was wearing Shalimar.  I turned to look at her, and she
was staring at me.  Just staring.  Finally she took a cigarette out of a
small case that she held, and she said "Light me?"  I took out my
lighter and did as she asked.  She didn't look away, she didn't blink,
she just stared.  I couldn't stare back, but I did check out the goods.
She looked about 20.  She wasn't a blonde; I could see her dark roots in
her shoulder length hair.  But she was pretty, and what I could see, she
had a very nice body.  A white lacy bra held a pair of medium sized firm
boobs.  She wore a white chiffon over her shoulders and a lace panties.
Her eyes were a strange mixture green blue and gray.  It was if I could
see through her pupils.  We just sat there and stared at each other.
Finally she stopped staring.  She took my mug of beer and took four long
swallows, nearly emptying the full mug.

"That was good" she said.  "What's your name?" "Sean" "When are you
leaving Sean?"  There was no where are you from or have you been here
before. "July." "Oh." "Marines?" "Yup." "Are you scared?" "Two hours
ago, I was.  Right now, no." "Oh."

She smoked her cigarette and stared at me some more.  I smoked my
cigarette and stared back.  I had enough drugs and alcohol to put most
men down.  But I felt strangely sober.

"I have to dance soon.  Will you be here for my stage dance?" "How can I
say no?" "Okay."

She got up to leave.  Then she stopped.

"You didn't ask me what my name was." "Okay, what is it?" "Dee." "Okay,
Dee.  I'll be waiting."

I sat there alone at the stage, sipping my beer waiting. Another girl
occupied the stage, but I sat there puzzled by my exchange with Dee. The
DJ announced the next dancer.

"Next up we have Joanna.  Let's give her a big hand to welcome her out."

The lights went out completely and I thought power failure.  But the
music then started, then I realized it was part of next dancer's act.
Two small round little lights about the size of marbles suddenly
appeared from behind the curtain.  The lights were affixed to the
dancer.  They were clipped to her ears.  They were all I could see in
the darkened room.

She danced to a slow Beatles song "And I love her" which was out of
place compared to the Hendrix and Cream and Creedence Clearwater and
Steppenwolf tunes which had been blaring throughout the night.

The slow song and the two lights played upon my physique, and the
experience became visceral, almost surreal.  I wasn't seeing anything
but two lights, yet I felt it took even further away from my reality.
The two lights danced their way over to me and paused, swaying side to
side with the melody.  Then suddenly two more marble sized lights
appeared, at the chest of the dancer, attached apparently to her
nipples.  They had been covered I guessed by a garment.  These two new
marbles had a different life than those attached to her ears.  These
lights were choreographed.  They did circled in unison in one direction,
and then in another direction.  The dancer directed them to even circle
in opposite directions.  By then I was in a trance.  Maybe the booze was
kicking in, but I felt myself get woozy looking at them. Finally the
lights began to slowly come on, not all at once.  As she stood there in
front of me, I saw it was Dee who was dancing.  Or was it really Joanna.
She was nude other than a robe and her lights, marble domes fastened by
small chains.  She was about 5'4", all legs. She had a magnificent
physique.  With perfectly shaped C sized boobs (no boob jobs back then,
whoo-hoo), and a great pair of square shoulders and arms.  And she
wasn't a blonde.  I didn't see what her pussy looked like, I couldn't
get past her eyes.

Her nips were erect like small pink eraser tips poking through rings
that held the small chains that held the marble lights.  She danced her
way around the stage for the benefit of the rest of the gawkers, then
back to me.  She knelt down on the floor and massaged her breasts to the
music and stared at me.

I looked at her and said "I thought your name was Dee." She said "It is.
Really."

She got on all fours and crawled closer to me and got sat in front of me
on her knees.  She held her left breast in one hand and pulled off the
marble and placed it in front of me.  Then she did the same with her
right breast.  She said "Usually I need to glue these things on, but
you're made my nipples really hard."

I sat there and stared some more.

She got up and danced off the stage as the song ended.

She came back out, back in her robe.  She came back for her tip.  She
said, "I have to go."  She got up and left.

She never came back to the room.  After she left, it wasn't the same for
me.

Johnny was slumped over the bar, barely breathing, but still managing a
conversation with a dancer.

"Hey let's go." "Where are we going?" "Home.  I'm beat." "There's no
place like home, Toto." "Yeah, I know.  Can you walk?" "Yeah, just point
me in the right direction."

I grabbed Johnny's arm and we walked out of the bar together.  We
staggered around the corner.  The big ugly bouncer stood by my car.  A
girl sat in my car.  It was Dee.  Her chiffon covering that she wore
over her shawl was tied around her hair like a scarf.  The bouncer came
up to me.  "She said she was going home with you.  Is that right?"

I was still holding Johnny up.  He was barely awake, he was toast.  I
looked at her and she looked at me and nodded.

I said "yeah." The bouncer said "if she leaves with you, she can't come
back here."

I looked back at her.  She raised her eyebrows, as if to say "Who
cares?"

I said "Whatever."  The bouncer walked away.

I stood there with a lifeless Johnny hanging on to me.  And I looked at
Dee.  We stared for awhile.  Finally she said, "Can this thing hold 3?"

"Not really." "Do you want me to leave?" "No." "Can I come home with
you?" "Yes"

I piled Johnny in the passenger seat.  Dee sat in the middle between the
two bucketseats.  It must have been uncomfortable on the ride into
Crenshaw.  The streets were deserted and it was foggy.  The incandescent
street lamps that existed back in 1969 cast an erie glow and I felt far
removed from what had been a crazy day and a crazy life up until now.

"Why are you with me, Dee?"

She looked down, and stayed silent.  Finally she said, "I lost my
brother last year.  I decided I'm not going to lose you.  You're here
for two months.  Can I keep you company till then?"

So she stayed.  And I left.  I came back from Nam, Johnny didn't.  The
Bucket was still there, but I never went back.  It eventually died and
other clubs came and took it's place on Hawthorne Blvd.  Some of these
clubs rose up and died the strip club slow death.  And places like the
Bare and the Rhino came about, and men's clubs became glitzy and
extravagant, complete with Barbi doll dancers made possible by the
miracles of modern medicine and space age synthetics.  The big ugly fat
bald headed bouncer had kids and they work at every strip club as
bouncers.

I go to clubs every now, only to entertain clients.  It's amazing how
the knowledge of a few languages and strip clubs can motivate even the
most stubborn of negotiators.  There are strips clubs around the world,
but none like L.A. where you can get a porn star to stick her boobies in
your face.

But every now and then I get a lap dance from my all time favorite.  At
home.  From Dee.  Who is now a brunette. And plays to a 12 handicap.

There's no place like home, Toto.