For a limited time online, check out Backstage at The Caribou: the comic, no. 1, on the website of my lovely collaborator, Dan Mayzee.

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It was amateur night.  A Friday, two weeks after Julie and Princess quit, and Michelle sat and watched as young girls, many barely eighteen, shook their round asses for the crowd.  Michelle was sure two girls would be hired.  A curvy, chocolate-skinned girl who danced under the name Orchid, and a skinny redhead who went by Ariel.

The crowds had calmed down since Princess left, though The Caribou was still doing better business than it ever had before.  Michelle was now the star dancer.  She sold so many private dances she barely needed to go onstage anymore.  Customers followed her and approached her for dances as soon as she stepped out of the dressing room.

Watching now from the bar, sipping club soda, she hoped they would hire each of the top three from amateur night, and not only because she and the other girls needed some of their burdens lightened.

After the voting, Orchid came out on top, a girl named Shane second, and Ariel third.  All three were offered jobs, and they all accepted.  Michelle introduced herself to Orchid in the dressing room as she changed to go home.

“You’re great,” she said.  “Welcome to The Caribou.”

Orchid had a wide, symmetrical smile that should have been on television, in a magazine, anywhere, really, but in a strip joint.  She flashed it as she shook Michelle’s hand.  “Thanks.  I’ve actually never done this before.  I was a little nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Michelle said.  “I’ll look out for you.  Just be careful.  Some of the girls here can be a bad influence.”

Orchid nodded.  “Yeah, I definitely don’t want that.  I’m not into drugs.  I’m only doing this to pay for college.”

“Are you in college now?”

“No, but I want to apply soon.  I just graduated high school.  I actually just turned eighteen last week.”

Michelle looked around them at the other dancers.  Angel was wobbling, doubled over, having considerable trouble tying her shoe.  “Stay with me,” she said to Orchid.  “I’ll look out for you.”

The next afternoon, she dialed a dusty, familiar number.  She waited, waited, and heard a gravelly “Hello?” that wrapped around her like a linen sheet.

“Hi, Big B.”

“Oh, hey T.D.  How’s life?”

“It’s okay.  How about you?”

“Fine.  Rachel and I are just setting up the house.  You’d never imagine how stressful it is to move in with someone.”

“I guess not.  How was the honeymoon?”

“Great.  Well, it rained a lot.”

“Eh, the weather’s not what a honeymoon’s for anyway, is it?”

“Heh.  Guess not.”

“Well, I’m glad everything is going so well.  I just called to say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Oh, and I wanted to say, I got a new job.”

“Another bar?”

“Sort of.  A dancing gig.”

“Wait – you got a job in a company?”

“Ha!  No way.  I’ve changed my life’s path, Big B.  I’m not into ballet anymore.”

“Huh?  I don’t think I get—”

“Ballet’s dead.  There’s no rhythm in it.  I should have known.  It was the dancing I loved all along.  The rhythm.  Not the leotards and point shoes.  Jesus, the sex of it.  I love dance in its purest form.  Pure movement and energy.”

“Michelle, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m an exotic dancer.  I’m one of those girls you saw at your party that you hated.  Only I’m not on drugs, I’m not depressed.  I’m not even a drunk any more.  It’s taken me past all that.  Dancing’s where I feel like I’m supposed to be, at least for now.  I mean, who knows what the future will bring.  Nothing ever really goes like you plan it, anyway.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

Pause.

“Michelle, I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything.  I’m still your sister, right?”

“Of course.”

“And you’re still my brother.  And I’m still always with you, and vice versa.”

“Of course.  I mean, that’s true.  I just… I never expected this.”

“If there’s one thing this year has taught me, it’s that you never, ever know how anything is going to turn out.  All you can do is go with it and try to trust.  Hey, why don’t you go and think about it for awhile?  I have to make another phone call.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

“Tell Rachel I say hi.”

“I will.”

“I love you, Jake.”

“I love you, too, Michelle.”

Click.

Michelle leaned back in her chair and sighed.  She took a sip of hot green tea, then picked up the phone again and dialed her parents’ number.

On the first cool day of the year she took Orchid on her first trip to the Fish Ho.  Afterward they went out dancing and Michelle taught Orchid a few moves.  Of course, Orchid didn’t need as much help as Michelle did when she started, but both were glad to have a friend at The Caribou.  When Michelle turned twenty-four, Orchid bought her a cake and took her out.

In November, Michelle began seeing Princess everywhere.  For World AIDS Day, she was enormous on a billboard, airbrushed to an ideal, Platonic version of the woman she knew from the club, with glamorous makeup and high fashion clothes.  Michelle felt only the slightest twinge of jealousy, or memory of a twinge.  Her heart was filled mostly with love.

Six months to the day after Princess latched trap-like onto her arm in The Caribou dressing room, Julie sat in the clinic waiting for her test results, staring at a framed photograph of a confused infant dressed as a ladybug.  When the doctor returned and said negative, she sighed and said a silent, small thank you to her blood for resisting infection, and that was that.

It had started raining in a light, constant mist.  As she walked out into the grey haze and down the street, she saw Princess, pouting, glammed-out, and fifty feet high.  It was the first time she’d seen her billboard, and she stopped so suddenly a group of teenagers bumped into her, almost throwing her off her feet onto the sidewalk.

“No fucking way,” she muttered.  She stood for a moment as her hair grew damp, shaking her head at the image.  Then she realized she was late getting back to work and hurried down the street, soles of her sneakers squeaking against the wet concrete.

Julie worked at a local women’s shelter.  She answered the crisis line, cooked meals, and spent as much time with the residents as possible.

She made enough money to get by, but not much more.  Every day the dream of owning her own restaurant slipped further and further into the background, and every second, she became more okay with that.  She loved her work at the shelter, and her talent for business allowed her to advance quickly.  Within months, she had found more funds and raised more money for the shelter than it had ever seen, and she helped start new programs for abused women to help them rebuild their lives.  She also started a sex education program for high school girls.  She was very popular among the teenagers.

“But he’ll break up with me if I don’t screw without a condom!” a heavy-set, black haired sixteen-year-old said through a mouth punctured by a homemade lip piercing.  She sat across from Julie in a loose circle of chairs all occupied by girls.

Julie rolled her eyes.  “Listen sweetie, I don’t want to hear this.  Do you know how beautiful you are?”

The girl lowered her eyes.  “Uh…”

“Look, the point is, it doesn’t matter.  If this guy can’t appreciate you enough to respect your boundaries, he obviously is not the one for you.  You don’t want to end up sick or dead, do you?”

She shook her head no.

“Pregnant?”

No again.

“Then that’s that.  You only screw with condoms.  You’ve made the choice because you respect yourself.  So it’s only right that your man should respect you, too.  If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t deserve you, not the other way around.  Change it up on him.  Make him the one that needs to worry about keeping you.  Instead of thinking the way you’re thinking now, how about this for a problem: ‘Julie, if my boyfriend doesn’t want to screw with condoms, I’m going to have to break up with him.’  That’s your real problem.  Turn it around.  You’re just as powerful as he is.  Don’t forget that.”

The girl nodded.  Julie saw her smile.

Michelle was slimmer by the wintertime, and her nocturnal life had blanched her skin to a stunning white.  Her hair was longer, falling to the bottoms of her shoulder blades, and gave off an eerie, golden sheen.

One day, late in January, she woke up in the arms of a young, disillusioned IRS auditor with an illegitimate son halfway across the country and every Johnny Cash song memorized verbatim.  They shared a wordless breakfast and she walked him out.

As she showered and readied herself for work, for the first time in months, her mind drew a loose portrait of Samantha.  She imagined her tan, with lighter hair flying behind her in the wind, and for some reason, on the beach.  Beside her in a bathing suit Gracie sat on a towel, bronze-skinned, hair whipping, smiling behind large sunglasses.  Whenever Michelle pictured this unverified scene, always the same one locked in time, she smiled.  She smiled now.

It looked like it was going to be a cold day, so she put on a sweater and a heavy coat.  As she left her apartment, the dry freezing city air awoke her face and hands with a sudden burst.  She wiped a flake of snow off her nose and began to pad through the thin layer of white on the sidewalk, breathing deep the icy smell of winter.  By the time she reached the club, moisture had frozen on her eyelashes, surrounding her eyes with sparkling flecks of crystal.  She shook her head to toss off errant frost as she passed the doorman and stepped into the warm belly of The Caribou, surrounded by people she loved.

Labels: Jake, Julie Han, Michelle, Princess, dancing

Posted By Jade No Comments »