Drinking on a Wednesday

I have a final due in two days, but I feel like getting a drink. It’s Wednesday night, but the day really means nothing when you just want to get rip roaring drunk and forget about the day, the week, the month, the interminable stresses of life. I call up a buddy and he says he’s going downtown, he’s with another friend and they’re headed to Vessel. I am relieved to know that at least I won’t be drinking alone. They pick me up a little while later and before I enter the car they look at my shoes proclaiming, “Dude, I don’t know if you can get in with those sneakers.” I’m not going back inside to change and if they don’t let me in I figure I’ll just wander down into the Tenderloin where most bars won’t really give a fuck what I’m wearing.

We get to Vessel and don’t have a problem with the shoes. There aren’t many people, but I didn’t come out to socialize. We grab a few drinks and I ask my friends if they’ve got any other plans for the evening, but they dodge the question and snicker to each other. We make some small talk and again I ask if we should try to go to another bar, but they once again spurn my question. I don’t try to pursue the topic any further and figure that any misadventure late into the night would be fine by me, I order a few more shots.

The crowd thickens: businessmen, socialites, students, hipsters, and degenerates fill the space. I spy a cute, well-dressed Asian girl at the bar and make eye contact, she’s been standing at the bar all night and has eye-fucked every guy in range into buying her a drink only to wave them off after a few minutes conversation. I won’t be talking to her tonight.

“We’re leaving,” one of my friends announces. It’s only around 12 and I could probably use four more rounds, but don’t object.

They keep strictly reticent about the situation and we hop into the car and drive past Union Square down Geary into the Tenderloin. There are herds of crackheads gathered thick around street corners like a congregation of roaches.

“We can head out to the Mission, I have a friend who’s bartending on 22^nd” I say hoping to at least to get in some more drinks.

“We’re going to a massage parlor” the driver answers as we make a left and pull up to a stop. “We didn’t want to tell you earlier since we thought you’d object.” I didn’t think of myself as the square type. I’ve been to brothels and bathhouses in about a half dozen countries as a detached observer and am actually a bit intrigued to see how these things operate in my own city. “I wouldn’t have” I say.

We walk down a flight of steps to a door guarded by a one way mirror, watched ominously by the unblinking red dot of a camera above our heads. Someone pushes a buzzer to the right, aptly labeled with a sign that says “buzzer”.

We walk through the door and are greeted by a man behind the desk, the man who controls the buzzer. “You want a massage?” He asks with a thick Vietnamese accent. My friends reply in the affirmative. Buzzer man nods his head over to a couch indicating for us to take a seat. The room is about 20’ x 10’ with two black leather wrap around couches. There is a big screen playing Euro trash dance party music videos, a disco ball whirls on the ceiling, and there enough fluorescent light buzzing in the room to light up half of Vegas. This seems to be a commonality of all brothels around the world, fluorescent lighting as the mating call of the night. On the other couch sits an older lady in a grey full sweat suit,with a hands-free device affixed to her ear sitting with a laptop alternating her attention between a game on the computer and the big screen. She doesn’t pay any attention to us.

Six girls enter the room like cows filing in for milking. Their dress ranges from two piece bikinis to skin tight mini skirts, all bright colors. A few girls are bold and make eye contact, smiling coyly, while others look at the ground. Cosmetic enhancements are just as varied, some with ridiculous bosoms, but all are thin and attractive, the fluorescent lighting hiding any skin defects.

“I’ll take the one in the pink,” “I’ll take the one in the black,” say my friends, like choosing items off a fast food menu at Burger King. “And you?” the man behind asks looking at me. “No thanks” I answer “I’m just going to wait.”

The girls shuffle out just as they had come in and the two chosen ones take my friends’ hands and lead them into the hall. I ask to use the bathroom and am told it is to the left at the end of the hall. I make my way down the dimly lit passage in between muffled moans and whispering voices. There are about twelve rooms lining the hall, half of them with the door shut. The rooms are furnished with a single twin bed, a small tv, a dresser and a single, stand up, shower. I come back to the main area and sit back on the couch, wondering how long I’ll have to wait. I sit idly watching sweat suit lady play computer games while the buzzer man resumes his place behind the desk, head propped up with one hand and fingers rhythmically drumming out time with the other.

He looks over at me again. “You sure don’t want massage? Only $50”

I shake my head no. “I sure could go for a beer though. You guys sell any?” He shakes his head no. “You think I can run down to the corner store and bring one in here?” Again he shakes his head no. It’s strange that you can fuck girls for money, but you have to strictly adhere strictly to the no drinking clause. “Well, how about a cigarette, can I smoke in here?” He beckons me to follow him down the hall and he pulls out an ashtray and hands me a cigarette out of his own pack, Marbolo lights.

“You been working here long?”

“Since 1990.”

“You like it?”

He gives me a look like I’m stupid. “It pays the bills.”

“Is it your wife up there?” I nod towards the common area indicating sweatsuit lady.

“No, no, no” he shakes his head adamant denial, “my girlfriend back in Vietnam. I go back every two year see her. She can’t come here, no visa.” He’s around 45 to 50 but the wear and strain of his line of work has marked his face with a defeated look and he never once smiles. We make some more idle chat and I can’t really get him to talk much, but I wouldn’t really talk to me either if I were him. I sit back down at the couch after the cigarette and begin having a real serious inner debate about whether or not to get a massage, because I could use one, but I know how that bitch temptation works and once she grabs a hold of you it’s really hard to shake her off.

Men shuffle in and out, some drunk and boisterous, some nervous and shifty, all greeted with the customary “You want a massage?” but everyone leaves happy. Everyone except me, buzzer man, sweat suit lady, and probably all the working girls, but I can’t really make that assessment call. After another half a life time, my friends shuffle out with grins on their faces and we head back to the car and they give me unwarranted play by play action sequences of their “massages”.

I really have no objection to this sort of thing in a sense. It’s just a job and despite how degrading and sordid the whole ordeal is I realize that maybe someone people just get dealt a really bad hand in life. They just have to try to make the most of it. I sit the car ride home reticent, ignoring the banter between my friends in the front seat, reliving the situation and wondering if paying a few hundred bucks to some girl for a circumstance encounter isn’t so much different than taking some regular girl out for a night on the town just to get my rocks off. But in the end there is a huge difference, some people just choose to ignore it. But I have no place to judge, all I wanted to do was get drunk on a Wednesday night.