Hella Nation - Evan Wright [32]
“One-third of my customers are regulars. They enjoy themselves here every night, even though most are spending two to three times their hourly wages, and for what? So they can dance and talk to my girls.”
Ted waives the two-drink minimum at the viewing tables and allows me to sit for free. An Asian man in a white tropical suit slips into the seat next to me. He is powerfully built and moves with athletic grace.
“If two strangers meet more than one time, it is destiny,” the man in white says, tipping his styrofoam cup. “I have seen you at Club Flamingo, no? Would you like a Coke or a 7UP?” He signals the waitress—an almost imperceptible flutter of his hand. The gesture is pure class.
“You think this place is a dump, yes?” He reads my expression accurately. “You are not correct. It is never the location. It is the women. If they are beautiful, the club is beautiful.”
My new friend’s name is Lee. He started coming to hostess clubs five years ago, two years after he arrived in America. He has worked as a bit player in martial-arts films. He continues acting in Asian films shot in L.A., and manages a restaurant in Beverly Hills.
“I first came to these clubs because I had a handicap,” he says. “I am a foreigner. My English was very bad. I needed girls to talk to. I was so lonely.” Lee’s excellent English is a testament to his years of study at various clubs. “In Asia, hostess clubs are very common. I know the idea offends many Americans. I tried going to regular clubs, but the girls in Los Angeles are game players. How can I approach them just to talk? The girl here talks to me. How can she refuse? She is making the money.”
“Does the fact that you pay them make them prostitutes?” I ask.
“These girls are not prostitutes.” Lee raises his voice, offended. “The problem is the customer.” He leans toward me. “The majority of the customer is the geek. They are not attractive men. They are not fun to be with. Some of them try to treat the girl like a prostitute. But she is not.
“One time I had sex with a girl from a club. We danced until she finished work. I walked her to her car, and we had sex. I offered her money, and she threw it at me. I dated her for three months.”
“And you never paid her?”
“I did, but for a reason. She had a boyfriend and a kid. If she saw me and didn’t go to work at her club, how could she come home with no money? So I did pay her each time she came to my house. But she was not a prostitute. The money was an alibi.”
Lee hastens to add, “That happened four years ago. But I keep coming back. Why? If I wanted physical satisfaction, I would go to a prostitute. Here it is mental.
“I am in love with a girl at one of the clubs. I met her two years ago. I see her every week two times, two hours each time.”
“And you tip her?”
“Fifty dollars each time, plus fifty for the club. I spend two hundred dollars a week on her.”
I add up two years of this courtship: $20,000.
Lee laughs. “And I never touch her. If I touch her, she gets mad.”
“Have you ever seen her outside of the club?”
“I went to her house last week and cooked dinner for her.”
“This was the first time you saw her at her home?”
“The second time. The first time was three months ago. I rented a truck to help her move into a new apartment.”
At ten to eleven, Lee leaves. He has an appointment to meet his “girlfriend” at her club. Once a week he brings her shrimp on dry ice from his restaurant.
Cressey writes: “Many of the romantically inclined patrons crave affection and feminine society to such an extent that they accept willingly the illusion of romance offered in the taxi-dance hall. . . . They usually lead a rather detached life and sometimes give vent to city loneliness by an ardent and sincere wooing of the taxi-dancer. . . . If receiving a good wage, they may even lavish gifts upon their favorite taxi-dancers.”
Gift-giving stories abound at hostess clubs. Girls often speak of presents that have been lavished on them in the past. I wonder