blurring_the_edges_41_shifting_gears_again birdmad The damage that Meat did to your back turns out to be more serious than you thought, but between the incompetence of the people who treated your dad during his last few months and the failure of the doctors to spot your mother's condition in spite of her insistence that something was wrong well before that surgery, you have developed a very strong distrust of the medical profession. There is a weird pinched sensation in your left leg that sometimes makes you limp when you walk, bad enough to make you eye your grandfather's beat-up old black cane, though you do your best to hide it. You have done a good enough job at the plant helping to train some of the newer assembly line people how to do shit right the first time that you don't have as much to do in the repair area or the machine shop except to fix the occasional fuck-up, the biggest task on your plate right now besides the occasional fixes is dismantling some of the radio components that are going to have to be redesigned because of an engineering defect. It makes you laugh because the engineers have been insisting up and down that the problem was happening on the assembly line and not in the design. The company's engineers and the design guys at Nova, the customer who you build the pieces for have been adamant about it. More often than not, you are content to leave some of the dismantling and recycling to old Nick and Miguel, who are as mismatched a pair of assistants as any you've ever been given. Nick, is an old ex-Marine who spent twenty years living in Fiji after he got out of Viet Nam and is now a practicing witch, Miguel, at 19, is two years younger than you, is loosely affiliated with one of the little barrio gangs in the neighborhood nearest the factory and in spite of this is so earnestly Catholic that he is freaked out just by the mere fact of the pentagram pendant and tattoo that old Nick has on his right arm. Nevertheless, they work well together and the three of you get along well as a group. After a year and a half on the job here, you have unofficially been given people who you supervise, although there is not enough of a work area here for you to get supervisor pay. It doesn't bother you, you don't want the hassle of having to keep up with the paperwork affiliated with being in charge anyway. You are just glad that you report directly to the front office instead of through either of the assembly line supervisors anymore. During the extra bits of downtime that you have, you have been talking to Tom White and one of the guys in the product test area if you can train to do some of the test work since Tom's best buddy, Lee has announced that he is quitting to do something else after having a major falling out with his dad who runs the engineering section. After some discussion, White agrees to it, and you spend two hours a day near the end of Lee Svenson's last week learning how to use the analyzer and the old Unix box that runs it. You know nothing about the machinery you are running, but by the end of four days, you are already reasonably proficient at four of the five different product types you've been given to play with on the pre-tune end of the process and can nail two of the three major varieties of the final test configurations. By the end of two weeks in the slot, you are officially moved out of the product repair shop and into the technician's area and your paycheck is bumped up to prove it. It just makes you glad that you never have to move anything of any significant weight very far without putting wheels under it because your back is killing you and it's bad enough that you didn't worry about Hassan firing you from the bouncer gig, you quit for fear of being useless in a pinch. Hassan was unusually understanding, and actually said that he would miss having you around since the guy he replaced you with was a total loose cannon and he was afraid that sooner or later the bouncers he had would cause him more trouble than the bikers. After a month on the job as September comes to a close, you and the rest of the guys on the tech crew decide to check out a new strip club that just opened downtown. When you get there, a pair of chance meetings serves to build a very weird reputation with your co-workers. Having been 86'ed by Hassan for the damage he did to his place, you are surprised to greeted with a giant hug by an inordinately large bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt at a table near the bar. Meat claps you on the back and the other five guys in your group look on with a mixture of apprehension and puzzlement. It comes as a surprise to see him looking very un-biker like in this place and you realize that in addition to a number of large men at the usual bouncer positions who appear to be dressed for a safari, there are three other titans roaming around dressed in more casual Hawaiian shirts and jeans. After a few minutes of glad-handing and pondering how you seem to have a new-found friend from a man who nearly ground you into a fine powder, you settle in and enjoy the sights. The girls in this place are quite the sight, incredibly beautiful down to every last one. You get a chorus of "Yeah, right" from the rest of your co-workers when you claim to know a girl who walks in and heads for the dressing room. To their surprise, as well as yours, she stops by the table as she is making her way to the DJ booth. China Velasquez, who you have not seen since she transferred to Hayden High, and whose hippie mother named her and her sisters after countries greets you with a huge smile and a hug. One of the managers shoots a disapproving look from his place near the bar, but relents when the display of affection goes no further. "Alex....oh my god, what are you doing here?" "Hell, girl, i was gonna ask you the same thing. Jesus i haven't seen you since just after you transferred out of Trinity? How have you been?" "Not bad. Workin'...how about you?" "Same here, just checking the place out with some guys from work." Mike, one of the old techs, who plays at being a grouch but is really a sweetheart of an old bastard looks at her and says "Lady, you mean you actually know this guy? How'd that happen?" "Yeah, China, don't mind El Viejo over there, he's just cranky 'cause his wife is holding out on him." "Al-ex!" she says, playfully shocked. The DJ announces her by her stage name as the girl on stage is finishing her set and China runs to the backstage area. In a matter of a minute or so, she starts her routine on the stage, and you are suddenly reminded of just how sexy you always thought she was and just how much of a guilty thrill it is to be witness to it in a place like this. When she drops her top, one of your last unrealized adolescent fantasies becomes a realized reality. While the other men seated near the edge of the stage slip her singles in her garter, you fish out a ten-dollar bill and she lets you slip in into the waistband of her bikini, pulling it just slightly away from her right hip to accommodate it. With her eyes and tilt of her head, she motions you to a table near the back. You understand and excuse yourself from your friends to head back there. The place is relatively packed and the only flaw this table has is that it's view of the stage is rather obstructed even though it is still in plain view of the bar and the manager's balcony above. You feel the ache in your hip and you feel terribly old for only being twenty-one. You move to the table and order a Killian's, tipping the waitress with two bucks even though the beer is only a buck tonight. You've diverted your gaze from the parade of bare breasts in the place enought to have been watching and realizing that there are a lot of light-tipping stiffs in the place taking advantage of the cheap-drink prices that the Island is using to promote their grand opening. The pretty, petite redhead carrying the drinks seems to appreciate that you actually doubled up on your tip, it is not until later that you realize the second bill was actually a five instead of another single, but the good-will it earned you was worth at least that much. When China is done with her set, she makes the rounds through a couple of other songs and does a few table dances. As you look around, you see some of the tables are set up to accommodate a very literal version of the table-dance in that the tables are run through with a pole that connects to the ceiling and for the more gymnastically oriented dancers, there are even loops over some of the tables. To your surprise, you actually see one girl in another section of the club using the loops like gymnast rings, earning a round of applause from the entire club for her routine. When China gets to you, you tell her she doesn't have to strip for you and that you'll pay her for the time anyway, but you'd rather catch up with her. "That's sweet, Alex, but i actually want to do this, let me give you something first." She hands you a plain blue matchbook and as you open it, you see her pager number written in it. When the song starts up and she begins to dance, you can't help but forget any other sensation besides the increasing feeling of being incredibly turned on by this woman who you last saw as a gawky but cute sophomore before she switched schools and is now stripping in front of you, inches away, occasionally undulating and moving so close to you that you can feel her body heat and can smell the faint traces of sweat underneath the perfume she is wearing. For all of the things you have experienced with any of the women you have been around, there is a certain sensation in this moment that many of your more debauched moments somehow don't seem to measure up to. When she finishes, she pats you on the head as you sit there in the seat, still transfixed by the experience, still feeling the phantom sensation of one close pass where her left nipple brushed against your cheek. When you page her a day and a half later, she doesn't answer. You try again a couple of days after that and get the same non-result. When you and your two good friends from the tech crew, Matt and Eddie go back again the next week, you stick around to closing time and don't see her. If anything, you are worried about her. You know from people in your mutual pasts that she had been married to a real lowlife and had only recently divorced him. When you finally do hear from her again, she tells you that she had to split when her ex got out of jail because he was starting to get really unpredictable and she didn't want to be anywhere near the city when he finally lost it. Feeling a flash of the same anger you felt toward Billy, without explicitly saying so, you offer your services to either provide her ex with a particularly harsh warning or do worse if need be. She thanks you, but declines, saying his own family might take care of that for their own reasons, which you respectfully decline to ask. Content that she is safe, but perhaps a bit melancholy anyway, you are surprised when quite out of the blue and for the first time in nearly a year, you hear from Dana and Greg. Why does it surprise you, Alex? Everytime you think you've left that whole scene behind, you find out that it's all just as attached to you as your shadow. You call them back and all you can think of as you wait for them to pick up the phone is "This had fucking well better be good." 030524 what's it to you? who go blather from