IRENE AND CRIMSON

                                       

         The Green Swamp is a nightclub, or as they prefer to say, a gentlemen’s club.  Irene Hoff worked there.  They didn’t call her Irene though.  When she was in the Green Swamp she was Crimson.  Crimson, with no last name, no history, no identity.

         Crimson was a dancer.  She was, or at least she once was, pretty.  Crimson wore revealing costumes and she -- did things for a living.  She was making a living for Irene and Irene’s son Kyle.

         Every night she danced and -- did things.  The men liked what she did and paid good money to see her do it.  They weren’t supposed to touch her but she had learned by experience not to protest when they did. 

         Every morning she took off the makeup, dressed in Irene’s clothes, and went home.  That was Crimson’s life.  Irene’s was different.  She went home and made a pot of coffee and sat down until six thirty when she woke Kyle to get ready for school.  She hurried him along as he got dressed and ate breakfast and ran out to catch the bus.  Irene then got some sleep to get ready to become Crimson again when the night came back.

         Irene hated Crimson but she could not exist without her.  The money Crimson earned was what she and, more important, Kyle lived on.  It was Crimson’s paycheck that she put in the bank so Kyle could go to college someday and be somebody.  Irene didn’t go to college.  She didn’t even finish high school, and that was why Crimson had to strip for a living.

She went to her bed and lay down, bone fatigued.  It isn’t like I’m a hooker, she reminded herself.  After all she had a son to raise and the only asset she had was her body, the beautiful lean body with the full round breasts.  Respectable business men came to the Green Swamp to watch her uncover her body one garment at a time.  They waited until she uncovered the breasts and then stomped and whistled and made comments.  They gave her money so Irene could send Kyle to college someday.

         You could say there are other ways to make a living, but Irene would come back with “Other ways that pay three or four hundred a night?  College costs money.” 

         Kyle’s father walked away when Kyle was two.  He promised to send money when he could, but then he never did.  Irene did waitress work, but that didn’t pay enough for food and rent let alone Kyle’s future.  And the men in the diner made comments about her melons and that was when she got the idea of seeing whether Crimson could make it as a stripper.

         Some of the girls at the Swamp used drugs and alcohol, but Crimson couldn’t because Irene wouldn’t let her.  It would be a bad influence on Kyle, she said.  No matter that Kyle had never even seen Crimson.  Crimson still had to adhere to something of a moral code for his sake.

         Irene got up when it was time for Kyle to come home.  She straightened the apartment and began fixing his dinner.  She helped Kyle with his homework and watched some TV with him.  Then she had to get ready to go to work.  As far as Kyle knew, she cleaned offices at night. 

         There came a night when a rowdy bunch of guys came in for a party.  Not that this was unusual and the room was always rowdy. 

         Crimson had never been afraid of the guys. After all Glenn, the bouncer, kept an eye on things, all six foot four, two hundred forty pounds of him.  Nobody in this room would challenge Glenn no matter how drunk they might get.

         But there was something about this crowd.  She had never seen them before.  They were spending money like water, and Crimson liked to see that.  They would be sticking some of it in her garter belt by and by. 

         She heard the band start to play her music, the music with the growling chords. The girl they called Doll said, “Show time, Honey. You’re on.”

         Doll was already high and could not understand how Crimson did this sober.  But Doll didn't know about Irene and Kyle.

         There was applause as Crimson took the stage and began her routine.  There were guys she recognized who watched her every night, and these new ones. 

         And that was when she saw the boy who was with them.  He had been drinking, too, but he looked too young.  The others were needling him. He looked out of place and ashamed even to be there.  All of a sudden she saw Kyle, a few years older, sitting where this boy was sitting now with drunken rowdies pressuring him on.  The boss told her that they had paid for her to dance with the boy.  They were all laughing at him and he obviously didn’t want to act like a kid in front of them. 

         The boy didn’t belong here at least not at this age.  It wasn’t up to her to ask how old he was.  He had to be at least twenty-one to get in here.  He must have showed ID that convinced Glenn, or Glenn would have thrown him out tout suite. 

         The boy had beautiful eyes like Kyle except that Kyle’s were blue and this boy’s were brown.  He was a little drunk but not enough to keep him from being ashamed and embarrassed.  His companions roared, egging him on. 

         Crimson could not meet this boy’s eyes.  It felt like she was watching some stripper doing this with Kyle.

         Suddenly she wasn’t Crimson any more.  She was Irene, ashamed of the costume and the makeup and of what she was doing.  She ran for her dressing room.  Irene had to get into her own clothes and get out of there.

         Crimson was fired, of course.