2. Stripper Chronicles: tales from the strip “The Mysterious Disappearance of the Ratchet White Girl”

 

The sun was blaring, smog & pollution THICK in the air.

It was another beautiful day in Inglewood, California. 

I pulled into the empty lot in my shitty Honda accord and parked in the space next to our tacky advertisement van. 

Squinting, I looked over at the life size billboard of Britney, Whitney & Ashley and giggled at the sleazy aura. Glittery, blonde, vegas show girls from a 90s porno. 

This is what happens when you put a man in charge of creative direction. 

“Well, it's just me and my girls,” 

 I said out loud to the inanimate three sets of eyes & tits staring blankly back at me. I scanned the parking lot for any signs of life. It was almost completely empty besides me, the van and a random old Volvo towards the back.

Managers weren’t there yet, which means the doors are still locked. 

I still had a few minutes to kill.

I rolled down my window and lit a cigarette.

I was 19 years old smoking newports, classy right? I never said these stories would be pretty. Actually let me preface this by saying these stories are anything but pretty. 

Raw, unfiltered, & truthful is more like it.

Remember when I said the sun was blaring? Well, it was 11am. 

Now before you silently judge me in your head, we had a $50 incentive to get to work before noon. An extra $50 was not something I was willing or able to pass up at the time, and well, it was dark inside the club. What difference did it make?

Sometimes the never ending darkness and routine shots of Hennessy had me lose track of time and work for 12 hours straight. I shudder at the memories.

A slam of a car door pierced the silence as I looked over to see KiKi walking over to my car. She got in the front seat and grabbed a cig of her own, lighting it and sinking into the seat with a deep sigh. 

“My man put hands on me again”

Yeah, you heard me loud and clear. Her man was putting hands on her for god knows how long. He was a failed SoundCloud rapper that looked way too much like Andre 3000. His only positive quality, I'd say.

I was always there for her when she needed to be away from him, even though it killed me that she always went back.

Based on this new found information and a little deliberation, 

We decided to take the day off and skip work. 

To be productive and responsible of course. 

Kiki had apparently left her wallet in her locker the night before, so I followed as she headed for the front doors. 

Now this is where things get mysterious…

We sauntered our way into the gloried pimp house that is our place of employment and into the back room. The lockers are somewhat of a beautifully sad, yet comical place. They each told a little story of its owner. Although those stories didn't always make sense.

What secrets were hiding behind those little doors?

Dirty heels, sweaty g strings, baby wipes, a half empty bottle of cheap vodka..

Normal.

A duffle full of boy clothes, documents, passports, and a neon orange ski mask?

Well, that's not what you see everyday..

You’re probably wondering why I was even rummaging through anyone’s lockers in the first place. I wasn’t rummaging, actually. 

I was minding my business staring at my ass in the mirror when KiKi started flipping through papers in my peripheral. 

I glanced over to her cautiously picking through the contents of a duffle bag with a puzzled look on her face.

 “This is that girl Lexis stuff, I think she put it in my locker by accident.” She said as she pulled an orange ski mask out from the main compartment.

I thought about it but the name didn't ring any bells, ”Who?”

“ratchet white girl lexi,” She said as she continued to search through the contents. 

”oh, ri-,” I was cut off,

And before I could finish my sentence, my manager barged in the door and threw me a set of keys. I caught them, my face painted with confusion. 

“Since you two are already going through her shit, here’s her car keys too. She left it here the other night, I haven’t seen her since. Do me a favor and move her car to the back of the lot, we need the spaces for customers.” He turned around and walked back through the doors he had just come from. 

Me and KiKi looked at each other, now even more puzzled than before.

The newly learned information lingered in the air between us.

Lexi. 

She was clearly into some very questionable activities based on the duffle bag she abandoned in KiKi’s locker. 

Her car was left at the club, with the keys INSIDE. 

She had been missing for THREE whole days. 

It was like we had our very own bootleg stripper detective case on our hands,

and it was only 11:30am.

Cut to 30 minutes later.

We were one .99 cent banana vodka shooter deep and living our private investigator dreams. 

Kiki broke the silence with her unwavered dramatics, 

“Do you think she’s dead?

“Jesus,” I clutched my proverbial pearls to my chest. 

Silence.

We sat quietly pondering for about a minute before we looked at each other and shrugged.

What a day it had been. I was in the middle of sheltering my friend from domestic violence, and had been thrust right into a missing persons case. 

On a mission, we walked outside to do some investigating. 

Looking through her car did nothing but confuse us more. 

The trunk was full of cheap wigs from the beauty supply, more changes of clothes, a criminal amount of trash….oh, and a fuck- ton of cash. 

No, before you assume -

We did not steal any. We had more decorum than that, even though we might have thought about it for a second. Could you blame us?

This girl was not a friend to any of us, matter fact she was more like the opposite. 

She had a habit of rubbing us all the wrong way, but whatever shady business she was caught up in was no business of mine. 

The car did not produce many clues, just further confusion.

Aside from all the loose cash, all we found was more very illegal looking documents. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know no one is allowed to have that many passports. Homegirl was either running from someone, robbing banks, or just absolutely insane. Maybe all three.

Our minds buzzed with possibilities, scenarios, questions…

Why so many names? Did she abandon this car? Was she TAKEN?

It was simply too much to deliberate on an empty stomach, 

so we decided to get sushi.

Who did we think we were? 

This was out of our hands, and truthfully, we didn’t care that much. The excitement from our substitute detective position was short lived. 

The case had gone cold. 

We had moved on to more pressing matters, the bite size rice and fish kind.

We casually ate our rainbow rolls, completely disregarding the strange ass day we just had together.

Things went on pretty normally after that. 

                                       

If you're wondering what ever happened to Lexi, me too. 

A little birdy told me her car stayed eerily parked at the back of the lot for weeks until it was finally towed.

There was word of her wandering around, hootin’ & hollerin’  outside and being taken to a mental institution, but who knows the reliability of that information.

Unfortunately,

We did not solve the case, and the mysterious disappearance of the ratchet white girl will forever remain a mystery.