Courage

That first term at the university, I had made a mistake. I was taking Statistics, Marine Biology, Organic Chemistry I, Introduction to Physics, and an engineering course that was a school requirement. And I was buried. The coursework was much greater than what I had gotten used to, and I could see right away that there would be no keeping up. But as one must, I was living in denial. I could pull this off, I told myself. God would help me.

I wasn't spending much time out of the classroom at the university. Each morning, I would drive from my apartment on the southern edge of town thirty minutes to the college. By mid-afternoon, I was making the trip back. Most days, I would go out by the pool before studying a little, and then I would wait until evening when I would see Sherri. It was a good life, and an easy one. It was open to temptation.

I drove by one twice each day, one of the two topless go-go bars that had opened in town. I would glance at it as I drove by on my way to school in the morning, sitting in the early sunlight like a ruined palace, the empty dirt parking lot littered with smashed paper cups and cigarette packages. It looked dangerous. In the afternoons when I returned home, the parking lot would be half-full with the cars of the day's first patrons, and I would think about stopping, wondering how one acted while drinking beer and looking at the "Girls Girls Girls" promised by the blinking sign. Now that the drinking age had been lowered to eighteen, I would be able to go, but so far I had only been to a couple of bars with a buddy of mine who wanted the thrill of ordering a drink in one of the lounges connected to an ABC package store, dark and seamy places with cheap highballs of which we knew little. Each morning I would think, "I will go there today just to see," and each afternoon just as I would need to pull into the turning lane to cross the lanes of traffic to the parking lot entrance, my body would go rigid with fright, my jaws clenching, my hands refusing to turn the steering wheel, and I would tell myself, "Not today. Today is not the day."

This went on week after week until I could stand it no longer. I knew that I would have to go. It was no longer the curiosity to see dancing naked women that drove me (though that was certainly a very big draw) as much as the fear--rather the shame I felt at my cowardice. And so one day as I approached the point where my resolve had usually failed me, I made the sweep across the traffic lanes, flying into the parking lot as if I were being chased. Immediately I wondered if anyone who would recognize my car had seen me, already feeling the guilty shame of recognition. Stepping out of the car into the afternoon sunlight, I hunched my shoulders and bent my head toward the ground while walking quickly to the little entrance.

When I opened the door, the darkness and the foul air engulfed me. I stood still waiting for my eyes to adjust for a second before I heard a man's voice next to my ear. "Five dollars," it said. I jumped, startled, for I couldn't see him. I hadn't thought of this. Now what? Five dollars? Just to walk in? Completely disoriented, I thought about turning around and walking back out the door, but I wasn't even certain in which direction that lay, so reluctantly, I reached into my front pocket and rummaged around for a bill. I didn't like carrying big wallets and so I always carried my money loose, sometimes folded but never sorted, and I had no idea what denomination I was pulling out. It was still impossible for me to see. I held the money out in the direction of the voice and felt it taken from my hand. I waited a minute to see if I was getting change, and in a moment that seemed too long, I was handed five bills back. A ten. I felt brilliant. I had given him a ten.

Inside, there was a U-shaped bar built around a lighted stage. All around the room were little tables and chairs. I could see that much. And so stumbling my way through the dimness, I made my way to the nearest bar stool and sat down. Before I had a chance to adjust my seat, a woman dressed in a leotard and a mini-skirt approached me holding a drink tray. In a bored voice bordering on meanness, she said, "What are you drinking?"

"Beer."

She didn't ask me what kind.

On the stage there was a skinny girl who looked my age dancing around in a baby blue bikini bottom. She had the top in her hand and was waving it slowly around her head as she gyrated her hips in big circles with her knees bent. The movement looked as awkward as she looked bored, but now she was dancing her way over to where I sat, the inkling of a smile beginning to scar her face. When she reached me, I had to lean weirdly back to look at her, my head level with her shins. I noticed some folded dollar bills stuck in the waistband of her bathing suit. She was looking down at my eyes with an expression that I guessed was meant to be sexy but which seemed to me to be the look my eighth grade teacher used to give me when she wanted me to know how disappointed she was with something I had done, a sort of punishing sympathy that oozed from every pore.

She stood there squirming around as the song from the jukebox wound down, then bent her knees and brought her head down toward mine. I noticed she was pulling out the waistband to her bikini next to the folded dollar bills. You didn't have to be very smart to figure out what to do next, so I took one of the five bills the doorman had given me and handed it to her. She smiled then and stood up and folded it just right and put it next to the other bills in her waistband. Then, slipping the bathing suit top over her head, she walked toward some stairs at the far end of the stage.

"That'll be two-fifty." The lady in the leotard was standing next to me with a small, sweaty glass of beer on her tray. I put three dollars on her tray and took my beer.

It was going to be a short afternoon, I thought. I'd been in the bar for less than three minutes and had only one dollar left in my pocket. It was a small beer. As I brought it to my lips, I realized that I my eyes were beginning to adjust.