Sweetwater!

Sweetwater is beautiful, a fine blend of Apache and Swedish. She's six feet of bronze skin with legs up to her ass, a fantastic set of hard-earned tits and large almond eyes the color of coffee that contrast nicely with her long blonde hair. She's so crazy beautiful it hurts and I am reminded of the geometric rainbows thrown off a shattered windshield on a day of pure sunshine.

She was so bitter cold to me at first. But one slow Tuesday she was having a bad night and as I tottered by (you can never just simply walk in 5 inch heels) she said, "Mia! Sit down!" patting the bar stool next to her.

"OH! Mia, Mia, Mia, MIA! I'm such a bitch. I need a friend so bad, right now. A real friend. Why are you so real? Why are you so kind? Why am I such a bitch?" All of this was said with a generous amount of flair and drama but her words were almost unintelligbly slurred. Almost, but I am fluent in drunk.

"LOOK at me, Mia." I complied. Her face was a Jack Daniels meltdown, mascara running in streams down her cheeks, eyes bloodshot, lipstick faded and smeared. Her bra was even crooked.

"OH MIA! I miss my son. I miss my boy. He's with my mom. I can't take care of him. I CAN'T. LOOK AT ME! I'm a barely functioning addict. I'm a crazy fucking mess. He's safer with my mother -- but then again, she's the one who did this to me."

Rachel brought me a double Cuervo and a beer on the house. Rachel is an excellent bartender.

"OH MIA! I'm so drunk. I'm such a mess! Doug just fired me! I can't even keep this stupid job and all I have to do is take off my top and shake my tits. Fuck me!"

I looked into her slightly crossed eyes. "Sweetwater, you're gorgeous. A dozen guys come in here every afternoon just to see you. You have twice as many regulars as any other dancer and a bunch of semi-regulars, too. Are you sure Doug fired you?"

"OH MIA! I'm sure he means it this time, because it's the third time he's fired me this week....but, wait. Would you talk to him Mia? He listens to you, because you don't get too fucked up and you always show up and you sell a lot of booze for the house. And he doesn't want to fuck YOU! Oh...ummm...I mean...I mean, he respects you. Talk to him for me, please?"

"OK." She did bring a lot of guys into the club. Revenue would go down if she went somewhere else. Doug understood money and when I put it like that he might be reasonable.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, THANKS. My drink is done. I'm going next door to the dyke bar. Talk to Dougie and then come tell me what he said."

It was an hour before my shift ended, but the place was dead and I wasn't making money anyway. I went back to Doug's office and sat in one of his pleather chairs, sipping my Cuervo and presenting Sweetwater's case as one part business negotiation, one part humanitarian generosity. Doug ate it up but said she was unmanageable and told me she had to promise not to come to work already drunk. He let me leave early so I could go tell her.

Neither one of them wanted her to leave but they were both too proud to fix it. She played me, and I knew it.

Next door, Sweetwater and I laughed and talked and drank like fish. Periodically, we would get up for a little two step with the swaggering middleaged butches who asked us.

And so began one of the more dysfunctional, exhausting and thoroughly entertaining friendships of my life.