Lost Girls

chapter 3

With tie loosened and Tripp file stuck un-der my arm I walk out into the purple light of early evening and direct myself east toward the noise and tawdriness of Yonge Street for a victory drink. Victory for today, and the prospect of a more dazzling victory in the weeks to come. My first murder trial. And so long as no bodies turn up, the chances are good that I can manage to spare Mr. Tripp the indignities of long-term incarceration. I'm pleased with myself, and even more pleased after I've vacuumed the extra generous line of Great White Hope off my desk before leaving. Things are looking up.

I like strip bars, and of the many of this fine city the Zanzibar is my favorite. It occupies this position for no special reason other than it's exactly the way a strip bar should be. My law school friends and I used to come here after exams or for birthday piss-ups, but while those guys have all gone on to sensible marriages and four-bedroom Victorians in neighborhoods renowned for their alternative-education elementary schools and low crime rates, I've become a regular at the place.

What I like is the padded front door that seals off the interior from any trace of natural light, the always startling first appearance of a room appointed with women in various states of undress in place of paintings or potted plants, the air a mixture of beer mold and coconut oil spread over passing breasts and thighs. I even like the men, pathetic and despised, knowing they are pathetic and despised, offering up foolish portions of their wages to the waitress, talking to the girls before a table dance and imagining themselves as wealthier and better-looking than they are, the kind of men these girls might want to be with for free.

I like the young-looking ones. Their pouting shyness, teacup breasts, and Who, me? eyes. Girls' school tartan skirt and close-fitting white blouse. Off they come in teasing slow motion, leaving her standing as though before her mother's bureau mirror, index finger hooked on lower teeth and her other hand tracing over the smooth discovery of her body. Bad girls. A parade of faux teen naughtiness beneath the black stage lighting that hides the crude truth of blemishes, stretch marks, and scars. This is what I come here for, why I put my money down: to be free of this world of women and live again, for a time, in the world of girls.

''Something to drink?''

The waitress is an impatient hag who's been here forever and who doesn't bother to get to know any of the regulars for fear of having to use more than the few words she is obliged to in order to do her job. I like her too.

''Double rye with ginger on the side.''

She walks away without acknowledging my order and I look past her at tonight's offerings. Very California these days. With the summer always come the bleached bikini babes, tans burned onto skin through repeated sessions under the lamp, spherical implants high and unmoving. Soon the leather will return, though, the biker fantasies shipped down from Montreal to meet the demands of the Christmas office-party season. But I'll keep searching for my little girl.

And find her. There, dropping a lemon into her Coke over at the bar. From this distance and in this light she could be sixteen, fifteen. Not a day over twenty, at any rate. I give her a little two-fingered wave as though making a bid at an auction.

''Hi,'' she says when she comes over, lowers her eyes flirtatiously. Good. She's acting the part as well.

''Hello, there. Would you care to dance for me?''

''Okay,'' she says, looking around as though to make sure her teacher can't see her. Then she pulls over one of those plastic stands they use to dance on and sits on it.

''I'm Deanna.''

''I'm Barth.''

''You're a very handsome man, Barth.''

She giggles and raises herself as the dj fades out the Aerosmith and ''slows things down a bit'' with the lounge saxophone intro to ''Careless Whisper'' by George Michael. I down the first rye in two gulps without adding any ginger as Deanna picks open the buttons on her blouse and shimmies out of her skirt.

Behind her the waitress turns my way with eyes hooded by years of distaste followed by further years of boredom. Raise my finger to order another round, and on it goes: another ten-year-old top-40 song, another set of stretches and thrusts, another round. Throughout I am silent, everything still but my eyes.

She keeps going, turning and stroking and bending in cycles until another song ends and the dj comes over the sound system praising the dancer who's just finished her routine on the main stage: ''Oh y-eah! Gentlemen, let's hear it for the lovely Roxanne! Oh yeah! Rox-anne!'' Deanna pulls back from my chair and stands limply on her pedestal.

''Another?'' she asks.

''No, I don't think so. Thank you.''

Ask how many songs she's danced for me and, as usual, I'm startled by the size of the number. I pay her and include an excessive tip. It is my habit to leave excessive tips in strip bars.

''Thanks,'' she says, tucking the money into the zippered pouch she carries with her. Then she pulls her underwear back up, clips on her skirt, shrouds her breasts beneath her blouse, and steps down from her stand. She is as before, another stripper in a girl's school uniform, but with enough age now showing beneath her eyes and at the corners of her mouth to make her current act almost laughable.

''Have a great night,'' she says as she leaves.

''Have a great life,'' I say, slipping, having meant to use the same words she had.

Once outside I stand on the street for a time, close my eyes, and absorb Yonge Street's Friday-night cacophony of chanting panhandlers, vomiting drunks, hip-hop thudding out the windows of refitted Jettas and Civics. The air a humid cloud of sugary perfumes and jock deodorant wafting off the passing packs of high school kids in for the night from the suburbs. Breathe all of it in and let its ugliness fill my lungs. It occurs to me (not for the first time) that it's sometimes good to stop and remember that you live in a city: a clotted intersection of lives all set on different trajectories, each one indifferent to the other. There was a time, I think, when this kind of observation would have left me melancholy, but now it brings a certain comfort. The satisfaction of a suspicion confirmed, an idea buried inside yourself long enough to fossilize, its markings now permanently etched. When I open my eyes again to the yellow bath of neon in the street I step to the curb, raise my arm, and hail a cab to take me home.

I say ''take me home,'' but where I live isn't a home at all but a ''space.'' That was the way it was described in the full-page ad that ran in one of the weeklies soon after the building was rezoned for residential use from its former function as a textile warehouse: COME AND DEVELOP YOUR OWN WAY OF LIVING IN ONE OF OUR SPACES. Not ''condos'' or ''units,'' not even ''lofts.'' Vacant, off-white, ahistorical, prepersonalized space. I was immediately drawn. Down I went to the block of rust-dirtied brick at the south end of Chinatown and bought a space of my very own the same afternoon.

Up in the freight elevator to the top floor and down the wide industrial hall. It's late, I'm tired, there's plenty of work to do tomorrow before heading up into the barrens. But I'm starving for another line, and as the door swings open I head for my stash nestled among the ceramic nectarines in the fruit bowl without turning on the lights. Spill out a serving and up it goes. Only then do I turn on the lights and think: How few things I have. There's a sofa under the broad window that frames the compact bundle of downtown office towers, a composite portrait of my graduating law-school class, Swedish-designed, buttonless stereo (rarely used, all music having become grating sometime in my late twenties) and one wall of bookshelves containing the textual souvenirs of my education. No art, flowers, rugs, mirrors. Every time I face the opportunity of acquiring such things I ask myself why and, having no answer, move on, unburdened.

There's one photograph, though. Unenlarged, tucked into a dollar-store black plastic frame. There, on the bare coffee table, facing the corner so that an observer must stoop to make out the details: my parents, caught in a balance between posed smile and laughter, arms around each other's waists, standing before a setting sun the color of a Singapore Sling. I keep meaning to put it away, tuck it on a shelf in the closet or maybe just turn it even farther to the wall to lessen the directness of the angle, but then I forget, so that I'm always surprised by their faces shining back at me. A happy couple moving into the middle years of accomplishment without visible hints of regret, baring to the camera the familiar faces of strangers. No strain behind the smile, neither spine stiffened by the other's touch. The sort of picture that comes with the frame when you buy it.

I walk over to the window and open one of the glass panels wide enough to let me stick my head and shoulders through. Below, the street is a river of headlight and brakelight crosscurrents, the air swirling up in warm gushes sharpened by the rotten fish and vegetables piled high in boxes in front of the Chinese markets a couple blocks north. Close my eyes and inhale. It used to make my stomach turn, but now it's almost welcome. A signal in the atmosphere to let you know that you're home, back in your proper space.