Men had been entering the Club Tropical. Usually alone. Older men in cheap suits, thin handkerchiefs tucked into breast pockets. Occasionally a pair of young latinos with polished boots and brilliantined hair. The slightly hesitating walk of the newly arrived, the illegal. The hesitation but without looking back.

At least that’s the way I felt when I walked in. It was dark. There was actually a red light in the entrance. A big Samoan bouncer stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs that led up to the dance hall from which music was pounding and lights flashing. It must have been one of the last places in town still using strobe lights. It was like having an acid flashback except this wasn’t a college frat party with boys dressed up in togas made out of bedsheets.

Something like an earthquake made the floor shake, but it was only the big Samoan moving to block the stairway.

“We’re here for jobs,” I heard myself saying. “Heard they were hiring.”

“Ad said we could start tonight,” Lupe added, placing one delicate brown hand on the railing. Her scent enveloped me. It was Arpege. My mother used to wear Arpege. I hadn’t thought of that in years.

“Upstairs. Mr. Olvidado’s office. First one on the left,” the bouncer told us in a surprisingly soft, melodic voice.

Jimmy Olvidado’s office was furnished in cheap blond Swedish modern, the kind that was popular all across America in the late fifties. A long, low table with a turquoise blue ceramic ashtray and lots of cigarette scars stood in front of a couch of beige-and-blue nubby fabric. Jimmy Olvidado was slumped on one end of the couch with his feet up on the table in front of him, a black telephone balanced on his paunchy belly. His head was cocked, pressing the telephone against his shoulder, and he was telling someone off in Spanish. He had a moustache the size of a shower curtain.

He looked at our legs and our tits. If he had ever seen Lupe before, he didn’t show it.

“Good evening, ladies. Nice to have you with us. You going to be starting this evening? Good,” he said before either one of us could speak. “You ever done this before?”

I nodded my head yes. Lupe shook her head no.

“All right, fine. We got a nice place here. No dating the customers. Work as many nights a week as you want. It’s thirty cents a minute; clock in and out. Tips are yours. See Ruth next door. She’ll get you fixed up with your time cards.”