Having completed my sophomore year at Baltimore’s wonderful Northwestern High School in 1979, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday a week later. Everything was cool, except for the fact that I didn’t have a girlfriend. A former chubby kid, I had lost a lot of weight since grade school, but still thought of myself as the fat kid that girls liked to talk to, but never wanted to date or French kiss in the movie theater.
Days after the birthday candles were blown out and the chocolate cake devoured, I went to the North Avenue offices of a local youth program that helped the young folks in our community. A few months before I’d applied for a summer job there, which I got. Living on Monroe Street, I reported to work at nine o’clock sharp. There were about twenty African-American teenagers, boys and girls together, assigned to the clean the streets and alleyways.
Breaking off in four groups, everyday we left the office with push brooms and black plastic bags. While we worked, a radio was always playing. That summer the streets were all about Michael Jackson, whose solo joint Off the Wall was going to drop that August. Jackson’s soulful falsetto was the soundtrack of the season. One hot July morning, as we swept up cigarette butts and broken glass from the sidewalk, the radio dj played the Jackson cut “Workin’ Day and Night,” which became our official theme song.
It was during that time that a lanky dude with short-cropped hair named Ronny Johnson became my new best friend. Ronny’s clothes were always color coordinated down to the sneakers. He wore nicely ironed and creased Sunday slacks everyday; I’m not sure if I ever saw him in jeans. Ronny, who was a year or two older, became the big brother I always wanted. Everyday after work we roamed those Charm City blocks, often walking downtown and along the waterfront where the retail plaza Harbor Place was under construction.
One evening, we walked to Federal Hill, where we sat under the stars talking about our future professions. I’d wanted to be a writer since I was eight. At that stage of my adolescence I’d given up on wanting to script horror comics, but had recently written a piece about Led Zeppelin for the student paper. “Perhaps a music critic,” I mumbled. Although Ronny didn’t drive, he loved cars and was attending trade school to become a mechanic.
On yet another early evening, after Ronny and I played the “where we going to go” game for a few minutes, we eventually began walking down North Avenue. We passed KK’s, the best Korean cheese steak spot on the planet, and we caught a whiff of the flavorful grease. The neighborhood was filled with thriving businesses including a record store, a laundry and more than a few bars.
Turning the corner at Pennsylvania Avenue, we passed trash filled vacant lots and crumbling buildings. Ronny schooled me again about the Royal Theater, which was once B-More’s version of The Apollo. “That was the spot back in my mom’s day,” he said excitedly. “Everybody cool and Black played at the Royal. Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Billy Eckstine, Redd Foxx, The Temptations. They tried to get the city to turn it into a landmark, but instead they tore it down.”
Making our way over to Howard Street, we walked by the Greyhound bus station, where I sometimes went to play pinball. The station was a perv paradise, but I ignored them creeps and never used the public bathroom. Across the way was the Mayfair Theater and a strip joint called Bottoms Up. After zigzagging through the downtown streets for over an hour, passing the Marble Bar, Sherman’s newsstand and Sunny’s Surplus, we walked towards the water where ships still docked regularly.
“Hey, brothers,” a young black guy yelled at us. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Ronny and I looked at each other and shrugged. Crossing the street, we stood in front of the stranger. He was a tall, lean dude with muscular arms and a well-trimmed beard. I just knew he was going to try to hustle a few bucks.
“What’s happening, man?” Ronny asked.
“My name is Bradley. I’m a Merchant Marine and, well, we just came into the city tonight. I don’t know anything about Baltimore. I don’t even know where to go.”
“You want us to tell you where to go?” I asked, puzzled.
“No. I want you guys to just show me around, take me to a few bars. I got money, I’ll pay for everything.”
At first, I chuckled, thinking maybe he was joking, but that cat was serious. Ronny looked at him and said, “You want to go to the Block?”
“The Block?” the man repeated. Truthfully, I had no idea what Ronny was talking about either, but I remained quiet.
“Yeah, it’s not too far away. It’s where the strip bars are.” The man smiled and nodded his head.
“Naked ladies?”
“Yeah, man. Naked ladies.” Dude lit a cigarette. He offered us one, but neither of us smoked. We began walking towards the peep shows, strip bars and flashing lights of Baltimore Street. As I would soon find out, The Block was a legendary red light district that had been operating for decades.
“So where you coming from?” I asked. I knew very little about the Merchant Marines beside the fact that my favorite science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany had been one.
“I’ve been all over the world, man. Africa, Italy, Japan. This last trip, we were in Turkey. Got some good weed and hash over there. You guys want to try some?”
“Naw, we’re good,” Ronny answered. Although we both liked puffing cheeba, Ronny had rules about smoking with strangers. As we got closer to the street, I became excited when I saw a giant red sign hanging over a storefront: Baltimore News and Sex Center featuring private video, peep booths and newspapers.
Focusing my eyes on the rest of the neighborhood, both sides of the street was nothing but strip clubs, bum bars and the greasy sausage joint Pollock Johnny’s. The Block was the liveliest street I’d seen since arriving to that “hard city by the sea,” as Nina Simone once sang.
We passed strip clubs with Runyonesque names like the Gayety, the Tic Tac Club, the 2 o’clock Club (home of Blaze Starr a dusty sign in the window read), 408 Club, the Diamond Lounge and Circus Bar. A block away was the police station. In front of each club was a barker attempting to lure customers in with their street poetics.
Cautiously we walked inside one of the bars. The cigarette smoke was so thick my eyes began to water as we made my way across the chipped linoleum floor to a barstool. Ronny sat down on my left side and Bradley was on the right. A gold colored strip of flypaper hung from the low ceiling, covered with insects. Looking around, a blue-collar collective of trash collectors, postal workers and subway tunnel diggers were gathered at the old oak bar talking amongst themselves.
As the Rolling Stones jam “Miss You” blared, the burly men barely paid attention to the skinny white woman dancing on the small stage behind the bar. Swaying in front of the mirrored wall with a sad smile, the stripper slowly shimmered in a sequined dress, long black hair flowing down her back.
The white middle-aged barmaid was an overly made-up floozy who batted fake eyelashes and smiled with nicotine stained teeth. “Three Buds,” Ronny screamed. In those days, the drinking age was eighteen, but the bartenders didn’t give a damn about checking anyone’s ID.
At the end of the bar was a mixed race gaggle of women in various stages of undress. Nursing watered-down drinks and bad attitudes, their faces were hard as steel. In those days, stripping wasn’t a glamour profession, but just another rest-stop on a hard luck highway.
Occasionally one of the dancers strolled out of a curtained-off room followed by a customer. “That’s where you can take one of the girls for some private time,” Ronny said, “if you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Bradley laughed. I, on the other hand, was baffled.
“There is a price for everything and it’s not that much.”
After the pale, skinny dancer left the stage, the MC announced, “Now, prepare yourself for one of our featured dancers. Can we please get a warm welcome for Coba.” With her perfect make-up and retro beehive hairstyle, Coba looked like a honey colored Ronnie Spector as she smoothly slinked onto the stage dressed in a flowing black and red polyester dress and matching heels.
Unlike the other dancer who bumped and grind in a detached and distant style, Coba’s soulful movements to Foxy’s disco anthem “Get Off” revealed an obvious love for rhythm and a passion for her job. Like hibernating bears, a few of the men awakened from their slumber. “Yeah, baby, do that thing,” somebody screamed, as Coba turned her back, rotated her sweet ass and slowly unzipped the dress.
Coba shimmied out of her dress and revealed shapely legs in black fishnet stockings. Her fleshy body was covered in a black and red corset. In front of her, the stage floor was covered with money. Staring at her vibrating hips, the flutter of her fingers and the bounce of her cleavage, I was on fire.
Throughout her passionate performance, Coba occasionally glanced at me as though trying to figure out my story, knowing that I was too young to be down with the blue-collared crew. Stepping off the stage onto the cigarette burnt and scarred bar, she expertly sauntered the length of it without knocking over anyone’s drink. Dancing in front of me, I sat and stared. While everything about her, from eyebrows to her gold painted toes, was neatly trimmed, I couldn’t help but notice the wildness of her pubic hairs sprouting from the top and the sides of panties.
Shoving a fistful of singles into my hand, Ronny said, “Give her a tip.” With light green eyes that reminded me of a cat, Coba seductively stared as I placed each bill into her garter. Although my hand shook nervously, she winked and smiled. Coba ended her set by busting out of the corset and revealing the prettiest crimson tasseled breasts on the planet.
“Looks like you have an admirer,” Bradley teased as the barmaid replaced my empty bottle. “You should go buy her a drink.”
“Get out of here,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my face.
Ronny chuckled. “You’re a knight in shining armor, my man.” Looking over my shoulder, Ronny tipped his chin. “If I were you, I’d get over there before someone steals her away.” Turning around, I saw Coba standing at the end of the bar, counting her tips and chatting with the barmaid. After almost knocking over the bar stool, I slowly walked over.
Wearing the long dress again, she looked up and gestured for me to sit. “Well, if it isn’t my number one fan,” she said as I sat beside her.
“I’m not sure about all that. It seemed like you have a lot of admirers.” From a distance, I thought Coba might be in her late twenties, yet beneath the dusting of her foundation were a few wrinkles; on her forehead was the indented ghost of an old scar.
“Those guys are just bored. They’re here almost every night. You, on the other hand, I’ve never seen.” Tenderly, Coba caressed her smooth hand against the side of my face.
“You buying the lady a cocktail,” yelled the bartender over the roar of some rock song. “That’ll be five dollars.” A minute later, she put down a glass of juice that Coba sipped with a small red straw.
“I really enjoyed you up there. You could be a real dancer.”
“I am a real dancer,” Coba declared pouting with the arrogance of a prima ballerina.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t really mean it like that.”
“I know what you meant. What are you doing here besides hurting my feelings?”
“My friend Ronny, the guy I was sitting next to, he bought us here. The other guy is a Merchant Marine we just met. He needed somebody to show him around the city.”
“So you guys bought him here?” Coba smiled. “Lord Baltimore would be proud.” In all of my seventeen years, I hadn’t seen any naked women who weren’t between the pages of Playboy. The longer I sat in that stool talking with Coba, the deeper my innocent ass fell in love.
***
Over the next few weeks, Ronny and I became regulars at the strip bar. Once, while waiting for Coba to take the stage, I was scared to death when some suit-wearing jerk strolled in the joint and screamed, “This is a raid.” My heart jumped ten feet out of my chest as I imagined my mother refusing to post bail for her perverted son. “Just kidding, just kidding,” the man laughed
When summer ended and classes started, Ronny went to trade school and I started journeying to the Baltimore Street by myself. Most of the guys I knew in school were coupled-up or at least having sex every now a then while I was stuck between my love for Coba and a hard place.
Coba was sweet as brown sugar, and she was the first woman I ever kissed with tongue. Awkward in the beginning, Coba guided me patiently to perfection. One night, I paid her ten-bucks to give me a hicky on my neck, because I wanted my homeboys to think I had a woman in my life.
Whenever I walked through the door of the club, the other dancers teased her. “Your boyfriend is here,” they’d say, laughing. However, if Coba was ever annoyed by my presence, she never let it be known. Sometimes I bought her red roses, sometimes she let my fingers roam, sometimes we sat in the back booths and practiced kissing as rock or soul roared.
Finally, one night I got the balls to ask Coba out on a real date. I was tired of all that strip club stuff and I wanted to see her in the light as flickering candles reflected in her eyes as we sat across from one another at some Charles Street restaurant. Listening to my invitation, Coba smiled.
“How does Sunday sound. Maybe we can go to brunch or something.”
“That sounds good. Here, let me give you my number.” Coba scribbled her digits on a dirty napkin. “Call me before you leave the house. I can’t wait. It’s going to be fun.”
For the next four days, I thought about my upcoming date constantly. In my mind, one minute we were having a romantic afternoon and next, I was putting on the moves like Billy Dee Williams doing the wild thing. Come Sunday, after shining my shoes and getting dressed in a suit, I decided to call Coba.
After dialing the number slowly, the phone finally rang. Yet, instead of Coba’s velvety smoothness, there was the gruff granite hardness of an irate black man. “Hello!” he screamed.
“Can I speak to Coba, please?”
“Who the hell is this?”
“Can I speak to Coba please.
“I said, who the hell are you?”
“This is Michael?”
“Yeah? Well, what do want with my woman, Michael?”
Feeling as though Ali had slugged me in the jaw, I was silent. It had never dawned on me to ask Coba if she had a boyfriend or husband. Telephone dude sounded batty as the logo on a Bacardi bottle. Hell, now that I thought about it, I never even asked what her real name was. Meanwhile, that guy on the phone sounded like someone whose nickname was Monster.
“Sorry,” I said. “I won’t call back.”
“You damn right.”
Cradling the phone, I felt like throwing-up. Sitting on the edge of the bed looking like I was going to prom, I laid back and closed my eyes. Fifteen minutes later, I released a big sigh, but refused to cry. Though I continued to patronize bars on The Block, I never again set foot in the club where Coba worked nor did I ever see her again.
