The Pull of Gravity Read online

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. As I stepped out of his way, our eyes met. “Aren’t you…? Yeah.” I grinned. “You’re the guy who was with that real beauty last night.”

  He returned my grin, but said nothing.

  “You leave her sleeping back in the room?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Just checked out.”

  I nodded in comprehension. “There’s always the next trip, right?”

  “Right.”

  He headed for the front door.

  “Hey,” I called out just before he exited. “You mind letting me know where you found her?”

  He stopped and looked back, grinning again. “Angie’s,” he told me. “Her name is Crystal.”

  • • •

  I knew exactly where Angie’s was. It wasn’t really a go-go bar. They didn’t officially have those on the island. It was just a bar that happened to be frequented by girls who’d go home with a guy for the right price. If Isabel had indeed returned to the life, it would be the logical place to find her. I had actually paid Angie’s a visit the first night I arrived but Isabel hadn’t been there. It looked like I’d be making another visit.

  By Angeles standards, the place came in on the low end of the scale. Small, unpolished, even dirty. When I walked in, the latest pop-music crap blared from several speakers mounted on the walls. The only other person present was the bartender, a woman who looked to be in her thirties, with hot pink lipstick and her hair in pigtails in an attempt to look younger. To me it only made her look sad. A former dancer, no doubt, forced to move on to other duties.

  I sat on a stool toward the middle of the bar and ordered a San Miguel Light. I didn’t drink that often anymore, but I didn’t want to look out of place.

  “Nice bar,” I said, after she put the bottle in front of me.

  Just like Angeles, there was an insulated beer holder wrapped around the bottom of the bottle and a napkin wrapped around the open top. The idea was to use the napkin to wipe off the lip of the bottle before taking your first drink.

  “Your first time here?” she asked as she began stacking glasses on the back bar.

  “A buddy told me about it. Thought I’d check it out.” I raised my bottle and took a drink.

  “You have lots of fun here. Don’t worry,” she said. “Girls come out soon.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Daisy.”

  “Not a very Filipina name.”

  She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled, then returned to her work.

  “I’m Jay.”

  “Hi, Jay.”

  Letting her work in silence for a bit, I sipped my beer and took in the room. The walls looked as though they hadn’t been painted in years. Whatever the original color was, I had no idea, but now they were an unappealing water-stain brown.

  “Is it always this quiet?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. More people be here soon.”

  True to her prediction, two girls appeared in the doorway at the back of the bar. They looked at me and smiled, but after a second they disappeared the way they’d come.

  I took another drink, finishing off my beer, then put the bottle on the bar. Empties had a very distinctive sound when they knocked against something solid. As I’d hoped, Daisy turned toward me almost immediately.

  “You want another?” she asked.

  “That would be great.”

  She brought me a new bottle.

  “My friend told me about a girl he met here,” I said. “What was her name? Christine, Christa, something like that.”

  “Crystal?” Daisy asked.

  “That could have been it.”

  She smiled. “She’s here. Come out in a little bit.”

  Ten minutes passed, and I was joined at the bar by two Brits who looked paler than I thought humans could get. We exchanged hellos and they started talking to each other about their plans for the evening. A moment later, the girls finally started coming out.

  There were ten of them, all but two dressed in short, Hawaiian-print wrap skirts and red bikini tops. The other two wore white shirts unbuttoned to mid-chest and short black skirts. From experience, I knew these last were the waitresses and the other girls the dancers.

  I picked out Isabel almost immediately. She was a dancer, and by far the best-looking of the bunch. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The two Brits gestured in her direction and whispered to each other.

  I called the bartender over. “Which one is Crystal?” I asked.

  Daisy looked past me until she spotted Isabel. “That’s her,” she said, pointing. “You want me to call her over?”

  “Please.”

  “Crystal,” Daisy called out. Because of the loud music, she had to do it twice before Isabel looked over. When she did, Daisy pointed at me.

  Isabel gave me a quick look, then affixed what I guessed was a working smile on her face and headed over. When she was only a couple of feet way, she hesitated for a split second before continuing toward me. I could feel the two Brits looking in our direction, undoubtedly cursing themselves for not moving more quickly.

  Isabel didn’t stop until her leg rubbed against mine.

  “Hello,” she said. She held her hand out to me, and we shook. “I’m Crystal.”

  Her voice was almost exactly as I remembered it. Soft and kind. But there was also an edge to it now that hadn’t been there when I knew her before, a phoniness. She’d become hardened, and I was just another potential money source, a random guy in a long line of faceless, nameless men who represented nothing more than cash and the passage of time.

  “Hi, Isabel,” I said. “It’s Jay.”

  I could feel her stiffen as I said her real name, then she stepped away from me. Her eyes searched my face, looking for something recognizable.

  “Jay,” she finally said, her voice so low I could barely hear her.

  As she took another step backward, tears began welling in her eyes and she subconsciously raised an arm to cover her bikini top. She tried to say something, but nothing passed her lips. Not quite the greeting I expected.

  “You look good,” I said, keeping my tone light.

  I could see the woman she’d become struggling to reassert herself, the hardened bar girl immune to almost anything. But I knew her before, when she was just Isabel Reyes straight from the provinces. There was no immunity to what I represented. After a moment, she realized this, too. She let out a sudden, violent sob as tears streaked down her cheeks, then she turned and ran for the back door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My memory of when I first met Larry was more his than mine. It was a story he liked to tell when he visited and others were around. It had happened at The Pit Stop, out by the pool.

  Meeting Isabel, though, I remembered with complete clarity.

  It was a Thursday night, Luau night at The Lounge, when all the girls were dressed in Hawaiian-print bikinis, Mai Tais were half off, and between five and seven p.m. we served a free buffet of pork, pineapple and papaya. Mariella was the one who brought Isabel into the bar. She was Isabel’s cousin. Two months later, Mariella left to work at a different bar, but at that time she was still one of ours.

  The Lounge wasn’t the largest bar on Fields Avenue, but it wasn’t the smallest, either. We had a five-foot-wide stage running down the center of the room, bar-style seating on all four sides, and cushioned booths along the right wall. The left side was dominated by the bar itself, manned on any given night by three to five female bartenders. The only male employees visible were Alphonso the busboy and me. It wasn’t men the customers came in to see, after all.

  The owner of The Lounge was an Aussie named Robbie Bainbridge, who only came to the Philippines about four times a year. The day-to-day operations were left to me, Tommy Wesson and Dandy Doug, The Lounge’s three papasans. At least, that was the plan. In reality, I was the de facto bar manager, the other two guys more than happy to leave all the important decision
s to me.

  When Robbie bought the place, he decided to do a complete redesign, and had the interior done up in bright pinks and silvers. “Like lipstick in metal containers,” he’d explained to me. “Sexy.” The booths, the stool tops, and the padded rim around the bar were all covered in pink vinyl, while the stool legs, the poles on the stage, and the trim that ran along the top of the walls were all chrome.

  As was the custom in bars along Fields, there was one other prominent chrome item in the room. A bell one foot in diameter hung from the ceiling in the front corner. The walls of the bar were mostly covered with mirrors, and the names of customers who’d rung the bell were painted on the surface—in our case—in fluorescent pink.

  9/3/06 Harlan “Scooter” Stevens

  9/5/06 The Twig Gang from Melbourne

  9/5/06 John S. for Nelly

  9/6/06 Mark and Susie, last night in Paradise

  On and on the names went, taking up nearly two-thirds of the allotted wall space. For fifteen minutes or so, these bell ringers were the bar’s most popular customers, because to ring it meant you were buying drinks for all the girls. Depending on the bar, the tab could run between 3500 and 5500 pesos, which at the time was about 60 or 70 U.S. dollars. It was a little pricey, but for that moment the ringer was king. The only one who probably felt better was the papasan because the profit margin was huge. That bell ringing was always music to my ears.

  On that particular night, just after Mariella introduced me to Isabel, a guy from Wisconsin got up and gave the bell a whack. As usual, all hell broke loose. The girls stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to their new best friend. Screams of delight, a lot of pointing and excited chatter ensued. Even the music blasting from the state-of-the-art speakers seemed louder.

  I nodded to the bartenders to set up the rounds. At The Lounge we went with watered-down shots of tequila for the girls and a straight shot for the ringer. Once they started pouring, I went over and shook the hand of our next addition to the wall of fame.

  “You’re sure going to make a few friends here tonight,” I told him as I pulled a small pad of paper and a pen out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Write down your name and what you want it to say on the wall.” I smiled and pointed at where the list currently ended. “We’ll get you up in a day or so.”

  “Cool,” he said, grinning.

  He was drunk, of course. Few people on Fields weren’t by nine p.m., men or women. But he seemed sober enough to enjoy the moment, and I felt confident he’d remember it in the morning. I got his shirt size, and had Alphonso go in back and grab him one of our Lounge T-shirts. In the meantime, the girls were collecting their free shots and making their way over to Wisconsin to plant a kiss on his cheek, another one of our little Lounge customs.

  As things started settling down again to a normal level of chaos, I returned to my usual position at the far end of the bar near the back of the room. From there I could keep an eye on everything. I had Wilma, one of the bartenders, get me another San Miguel, and as I was taking my first sip, I noticed Mariella and Isabel standing at the other end of the bar. Isabel scanned the room, eyes wide in what could only be surprise, while Mariella spoke into her ear. Behind them on the bar were two empty shot glasses.

  I had to laugh. Technically, since this was Mariella’s night off, she shouldn’t have been given a drink, and Isabel, someone I didn’t know at that point and therefore not an employee, shouldn’t have even been offered one.

  Few at the bar could say no to Mariella, though. It wasn’t that she was universally liked, rather the sense of entitlement she oozed intimidated the other girls. Her reputation was further boosted by the fact she was one of the lucky ones. She’d set her hooks in a foreigner deeply enough so that he sent her money every month. Not quite the jackpot of a guy who’d marry her and take her back to his country, but a close second. Mariella’s “boyfriend” was an English guy who made it to the Philippines only once a year. She never told me how much she got from him, but the rumor was she received enough to not have to work in the bars anymore. One of the girls said he was even planning on buying Mariella a place of her own.

  He was probably sitting in his office in Manchester or Cheltenham or London or wherever the hell he called home, thinking he’d created a new, better life for Mariella, that he’d freed her from the madness that was the scene in Angeles. Maybe he even thought she was going to college now, or a trade school at least. Anything that would have kept her from having to spread her legs for a living.

  But guys like him just didn’t get it. Once you fell into the life, it was hard to ever get out. It was better than a drug. The booze, the party, the adoration, the cash. So while Mr. England was thinking he’d “saved” Mariella, she was actually out almost every night, trawling for another guy she could add to her collection.

  I don’t mean to say some of the girls couldn’t get out of the life. With the help of their foreign boyfriends, many did. Still, the sad truth was there were many more girls like Mariella there.

  When she noticed I was looking at them, she smiled and motioned with her hands in a way that said, “Can we come over?”

  I nodded, and a moment later they joined me. Mariella introduced her cousin as I took another pull from my beer. There was no need to tell me why she had brought Isabel over. It was for a job. That’s how it always was. Girls who worked in the bars would bring in relatives or girls they knew from back home, then they in turn would eventually bring in other girls. You get the idea.

  I gave Isabel a once-over, and was immediately struck by her innocence. It almost made me tell her to go back to her province and get a shop job. Perhaps if I’d thought she would listen to me, I would have. But I knew the reality was that if I made the suggestion Mariella would have just taken her to another bar, and within a few days Isabel would’ve been working on Fields despite any attempt on my part to “save” her. So I fooled myself into believing that at least if she worked at The Lounge, her innocence wouldn’t get ripped away so violently.

  “What did you say your name was?” I asked.

  “Her name is Isabel,” Mariella said. “She’s my cousin.”

  “You’re looking for a job?”

  “Yes. She is,” Mariella answered.

  “What kind of job? Bartender? Waitress? Door girl? Dancer?”

  “Dancer, I think,” Mariella said. “It’s a good place to start.”

  I looked at Mariella. “Does she talk?”

  Mariella moved a hand to her mouth and let out a little laugh. “Sorry, Papa Jay,” she said, then turned to her cousin. “Tell him what you want to do.”

  Isabel, who had yet to look me in the eyes, glanced up quickly then returned her gaze to the floor. “I would like to be a dancer,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Have you ever danced before?”

  She looked at me again, this time holding my gaze for almost two seconds before shaking her head and looking away.

  “I’ve been working with her,” Mariella jumped in. “Teaching her a few moves. Explaining to her how the job works. “

  “Really?” I said. I put a finger under Isabel’s chin and lifted her face up. “Why don’t you tell me how you think things work here?”

  At first I thought she wasn’t going to say anything, but finally she spoke, her voice stronger than before. “I dance. Like them,” she said, nodding toward the stage where a dozen girls were gyrating with varying degrees of enthusiasm to the music. “If a customer wants to talk to me, I go sit with them.” I removed my finger from under her chin, but she continued to look at me. “If they buy me a drink, I get half the money. If they want to take me out of the bar, they pay bar fine and I get a share of that. If they want to give me a tip, it’s all mine.”

  My eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “So you’re not a cherry girl?” I asked. Cherry girl was a term that meant pretty much what it sounded like—a girl who hadn’t had sex and, the
refore, wouldn’t go all the way with a customer. Occasionally, it also meant a girl who might have had sex but not for pay.

  Isabel’s eyes flicked over at Mariella, then back at me. “No. Not a cherry girl.”

  “Of course not,” Mariella jumped in again. “She know how to boom-boom good.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. I got up quickly and walked around the corner into the men’s room to take a piss. As I was in the middle of things, Mariella walked in.

  “Okay,” she said. “Maybe she is a cherry girl, but her family needs money, di ba? She’ll be good worker. She won’t cause you problems. Come on, Papa Jay, you know she’ll be popular.”

  “Can I finish peeing, please?” I asked.

  “Sure, sure. We wait for you at the bar.”

  Alone again, I zipped up, then washed my hands in the sink. Mariella was right. Isabel would be very popular. I knew that the moment I saw her. There were different levels of beauty on Fields, and Isabel would be right there near the top. Depending on how she adapted, she had the chance of becoming a superstar.

  I wasn’t surprised when I walked back out into the bar and found two guys talking to Mariella and Isabel. I was even less surprised when it appeared both of the guys seemed more interested in Isabel than her cousin. Mariella at first appeared proud of this, but then, when neither of the guys answered one of her questions, she looked confused, then angry. I was the only one who noticed, though. A moment later she was happy, professional Mariella again.

  I watched for a few more seconds, then walked up and told Isabel’s admirers I needed to talk to the girls. The guys seemed annoyed, but once they realized I was the papasan, and I offered them a round on the house, they backed down. I then moved the girls to a quieter portion of the bar.

  “You can’t start until you have your papers,” I said to Isabel.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” Mariella said. “Get everything done.”

  “We’ll start you next week,” I said. “Wednesday okay?”

  Both of the girls nodded.

  “A hundred pesos a day, plus your share of lady drinks and EWRs.”