Cherry Bomb

We called her Cherry for a lot of different reasons. The first being that she had badly dyed box red hair. The second being she was a virgin when she first started dancing at Hot Tamales. The third is that she can do that thing with a cherry stem by tying it in a knot with just her tongue and teeth. And fourth, she has the personality of cherry—a combination of sweetness, sourness, and bitterness all rolled into one ball of ugly red. More often than not, this is the kind of cherry that leaves a tart taste in my mouth. 

“Girls! Girls! Girls!” the dim sign hung precariously outside of Hot Tamales flickers near to extinction, beckoning the cheapest of clientele to enter through the musty smoke stained velvet curtain to be entertained. 

The red and pink stage lights gleam through the haze of smoke, a pillar of light shining upon my nearly nude body as I snake around the silver pole at the center of the stage. The bar is almost empty tonight, a few lone customers hunched low over their drinks with narrow eyes that watch me with hungry diligence. But I turn on the show anyway, flipping my long silken hair from down on my knees. I haven’t made much tonight, so I try my hardest to make them happy. Because the happier they are, the longer the lights in my shitty apartment stay on. 

A man has his head bowed before me, lips touching the edge of his red drink as he looks up to worship my figure with burnt out eyeballs. With a five dollar bill pinched between his fingers, he waves his arms up over his head while singing a hymn of dogs. I take the money and stuff it in my g-string. 

“I’m looking for someone,” he says. 

“I think you found her,” I purr, brushing my finger along his prickled jawline.  

He smirks. “I wish. Her name is Cherry. Maybe you know her.” 

“Yeah I do. Hold on, I’ll get her,” I sigh and turn on my stilettos, marching off to the dressing room where the droopy-eyed fake redhead basks in a cloud of cigarette smoke. With her kimono flopped lazily open, her tiny bare breasts flat as pancakes along with the rest of her scrawny body are exposed. 

I fold my arms and try not to look at her. Even a stripper can have some kind of class off stage. 

“Ay, Cherry. Some guy is looking for you.” 

The redhead stubs out her cigarette. “See ya later girls, I gotta go. Muah!” After blowing us a kiss, she wraps herself back up and stuffs her feet in a pair of boots and departs out the back door into the snow. 

The six of us huddle around the tiny window, watching as Cherry kisses a stranger and accepts a roll of bills before slipping into the backseat of his car. 

“Whore,” the girl next to me mutters. 

“Hey, if I don’t see at least three of you out on stage in the next thirty seconds, you can all forget about coming back tomorrow!” the crabby owner shouts through the door. 

Rolling our eyes, we take off our robes and get up on stage. 

A blizzard hits the next evening, but even so, the Friday night crowd is ready for us, shouting praises and throwing money at our feet. 

With a g-string full of bills, I swing from my pole and blow meaningless kisses, the other girls doing the same. 

“Fire me?” A voice shrikes from the front door. “You can’t fire me!” 

It’s Cherry yelling at the boss man. 

“I don’t let prostitutes dance at my club. Get out.” He stalks away behind the bar, grumbling under his breath.

Cherry’s eye burn red, mascara dripping down her freckled cheeks. “Which one of you bitches told on me?” Her hand digs into her purse and withdraws a black handgun, pointing it at us with shaking arms. “Huh?” 

We scream, high and shrill, our naked bodies hitting the deck. 

“Screw you!” And then, pointing the gun up over her head, she shoots. 

There is a ping and sparks fly. With a metallic groan, the aging Hot Tamales sign falls from above the door.

Barely missing her stupid, stupid fake red head, Cherry screams and runs. 

Taking down the red velvet curtains with it, they ignite into a fiery orange, bursting into the flame that quickly engulfs the ceiling. 

The patrons all scramble for the door, running out into the street. We follow, the cold winter lashing our naked flesh. 

Twelve individual breasts clad in sequins, spikes, or nothing at all bounce down the street, bare legs running away from the flaming club in nothing but gold and silver stilettos as the money flies away from our g-strings. 

Something inside explodes, pieces of Hot Tamales raining down around the strippers soaring down the street. We run through the snow and flames, onlookers watching with wide mouths. 

And then something else begins to fall. I stop, turning around. My naked front side is warmed by the toasty flames of Hot Tamales while my naked back and toes are chilled by the snow falling softly from the sky. I stretch out my palms, and catch handfuls of the stuff—glitter. Tons and tons of red glitter. Saved for the Friday night finale, I couldn’t possibly think of a better finale for Cherry and Hot Tamales. 

Crumpled, soggy presidents are crushed underfoot, sopping wet in piles of snowy slush, looking up at me with green eyes and faces, watching me as I stand there in the nude, eyes closed as I let the glitter kiss my cheeks, sizzling as it falls from the sky. They remember a time when I lived below them—the time that I never had enough of them to clothe myself or keep my son fed. When I lived day to day, bowing before them.  When I first stepped into Hot Tamales three years ago before it burst into flame, hoping for the one job I knew I’d be good at. 

And now here I am, standing on their faces while glitter and snow and the ashes of Hot Tamales cling to my flesh as strangers get out of their cars to ogle and bow before all of the exotic goddesses like some bizarre teen wet dream come to life. Well, all of us except for Cherry who has long since escaped her mess. 

After that day—and after we all recovered from the horrible loss of Hot Tamales—We no longer called her just Cherry. Just Cherry the ugly redhead. Just Cherry the virgin turned whore. Just Cherry the girl who could do that thing with cherry stems. And while she left a tart taste in our mouths after she had disappeared, she wasn’t just Cherry the sour, rotten cherry anymore. In the exotic dancer lore of the new Hot Tamales, we called her Cherry Bomb.