Personal Essay

Submitted By GoGoGooManGo
Words: 1811
Pages: 8

Alex 2013-04-28T18:59:00Alex 2013-04-28T18:58:00Alex 2013-04-28T18:59:00Alex 2013-04-28T18:59:00Alex 2013-04-28T18:58:00after drink number four.
Alex 2013-04-28T19:03:00and told us she would dance for us in ten minutes
Alex 2013-04-28T19:03:00Alex 2013-04-28T19:03:00.
Alex 2013-04-28T19:04:00Alex 2013-04-28T19:04:00Music, b
Alex 2013-04-28T19:04:00Alex 2013-04-28T19:05:00Alex 2013-04-28T19:07:00finally a bus showed up,
Alex 2013-04-28T19:07:00Alex Harnisch

Comp Principle #22 – Place emphatic words at the end of a sentence

The Beaten Path
I was in a tiny sex shop in the Pigalle district of Paris when I learned how to be a traveler. It was eleven in the evening, and Boulevard de Clichy was flooded with tourists spilling out of Moulin Rouge. Sheri, our host in Europe, sensed good times to be had elsewhere. She beckoned us down a poorly-lit street with a booming “Come on y'all!”, flats clapping against the paving stones.
Sheri and her husband, Jason, had been pounding drinks in an Australian-owned bar nearby, and the alcohol stirred something ambitious inside of them. This was the strongest point of their marriage – an identical reaction to heavy drinking. Alcohol seemed to beckon them to debauchery, violence and reckless spending as if it were the last days of Rome.
“Jason, motherfucker, slow down!” After drink number four,Pet names were supplanted by curses and grave insults.
The husband, Jason, a beefy, bald gentle ape of a man, slowed his pace to match ours. I clasped my girlfriend's hand, bracing for wherever these two beacons of American culture led us to in the back streets of the Paris red light district. We passed an anonymous brasserie, and the painfully cool Parisian youth occupying the outdoor seating passed judgment on our posture and dress.
“Let's get a stripper, you guys want to get a stripper?” Sheri's suppressed creole accent was beginning to creep in on the edges of her sentences.
She stopped in front of a thin building which presented only a black door and a promise of a live show in blood red lights above. The portly, freckled woman approached the herald of the establishment. She asked how much a dance would be for four people, and the man replied in a thick, eastern European accent that it would cost fifteen euro per person, but complimentary drinks were included. Sheri first inquired into the nature of the complimentary drinks, and stated that a group of our size was entitled to a discount.
“Yis, yis, come in” the man, relented, and ushered us into the place at a price of ten euros per person.
The business was only a large room divided in two, a small bar in the front, and the performance room behind it. The four of us sat in a group booth, and Sheri brought us our drinks, tall glasses of mostly warm vodka with a splash of orange juice.
A petite African woman in baby blue lingerie sashayed past , a genuine smile sporting fabulous white teeth on her face, and told us the dance would tstart in ten minutes. Jason and Sheri took this opportunity to vacate the booth in order to chat up the owners at the bar.
My girlfriend, Brittany, was looking at me with a look of anticipation which I did not expect.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked with nervous excitement.
“I guess” I said, mustering up a giggle. This was my second time drinking, the first time being the night ending with Jason slurping a tequila shot out of my navel. My first lap dance would probably turn out equally unsettling.
Jason and Sheri plopped down on the pleather booth-seats next to Brittany and I, a second round of drinks in hand. The African woman stepped out of a back room with a countenance that suggested she was wholeheartedly grateful for our patronage. Barely audible before, music issued forth in great booms from hidden speakers. Colorful disco lights shone on the matte ebony body of the dancer, morphing to the contours of her form.
As my turn came around, I secretly reached for my girlfriend's