PORTLAND, OR (2020) “The Cage Dancer”

Cage Dancing wasn't so bad. Short shifts. Excellent pay. You didn't have to take off your clothes.

*

I met Essa on a dating app. We went for a walk on a warm summer afternoon. She was tall, blonde, attractive and of Scandinavian descent.

At first, I thought she was actually from Scandinavia because of her accent. But no, she was born in American. She just had unusual speech patterns. And an unusual name. Which it turned out, was made up.

But I didn’t know that yet. All I knew was she was nice and soft spoken and good company. She’d spent time in Buddhist circles, she had an MFA in poetry, she’d read some interesting books about wave theory.

We had a good time. We walked around a park overlooking downtown Portland. It was hard to get a read on her. But I liked her.

At the end of the date, I tried to kiss her but she turned her head away.

*

*

But we stayed in touch. We went out for tacos once and another time met for coffee. This was over about several months. It was during this time that she mentioned she had been a cage dancer for a time. In a nightclub.

I had to admit to her, that in all my travels, I had never been anywhere that had cage dancers.

She said it wasn’t too bad. You didn’t have to take your clothes off. You just had to dance in the cage. Short shifts. Pay was excellent. You had to be cute and have cool clothes.

I can’t remember where she did this. Europe? Or maybe San Francisco? Also, she mentioned that she was dating a drug dealer during that time.

After that, I didn’t feel so bad that she didn’t want to kiss me. She apparently liked “bad boy” types. Which wasn’t what I was.

*

So then in 2021, we had coffee again, and she told me she had joined a church. She really liked it. She said it was mostly younger people. The pastors were young. And the church band played songs by U2 and Coldplay.

It was a scene. And she had wanted to try another spiritual path and so she’d been going there regularly. She really liked it. I told her it sounded interesting. She offered to take me sometime.

A few weeks later, Essa texted and said her church was having an open house. Did I want to come? I said sure. (I still had a crush on her.)

*

Christian musicians