Stories, Thoughts and Snippets
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"You know you're better than this, right?"
"It pays the bills."
"Not just the job Sheila, you're better than this whole life you've gotten yourself into."
"Thanks."
"Seriously. You're a good dancer, but you know as well as I do that you have to be more than just a good dancer to ever be more than a showgirl, and you won't ever make enough as a showgirl to live the way you want to. You're smarter than this whole world you're fighting your way through, you should be running a chain of strip clubs, not working in one, hell, you shouldn't even be in this town, you should be back in New York, if you want to struggle for your art, at the very least you could be living where there is real art to struggle for."
"If I can't make it here, there's no way I'd make it in New York."
"How can you be so smart, and so dumb? There's nothing to be made here. All the stars that play the shows that started somewhere else before Vegas bought them, those stars became stars somewhere else. The only celebrities Vegas produces on its own are magicians and lounge singers, and that isn't who you want to be."
"Where were you when I was 16, huh? You could've saved me a lot of trouble."
"I still can if you'd listen for a change, instead of acting like I'm talking to someone else. First off you've got to stop with these guys, it's bad enough you dance for them, you prostitute yourself, and no one will respect you. That's why you've never had a decent boyfriend, you don't have a place in your life where you can meet some guy who's even halfway decent. Those guys barely come to Vegas at all, let alone places like this, and when they do, they don't even look at girls like you and me as human."
"Why are you still doing it?" I asked her.
"I wouldn't be if I had your head, or your body for that matter. If I had your body I'd get myself out to L.A. and find myself a husband that would keep me in cars and clothes for as long as I chose to keep him. But if I had your head, I don't know, I think I'd run a hotel, maybe down in Baja."
"Joanie, you're smart enough to..."
"Don't you hand me any lines girly, I've tried, and I'm smart enough to learn from my mistakes."
"You could write a motivational book. Call it something like "Stupid Bitch, You're Too Good to Be Stripping."
"You know I'd do that, only you're the only one that'd have cause to buy it, and I don't think you would. Hell, I don't think you'd read it if I gave it to you for free."
"Oh come on, Joanie, you know I'd read it. As long as you gave it to me for free. I'd keep it on the back of my toilet."
"Cunt."
"I love you too, Joanie."
"Get your stupid ass out of here."
"I'm going. I've got to do some grocery shopping before the store closes. See you tomorrow."
"Not if you had any damn sense, you wouldn't."