Fooling Yourself

sometimes we know true art, and sometimes we don't

I joined the Army on September 7, 1978. My basic and Infantry training were both at the same place: same barracks, same mess hall, and same Drill Sergeants, all at Fort Benning, Georgia. Our training lasted from the day I joined until early December of that year.

I was scheduled to go to airborne school right after Basic/AIT, but airborne school was shut down until after the new year. So, we all spent the month living in the airborne barracks, doing details every day to keep busy. I think I raked pine needles from every square inch of Fort Benning that month.

The whole time we had been in Basic/AIT, we had been on something called "total control." There was very little we could do on our own or without permission. The little time we had that was ours was filled with talking, cleaning weapons, shining boots, or reading and writing letters. There was no music to listen to, except Drill s

Sergeant Parker waking up his 3rd Platoon each morning in the barracks next to ours with "The Ballad of the Green Beret" blaring at max volume.

During this time, we were allowed no news of the outside world. None.

As I said, in early December, we graduated from Infantry school, and those of us scheduled to airborne school changed our address from our barracks in the woods of Fort Benning to what we considered much nicer barracks at Airborne School. Where we had been under a drill sergeant's eye 24/7 for months, we were now allowed to go off post most Friday evenings and Saturdays, provided we didn't have CQ, guard, or other duties. And we did.

Columbus, Georgia, is no different than any other Army town, but it was more so back then.

As soon as you got out of the gate, it was clear that you were in the savanna amidst all manner of predators- and you were a lame gazelle. A friend of mine, Pvt. Vaccaro, had bought a car as soon as he could go off post, and as often as we could, we would go into town together. He knew much more about a lot of things than I did, and he took me places I would never have found on my own.

The place he introduced me to that I wanted to talk about was a strip club. I forget the name—it was a dive—but they did have good-looking dancers. Of course, to a 19-year-old who hasn't seen a woman not clad in OD green for three months, my standards may have been diminished in retrospect.

Anyway, there was a star dancer at this club, and we looked forward to seeing her any night we were there.

She was tall, with Farrah Fawcett hair, and was always "dressed" all in a white negligee, stockings, garters, and heels. To cap off the costume, she had a white tulle cape with feathers or fur (something fluffy) at the hem. She was the capper of the evening, and we all knew her name (though I can't remember it now). The grand finale of her set was to dance to "Fooling Yourself" by Styx.

I can still see her twirling up on that stage, a swirl of white spinning around her, catching the differently colored spotlights in the flowing gauze. The fluffy fringe caused it to billow out, creating eddies in the wafting cigarette smoke that clouded the room.

I don't know how it worked now, but the tulle cape somehow stayed on while almost everything else she was wearing progressively came off as she danced. And then, finally, there was fire. Now, I can't remember anymore if this was a baton or just torches, but she did it every night. Twirling around, tulle billowing, Dennis DeYoung's keyboard solo, and Tommy Shaw's vocals filling the smoky space with sound. It was, to my mind, one of the modern wonders of the world!

One week, I was picked for a detail to man the radios with another private for a week at Ranger School. When I got back, I told Vaccaro I couldn't wait to see her again.

"We can't," he said mournfully.
"Why?" I asked, unbelieving.

It turns out that one evening during the finale, her tulle had, like Icarus, gotten a little too close to the flame.

"She got burned up. No one knows when or if she'll ever be back.."

Ever since then, nudie bars have never held that kind of fascination for me. The bar had been set too high.