Showgirls, the novelization

If you write something and no one reads it, it doesn’t exist. So I will be sharing parts of my magnum opus, a novelization of the film Showgirls. [Explicit content warning, obviously.]

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PROLOGUE 

The clicking of boot heels mixed with the whizzing of the cars down the highway created a beat that only a dancer would appreciate. Click, kick! Wiz, turn! Click, thrust! Nomi, just the dancer to appreciate it, stomped through the parking lot of the mini mall to the busy street.  She had to pack light, so she decided she didn’t have room to bring any underwear. She wore her prized possession, her tasseled pleather jacket, and since she didn’t like to waste things, just out on all the makeup she owned and couldn’t bring with her. She carried her one hard shell suitcase and dropped it in front of the sign that said Las Vegas 342 and put out her thumb. In less than a minute, a struck screeched to a halt. 

That was easy, thought Nomi. Thank god for this postfeminism landscape we are living in, where I can use my sexuality as empowerment. She ran up to the side of the car to see the driver. No sickos, she told herself. That was the rule she made when she decided to get out of this shithole. Las Vegas was a sicko town and only she, the dancer, would call the shots. The driver was not move star good looking, but not a total troll, and he did say he was going to Las Vegas. “Hop, in!” he said. 

Nomi hopped in.  

They drove in silence for several hours. Nomi wanted to barf up the dollar taco she ate earlier. Maybe this was a bad idea, she thought. No, Nomi, she thought. This is the only way! She talked to herself in her head a lot.  

“You can sit a little closer if you want,” said driver guy. He had a pompadour haircut. 

Nomi had been waiting for this moment. She pulled the switchblade she had been hiding between her buttcheeks. 

Schwick! She extended to show the guy she had it and she was not afraid to use it. 

“Maybe it was a bad idea,” said car dude. Man, why does this always happen to me? He thought. He often thought to himself. 

“Chill, okay?” shouted Nomi. Chill was what all the cool people said.  

“I’m chilled,” said car dude. But he wasn’t, in fact, very chill. He felt the strain of his pants as he grew hard. He loved feisty women. Just ask my four ex-wives, he thought. “I am sure am glad you are going to be such good company.” What was with all the tenses in that sentence? Chill, he said to his erection.  

Nomi used the knife to stab at the car radio. She turned it to a rock station. “I don’t like Garth Brooks,” she said, seemingly out of now where. The music on the radio was not Garth Brooks. She just assumed it was something people said. 

“Me neither,” said the guy in the car. “I don’t know anyone that likes him,” using only anecdotal evidence in the face of the evidence of a million people who buy his records and pack the stadiums. 

The strip mall taco was wreaking hell on Nomi’s gastro-intestinal track. She grimaced.  

“You gonna keep that thing open all the way to Vegas?,” car guy asked Vegas was Las Vegas, which was where they were going. Las Vegas was where old dreams when to die and new dreams started. Nomi knew something about old dreams. Old dreams and bad dreams.  

Nomi stared ahead, practically unable to move her face because of all her makeup.  

Car guy, whose name was Jeff said, “I’ll pull over and you can get out, okay? I’ve been drivin’ all the way from Kansas. I’m tired and I ain’t in the mood to get myself pig-stuck for doin’ someone a favor.”  

Nomi wondered why he was driving all the way from Kansas to Las Vegas. Maybe Jeff, too, was running away from bad dreams to new ones. Did he have a family in Kansas? Did he have a job? What was his favorite character on Friends? Maybe Jeff had a whole separate life that lead him to this moment. Maybe Nomi should care. Nomi decided it wasn’t worth getting into.  

“okay? I’ll pull on over.” Jeff suddenly jerked the wheel cutting off  semi-truck. The truck driver blasted his horn, unwilling to die for whatever shenanigans these two were playing. Jeff almost had post-ingested partially digested tacos sprayed all over the car. 

Nomi, annoyed at his performative display of male dominance, made a big show of closing the pocketnice and putting it away, back in her buttcheeks. 

“So- you got a name?” asked Jeff. This guy would not rest until he knew all her secrets! 

Nomi said her name. “Nomi.” 

“What kinda name’s that?” teased Jeff, obviously not a world-traveled man. 

“My mom was Italian,” Nomi answered again, without emotion.  

“You got one of those Mafia girls? That why you got your blade?” 

Nomi mentally pondered if she should give Jeff a lesson on cultural stereotypes and appropriation. Instead, she looks at him like she is seeing him for the first time. 

“What you goin’ to Vegas for? You gonna win?” The slots, that is. 

Nomi smiled, inwardly. “I’m gonna dance.” And how. 

“You gonna be one of them real private escort dancers?” 

Nomi gave him that look again. The one she gives when men who pick up women don’t treat them with equal power in society. 

Jeff got it this time. “Okay, Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Jeff said things twice when he felt bad. It started in his childhood when he was recruited into an intergalactic space child army. But that didn’t matter now.  

It was getting dark and the lights of vegas could be seen in the distance. 

II. 

“There she is,” said Jeff as the lights of Vegas appeared ahead. He always thought of Vegas as a she. Because Vegas will take your money and never give it back, just like a woman. 

Speaking of woman, Nomi had sat quietly, staring straight ahead for the last three hours. It was as if she had no emotions. Or couldn’t show emotion.  

“You been here before?” she asked, finally speaking. 

“Sure, I got an uncle,” Jeff said. “He’s one of the hosts at The Riviera.” This was also the same uncle who was a human alien hybrid who trafficked him to the space kid army. “I ain’t never won, though.” Fucking Uncle Doug.

“I’m gonna win,” Nomi said smugly  

“You gamble?” 

“No.” 

“You gotta gamble if you’re gonna win.” 

Nomi looked at Jeff. It was almost like that had a double meaning. 

“You can use some of that Mafia money you got in that suitcase,” he teased.  

“Asshole!” said Nomi, almost smiling. Or was it indigestion? 

“Hell, I can’t deny that!” Jeff said. Jeff was an asshole.  

The tensioned eased between them and the dryness of the desert called to them. Finally, they pulled into the parking lot of the Riviera. They seemed to find a parking spot right in front of it. What were the odds? Nomi reached for her suitcase. 

“Ain’t anyone ever been nice to you?” Jeff asked.  

No, thought Nomi. But there was something about Jeff. He knew pain. She knew pain. That made them similar. She decided to leave the suitcase in he car. She decided to gamble....on Jeff.  

The Riviera was bustling with activity. The lights, the people, the smoke, the money, the intrigue! 

“Wanna play a slot machine?” Jeff asked. Nomi, quite the loquacious speaker, shrugged.  

Jeff gave her a ten-dollar bill. “Here,” he said. He gave it to her. You win, we split up. No holdin’ out on me either.” 

Nomi took the ten-dollar bill.  

“I’m gonna go see my uncle,” said Jeff. He planned on asking him about why the whole childhood interstellar child trafficking stuff. “I’ll meet you right back here.”  

He winks. 

Nomi stared.  

She walked to a slot machine. 

She stared. 

“Can I give you some change?” said a woman. She worked at the Riviera.  

“Sure,” said Nomi. 

The girl gave her change. 

Nomi put one quarter in the slot machine at a time, each one representing a dream. Each time she got nothing.  

Until.... 

Plink! Plink! Plinkplinkplinkplink! 

Several quarters spilled out of the machine.  

“Holy shit!” Nomi muttered. Suddenly Vegas was great. It was like it knew she was coming. In fact, it’s like Las Vegas was another character in the story.  

“Look at you!” another employee of the Riviera said. Not the one from before.  “Want to try silver dollars?” 

“Sure!” said Nomi. Screw the other plan, gambling was a steal! It was so easy! She jangled the coins in her hand, throwing them and catching them, several of them falling out of her hands on the floor. Vegas was a dream come true! 

Except, it wasn’t. Nomi put in her last silver dollar. She even tried ripping off the buttons of her shirt and putting them in the machine. It didn’t work.  

“You lose all your money, honey?” said a gross man. He is literally the embodiment of the patriarchy, thought Nomi. 

Nomi nods, still in disbelief that gambling in Vegas was not a sure thing. 

“You want to make some more, it won’t take us longer than fifteen minutes,” he said.  

Nomi, enraged, turns and starts to walk away. Vegas was just the same as everywhere else.  

“Sooner or later, you’re gonna sell it,” the man called after her. Clearly, he did not read any Andrea Dworkin. 

Nomi was ready to leave. She stomped into the lobby.  

Wait. 

He didn’t. 

Did he? 

He didn’t.  

No! 

Jeff’s truck is gone. Also gone? Her suitcase. Her jacket. Her DREAMS! 

“Shit,” Nomi muttered.  

This made her angry. 

“SHIT!” she yelled. “You FUCK! You fuckin’ asshole!” Although Jeff was not there to hear her. She flung herself onto the next car, leaning against the window. She wished the window was Jeff. She wanted to punch Jeff. She punched the car instead. Finally, Nomi let down her guard. This was the anger that she had been bottling up.  

She punched the car window.  

“What are you doing? That’s my car!” said a voice behind her.  

Nomi punched and flailed, flailed and punched.  

“I said that’s my car!” the voice said again. 

FLAIL! PUNCH! ARGH!  

“STOP IT!” yelled the person, who was a black woman with long braids. Not that her being black mattered. She tried to grab Nomi’s arm but nothing could stop the tsunami of rage flowing out of Nomi. “I want my suitcase!” That suitcase had everything she owned. Everything she loved. 

“Jesus,” Molly says, seeing how much makeup Nomi was wearing. Something was wrong. 

Suddenly, Nomi bent over and wretched, bringing up those tacos. It seemed like forever ago she ate those. It was like a lifetime ago.  

“Oh my god, what’s wrong?” asked Molly.  

Nomi looks at Molly and started to run away. Not because she was black, but because Nomi didn’t need her pity. Blinded by her tears, and all the mascara that had flooded her eyes, she ran into the street. This wasn’t any street. This was the Las Vegas strip. And there were cars... a lot of them.  

A truck barreled right towards her, about to hit her when- 

Molly reached behind her and grabbed her by the leather fringe of her coat, just in time! 

Safe on the sidewalk, Nomi and Molly get a good look into each other’s eyes. Hasn’t anyone ever been nice to you?” jeff’s words echo in her mind. Nomi leans forward to press her forehead to Molly’s. It’s like they are going to kiss, but holy shit, Nomi’s breath smells like puke. She falls into Molly’s arms, crying tears that had been wanting to get out for years. 

Molly, who is black but is maybe a lesbian, brought Nomi to a fast food restaurant. Classic food for a classic beauty, thought Molly. She brought a tray with two drinks and two bowls of fries to the table.  

“What was in your suitcase?” Molly asks. Molly never understood what suitcases were and why people use them.  

“Nothin. Just my stuff. Everything I had.”  

Was it nothing or was it stuff? Thought Molly. This girl was an enigma. 

“Fuck, I just got here!” Nomi grabbed the drink fiercely. She’s got heat, this girl! 

“Welcome to Vegas,” Molly said in her usual dry wit. Nomi didn’t appreciate it.  “Do you know anyone here?” Molly tried.  

Nomi shook her head. 

“Can you call your family?” 

Nomi said, “I don’t have a family,” and pouted her lips to drive the point home.  

“Where are you from?” Jesus christ, this was like pulling teeth.  

“Back east,” mumbled Nomi. 

“Where back East?” 

That was it. Too far. Nomi slammed down the fries, spilling them everywhere.  

“Different places!” Nomi said, irritated at the one person who had tried to help.  

“You can live with me,” Molly said, surprising herself, “if you need a place to crash. It isn’t much...until you get a job.” Wait, maybe I she was a lesbian. 

Nomi looked at her, her lips curling up in a smile with a hint of nuance of personality, “Are you hitting on me?” she asked. 

“No,” said Molly. Nah, not a lesbian. Just gets off on emotionally saving pretty young things.  “You’re not a hooker, are you?” she asked Nomi.  

“No,” said Nomi. That’s a shame, thought Molly. I’d been looking to add a hooker to my circle of friends.

That didn’t matter, though. This was the moment that Molly met her best friend. 

To be continued…