Chapter 18 The Stables

Once upon a time there was a strip club on Peoria Avenue in Tulsa. After the club on Bartles Road closed, the Stables was the only establishment of the type worth going to in the general area. I got to know the place pretty well. I had a former lab partner from college who worked for Amoco and came up to the Research Center in Tulsa from Houston on occasion. We would head there for a few beers. One night we walked in and this guy started poking us with a pool cue. It took a minute or two for what he was saying to get through all the noise. It turned out to be another classmate from college back east. He worked for Cities Service. Now talk about the odds of that happening. Me from Bartlesville, Jim from Tulsa, and Steve from Houston all ending up in the same hole in the wall strip club on Peoria. Well, I got to know a stripper named Danyel, a 5'7"+ stunner with a pair of snow cone tits. Very pretty. She was somewhat of a headliner there for a while. There was another gal named Judy, probably Osage or Cherokee. She would wear mukluks on stage and do this whistle routine where she'd bend over and whistle and her pootie would move with the whistling. Cute. Now remember this was in the days when total nudity reigned supreme. No latex on the nipples, no g strings. Three dances and you were down to the bare facts, ma'am. I remember Danyel coming out and doing her first two then dropping the g-string and whoops there was her tampon string. She stepped behind the curtain then deftly tucked everything away then finished her number. I ran into her up on 31st or 21st in some club back about 10 years ago, right after the Stables was forced to close. I was up visiting my kids from Houston and staying at a motel over on 31st. I got in late and went over to see the dancers before picking my kids up the next morning. Danyel remembered me and I remembered her. She used to live over off Peoria near me when I lived at Place One on Riverside Drive. I remember seeing her one Friday night at the club, then running into her at the grocery store Saturday morning. She was pushing her daughter in a shopping cart. We probably both looked pretty rough. But she smiled, stopped and we chatted. This last weekend was my daughter's 16th, so I flew into Tulsa to arrange a surprise party. She was born on St. Paddy's day. I dropped into the club Cloud 9 to kill some time and the bartender looked familiar. So I asked. She had been the bartender at the stables probably 20 years ago or more. She remembered all the girls and we had a nice time chatting and remembering the good old days. Old strippers never die, they just tend bar or keep on dancing. I met two young soon to be old strippers. One with two nifty piercings, the other a 6" 2 beauty that could table dance like nobody's business. Viva la dancers!