When only the names change.

Some called her "Doodie" and others "Dods." "Dots" was common but most of us, those that knew her, just shouted "Dorothy" when her breasts came out beneath the colored lights of The Casbah.

She was the only girl there who bothered to dance, who tried to smile. She had a touch of the gymnist in her so she twirled and bent. There were steps of flamenco, high-legged lifted foot stomps and arched back moves with a face stern with false yearning.

That one always got a laugh from the crowd.

The scattered voices in the dark would caw and shout, "Doodie drops!" and Dorothy would bolt onto the brass pole and hold herself erect, her arms strong and her body stiff, levitating two feet from the floor. Her legs would begin to rise into the splits and she would hold that pose, all reference to the ryhthm of the music gone. It was her whole time and space now, we shared in that pause, mirrored across the colored darkness of the club. Once silence hit the crowd Dorothy released her grip on the pole and dropped and with her legs in that floated split and just as she was to hit the ground she would grip the pole once again and come to a complete stop like a televised car crash put on freeze frame before anything bad could happen.

The voices bellowed and barked, deep sounds like sudden fog horns and then "Let's hear it for Dots!" would shout from some obscene voice within the walls and the crowd, the men, would drift off into the restrooms or trace the room for a girl available for a few minutes to bounce topless on his lap in a coffined box while the steady drone of drumbeats erased all reason to talk.

I'd go outside to smoke.

I knew her name because there she would be, not on the street but up in the alley, covered in a heavy pea coat and wool cap, doing a crossword like always. Dorothy. She'd pace the room of men and if there were no buyers for a dance, she'd get out of the club through the side door and wait until her next time on the stage.

"Did you need a cigarette?"

"Need?"

"Want a cigarette."

"No thanks. I'd rather die slowly, the natural way."

"They're not bad for you. Not anymore."

"Who told you that?"

"I heard it on the news."

"You shouldn't trust the voices of people you don't know. Or the ones you do."

Her voice was bigger than her body. A monotone husk. Somewhere, I knew, she could sing.

Dorothy was an attractive girl, perhaps beautiful. I'm not sure. Her body, all the skin and bones of it, was tall and stiff. The frame of a young twentysomething raised somewhere healthy where the sun beat down and the earth grew her meals. She had no trace of city, but no trace of country either. She was collegiate and academic. When you saw her, if you had the chance to, you would see that she tried too hard. It wasn't the same as the other strippers, the ones who tried too hard to be sexy, Dorothy's was another form. She tried to hard to not care.

"Making good money tonight?"

"Do I ever?"

"Tonight could be different."

"Never is."

"Good response in there."

"They laughed. They always do."

"You're consistent."

"I know."

She could smile when she wanted to and it was a wide, brilliant smile; all white horse teeth, perfect in size and shape. Her nose dipped low and ended in a small marble that could touch the deep red of her puffed lips. There was blood of Eastern Europe in that nose and the bright green of Ireland in her eyes. Her face was awkward. Fanned ears and dull brown freckles, a mane of thick brown that shot straight out in twists when cut too short.

Inside the club the men stayed away. After her second turn on the pole only a few dollars rested on the edge of the stage. She walked the floor offering private dances, and no one said "yes." It was in her face and her walk. She was as naked as the other girls but her body didn't strut or stroll, she didn't glide like them, she moved like something more industrial; a crane or an ocean liner carrying cargo.

"Twenty bucks for a dance. Ten bucks for an extra song."

"Nah. Can I take you for tacos? Good place around the corner."

"I don't eat tacos. Too many onions."

"You don't have to have onions on 'em."

"Then it's not a taco is it?"

We walked the streets together, hoping to find a diner that was open late. In San Francisco and climbing its hills that curve through the neighborhoods, you can lose your sense of direction. We headed towards the water and the Golden Gate Bridge. A cover of fog wet our faces and coats, and in the mist the street lights gauzed the world, the trees and storefronts faded away.

"Around this corner, I think there's a pizza place. By the slice."

I've walked with girls before, but Dorothy was different. I bought her dinner and then we walked, mostly in silence with the occasional, "Hold up" or "Let's try this way." The air was crisp and damp and she marched on steady, pea coat buttoned high and her wool cap tugged below her brow. Her cheeks glowed pink and her lips shrunk down in the cold. Water crested at her eyes yet she didn't complain and there were no comments about the weather. Her arms swung at her sides, hands scarecrow long and blotched white and blush. I wanted to take her hand in mine, warm it up and race my heart but that was wrong. She marched on, so I marched along at her side.

"Here."

It was past two in the morning and we were in the empty streets of the wealthy, where only churches and hotels stood. Built deep into a wall length stretch of brick and mortar was a metal service door.

"Go in."

The room was long and narrow with a ceiling of water pipes that twisted and curved overhead in a maze. They were painted black like the ceiling they were rivited into. A wooden bar stretched the distance of the room, a barman stood behind, hundreds of bottles at his ready. From what I could tell we were the only ones there.

"Come on, there's a place in the back."

The floor gradually sloped until we submerged below the city, beneath what must have been a hotel or a hospital.

"What are you drinking?"

My voice came out weak, cracked and hollow from the cold. It was the only sound beyond the hiss and sput of the pipes.

"Hang tight."

The barman brought us two glasses of scotch and took my twenty dollar bill and walked off.

"The man likes to tip himself I guess."

"It's past three in the morning. He can do whatever he wants."

Dorothy took her wool cap off from her head, the burst of hair flattened with rain and sweat. Her blue sneakers had turned black from the slow rain and puddles in the streets. Our first drinks gone, another round was brought. Dorothy was now a being at rest. Her bones loosened beneath the fight of muscle and she sat limp in her chair, at ease in the damp musk and hum of the bar. I didn't need to be there but I stayed and we didn't talk. The light from a desk lamp on the barstand at the side of her chair was sucked up in the black painted walls but what was left of that amber glow hit Dorothy. She unbuttoned her pea coat and it fell around her sides like a blanket. She was nude under her coat, only her green bikini bottoms covered her up. The night's mist and cold soaked into the wool and her skin was pale and damp, the air around us a gentle stink of wet dog.

She sat naked and sprawled, inked in the cold sweat of the walk and drip of alcohol. I can still remember her in that recline, her breasts and the formation of her freckles and moles across her sunken skin. At that moment, no one knew where I was or what I was doing, I was lost and there was closeness between Dorothy and I but also the load of her cold and awkward self. She was in the moment with me, but not having it herself.

The romantic in me thinks she's dead now, killed or overdosed from some unknown drug addiction. The realist in me knows she just left the city, moved on. Found a job elsewhere or returned home, wherever that is. She's gone, but not. All I have are made up, false, memories. I'm some vague hero, wandering to and fro, holding hands and letting go.

Dorothy, I know, I disgusted with our adventures in miniature. They're pointless and didn't get her what she was ultimately after. Money.