Zoo Girl Was a Go-Go Dancer

Zoo Girl was a go-go dancer. I don’t even know what that means. The “go-go” part, that is. The “Zoo Girl” part… Well, I’m familiar with that, that’s my invention. I understand that, of course I do, because it was me came up with it.

“Go-go dancer” I’m sure is a euphemism for something or other, for having a seventeen year old dancing in your establishment in a capacity that doesn’t get you arrested. That’s what it means. Mark my words.

And Zoo Girl used to work at the (drum roll, please) local zoo, too. And she bottle-fed monkeys in front of Japanese tourists and field-trippin’ school kids in snot-encrusted spirit shirts all day long. Smiling despite the, the general ooziness of the whole scene.

Then she’d go go-go dance at some local night club. For money. As an employee of aforementioned local night club. Whatever that really entails, and I still don’t know, do not have any additional information from the last time I mentioned it. Thanks for asking.

Zoo Girl was a go-go dancer. Was. Zoo Girl’s not go-go dancing no-no more. She’s not even Zoo Girl, technically speaking. Now Zoo Girl’s a skater punk only a skater punk and nothing but a skater punk, and no one really asks how she gets the cash.

But she used to be a go-go dancer. So she’s got that ace in the hole for a future resumé someday. Gold star.

Zoo Girl is a skater punk now, and she’s already at my place when I get home from work in the evenings, camped out in front of my wide screen television with her skater punk friends and the whole scene smells like burnt plastic.

Yeah.

Follow the bouncing ball: Why does your living room smell like burnt plastic, Adri? My living room smells like burnt plastic because there are skater punks smoking crack or meth while I’m at work.

And why are there skater punks smoking crack or meth in your living room while you’re at work? There are skater punks smoking crack or meth in my living room while I am at work because they think I’m cool with it, and because they have nowhere else to go since they have lost their go-go dancing gigs and their profitable and mainstream monkey-feeding jobs at the local zoo.

There are skater punks smoking crack or meth in my living room while I am at work because Zoo Girl lives with me. For the moment. Until further notice. Until she turns eighteen or until she is released into someone else’s custody by the court or else until I go to jail. Whichever one comes first.

Hold onto your hats for that race. Make your bets, ladies and germs. It looks to be headed for a photo finish…

“Your Honor, this is… this is ridiculous. I am the ad litem on this case, and as the ad litem on this case – looking out for the best interests of the minor child – I cannot possibly recommend the court give ME temporary guardianship of said minor child. For starters, I am currently under indictment for DWI, assault, possession of a controlled substance, and tampering with a witness, and that’s no kind of environment for a troubled teen.”

The precedent is not encouraging. The precedent is dis-couraging, even, cos I’ve been appointed temporary guardian by this very court before. Last time, the ward’s name was “Bhoomi” and she’s still living with me though it’s damn near a decade later. Damn near a decade since the minor child’s been a major child.

Call it “Adri’s Home for Wayward Teens.”

Zoo Girl is blonde dreadlocks. Zoo Girl is HR Giger tattoos much too too big to cover with a blouse or hide with a strategically-placed band-aid and she’s holes in the earlobes big enough gauge to stick your cigarette through.

And Zoo Girl and the skater punks, they’ve all taken to calling themselves “anarcho-primitivists” ever since I explained to them what “anarcho-primitivist” means. So she was a go-go dancer, is now an anarcho-primitivist skater punk. Evolution of the species in action, complete with nose rings and crack pipes, donks and ollies.

Jesus loves all the little anarcho-primitivists.

Did I ever tell you about the old woman with the rifle and the wheelchair who lives in my head? Way, way in the back, so far back that I can’t even reach her? Not even when I poke my little pinkie finger up into my nose as far as it’ll go?

I know I tell you a lot of things.

Well, if the old woman with the rifle and with the wheelchair, if she’s my future, then Zoo Girl is my past. And it’s late and we’re sitting out on my roof smoking cigars when she tells me I’m a sellout. Tells me I’m going soft. Tells me if I’m worth a shit, then I’ll start the revolution right here right now and what in the hell are you waiting for, Gramma?

Somewhere, a hardcore sixteen-year old Adri Anna Oopsy with a chip on her shoulder and bagful of disappointment nods in agreement.

Downstairs, Frankie and Charley and Hilda the Goon are fixin’ to leave cos Zoo Girl’s just gonna stay up there all night talking with that redhaired lady anyway and let’s go, Frankie, pocketing half the good silverware and of course my favorite hookah.

Follow the bouncing ball: Did I ever tell you that I’m sorta/kinda dating a cop?

It’s like Billy Burroughs wrote: “I can feel the heat closing in.”

Or maybe… Maybe it’s more like my poet friend Derrick says when he says “You and me, we’re all angels that leak.”