“No Bullshit: Welcome to Hooters in Maple Shade, New Jersey” by Caroline Rothstein

I wrote this in April 2006—after four months of reporting—for a documentary writing class my senior year of college. It’s been sitting on my computer ever since. I felt compelled to pull it out of the archives and share it with the world. As I reread it, I wondered to myself, “Why now?” I think the reason it feels worthy of tossing into the ethers now, 19 years later, is because I wrote it thinking I was writing about the male gaze. But I wonder if—in retrospect—I was getting my sea legs as a journalist, and perhaps, what the piece is really—or also—about, is what it means to have a gaze at all. When I wrote this, I didn’t know that I’d go on three years later to get a master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. I didn’t know I would go on to build a career as a full-time freelance writer, performer, educator, and documentary filmmaker. I think I suspected that was possible, but I of course didn’t know for sure. What I do know now, 19 years later, is that I continue to question what it means to have a gaze, a lens. What it means to pretend to be unbiased in an inherently biased world. What it means to try to cultivate nuance when binaries and polarizations get clicks and render likes. Perhaps it was my foray into Hooters in Maple Shade, New Jersey, in 2006 where I actually began to get my sea legs not as a journalist or reporter or writer, not even as a feminist, but as a nuanced human, trying desperately to learn how conversation and language and storytelling and—more importantly than anything—connection, might help us to cease circumventing our shared truths.

I think, in a moment ensconced in authoritarianism, nuance might ultimately help save us all.

*      *      *

Mike and Jason sit at the Hooters bar: 33 years old; best friends since childhood; used to be next door neighbors in South Hampton, New Jersey. Now, Jason lives across the street from the Maple Shade Hooters in an apartment. His girlfriend doesn’t dig that he frequents this place. Mike calls Jason a “pimp”: he knows all the waitresses and they flock to him. He’s a charmer. They call him “J.” He wears a maroon warm-up suit, silver chain bracelet, and an earring in his left ear.

Jason knows the lay of the land. He’s been coming here for six months. He says that the women are all smart. “They’re good-looking women that take advantage of their good-looking tools so that they can make more money than they would at TGIFriday’s.”

He says that smart guys sit at the bar while the assholes—the stereotypes—sit at tables.

The girls always notify him when some guy slaps their ass, or tells them they have nice tits. Jason warns the guys to knock it off. He doesn’t think they should treat women like that. He says these girls are smart, have day jobs, and some have kids; they don’t have a choice in working here; they’re paying their ways through school.

Brittany—a nursing major—is behind the bar tonight. She points to Jason and Mike’s receipt and says “it’s ridiculous.” They’ve gone through lunch, happy hour, and dinner. She says that some of the same guys come around a lot, so it’s just like a family. She and Jason talk about how uncomfortable the uniforms are. Brittany stretches her tank top collar saying that it isn’t even flattering. “It’s not fun wearing this all day: orange panties suctioning your butt.”

Mike is a professional talker. His fiancé of eight years kicked him out two weeks after Christmas. He’s here with his best friend to forget about it all—guzzle it down the esophagus and feel at home (since noon). Mike and his ex have a six-year-old daughter. The ex has a thirteen-year-old son—whom Mike called his stepson. Everything was in her name. He says he can’t decide if he should take a gun to his head or find someone else to start dating.

I tell Mike and Jason that I’m writing a documentary about this place. Mike explains—as the back of his hand wipes beer drops from his bushy beard—that he was in the Marines. He calls himself a “really, really fucking smart guy.” He says a young person who wants to be a journalist can change world ideologies. One good report and he tells me I could get the world thinking. Then he asks me, “What’s that thing in the papers these days about…it’s with an “I” and it’s against Darwinism?”

Before I can breathe to answer he shouts, “Intellectual Design! I’m all for Darwin. But this Intellectual Design shit…Intellectual Design versus Darwinism: this is what some journalist exposed, and now he’s got everyone talking about it.”

Smart guys sit at the bar. They come here to hang out and drink beer. They say the girls are smart. They aren’t just tits and ass. They say that if you want to find big tits and ass, go to Hollywood or Miami because that’s what those cities are built on.

Jason looks at me, “You can’t come in here thinking this is a sexist place. These women don’t even have Double D’s. Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful. But they’re smart. First guys were coming in here. Then dudes start bringing their families. Then dudes start bringing their girlfriends. Couples. This is becoming a family restaurant. You can’t come in here thinking this place is sexist. I mean, there are the assholes, but they sit at the tables.”

“We’re the jackpot,” says Mike.

*      *      *

The slogan: Delightfully Tacky, Yet Unrefined. It’s written in neon orange bubble font on the backs of the girls’ white tank tops and the guys’ black T-Shirts. The area where the tables are is in an L shape—but the entire Olympic pool-sized restaurant makes a full quadrangle with the open kitchen that runs alongside the bar. The countertop of the bar has five openings created by five block pillars spread evenly to the ceiling. Everything’s wood—a light lacquered wood. And there are Christmas lights everywhere. And beer posters, TV’s in all shapes and sizes, and Philly sports team gear line the wall in a massive male fantasy collage. It’s a Las Vegas log cabin.

*      *      *

Random Tuesday. At 4:10 p.m. the parking lot preps for the upcoming shift change. Car by car, Toyotas and Fords and Hondas slide into park. Girl by girl, perfectly straightened hair and monotone looks emerge from drivers’ sides. Bag by bag, hoodies, sweatpants, and blue jeans enter the employee door. There are two daily shifts with hourly plans: 10 a.m. set up, open at 11, “cuts” leave at 2 p.m., turnover at 4:45, shift change at 5, close at 12:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, and 11:30 p.m. on Sunday.

It’s totally empty inside this afternoon: 50s and 60s music pumping the air waves—the sounds of America.

“In the summer, in the city.”

Some of the wooden tables are high with high stools; some lower tables with lower stools; some regular tables with regular chairs. Through the windows resides the Nile River of commercialism offset by tributaries of residential middle class suburban America: Exxon, BP, Shell, Days Inn, Wal-Mart, Speed Limit 50 MPH, Dunkin Donuts, People’s Pizza—an Italian Tradition since 1974, Toyota, Olive Garden, this way to the New Jersey Turnpike, Chrysler, Infiniti, Papa John’s, Hooters Wings Shrimp Burgers.

Inside, it’s an empty prom night with a sizzling jukebox.

“I don’t know what it is that makes me love you so, I only know I never wanna let you go…I only wanna be with you.”

A few customers talk: their lips hug cigarettes, and their tongues flirt with lightly foamed beer. The girls up for shift change sit at a high stooled table in a closed off section (the section that gets “cut” first from which “cuts” can leave early), with a male manager.

“My shift’s over,” one server tells me. “This is Steph, so if you need anything it’ll be transferred over to her.” It’s 5:08 p.m. and customers are starting to pour in. It’s the high school cafeteria of the South Jersey highway—the adult hangout.

“Let’s go surfin’ now everybody surfin’ now, come on a safari with me.”

Steph is incredibly friendly, yet she says, “I’m not your girl next door. They hire the all-American cheerleader. I got kicked out of cheerleading ‘cause I wasn’t peppy enough.”

At twenty, she’s studying to be a real estate agent. Brittany comes over to join Steph lingering beside my stool. Brittany remembers me, so she tells Steph, “She’s writing a story about us.”

They’ve both been working here for two years. Steph says that she “can’t get out. I mean, I bitch sometimes, but I have the girls and my regulars.” Still, they explain that there is a high turnover rate, “so many new girls,” “one girl fired every week.”

“I swear my IQ dropped 20 points when I walked in here,” jokes Steph.

“It’s the grease,” chuckles Brittany.

“And the bad music.”

“It sucks the brains out of you.”

“It’s the atmosphere.”

“If I wrote a book about this place, I’d call it ‘Life in Lycra’—I’m good with titles. You do the writing,” Brittany says turning to Steph. Steph’s friend did in fact suggest she write a book about the place, without using the name Hooters, and “just talk about how spandex sucks the life out of you.”

I ask Brittany about the guys from the other night—Jason and Mike.

“Those guys were wasted!” she tells me, “And then they started talking about politics. Ugh. Why can’t they talk about the weather or traffic?”

She walks back to her section. Steph, with short straightened brownish red hair, grabs a stool and starts in on her story. She really hoped to go to vet school at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s a family girl and avoided programs in Iowa and Boston to stay close to home. She worked her butt off at Delaware Valley College only to be rejected by Penn before even applying. Over the phone admissions told her to not “even try.” She goes to grab another table’s order and comes back with a few new girls.

One just got fired from TGIFridays after four years for not calling in when she couldn’t be there. One just transferred from a corporate store in North Carolina (this one’s a franchise). The other just started as a waitress. They all like that they get to hang out with their customers. Steph and Ma-Shyrra (from North Carolina) say that “the only bad stuff about this place are the managers.” Ma-Shyrra says that back at corporate, if the managers treated the girls the way they do here, they’d get fired—“you must have respect for your girls.”

As for customers’ respect, they say that sexual harassment is worse in the business world then it is inside the walls of Hooters. Customers get kicked out of the restaurant for harassment, but in the business world guys get away with it. Suddenly, they’re deep into conversation about probabilities and universals, about how it’s not the environment you’re in but rather the likelihood of the type of people you’ll meet. There are just as many assholes at Hooters as there are outside, they say; and there are just as many “sluts” at Hooters as there are outside, they say; the probability never changes, they say.

Then they’re on to tipping and money. Sundays make no money. Football season isn’t so great because people stay for hours but leave “shit” tips. Holiday season is slow because people spend their money on gifts, not wings and beer. Regulars start out tipping well, but then they think that they’re your friends and stop. They say the outside perceptions are just a bunch of myths.

“I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set on you. But it’s gonna take money…a whole lot of spending…it’s gonna take time…a whole lot of patience.”

Just a bunch of us girls chatting about a bunch of myths.

*      *      *

There is a huge fold out plastic gray table perpendicular to the doorway; stacks of greasy, famous wings in Styrofoam square boxes; a few teenage girls in hooded sweatshirts; some parents. There are three waitresses in T-Shirts and jeans forking out change and Styrofoam for the in and out doorway crowd. A costume change from Lycra and tank tops. It’s take out day: take out and touch downs.

“It’s so slow today. It’s all wings. That’s where all the money comes from.” Ma-Shyrra says she’s freezing and getting shitty tips. “They come at three and just sit here all night. And they’re so demanding. You’ll go over to ask if they want more beer. They’ll have like this much left”— makes nickel size air structure with her fingers—“and say that don’t want any more. Then you’ll come back and they’ll demand more wings and ask you where their beer is. But the tips are better here.”

Ma–Shyrra moved up to New Jersey a few weeks ago. She’s a “military brat,” twenty-two, and just out of college. Her Sergeant mom is in New Jersey now—probably moving to Korea soon. Ma-Shyrra spent high school and college in North Carolina and she’s been with the Hooters corporation for two and half years. She says Hooters down South is an ole boys club where customers don’t want a Black waitress. They see her coming to their table and they get this real pissed off look like: shit. But that doesn’t happen here in Maple Shade, New Jersey, where she can just sit down and hang out with the customers like all the other girls. “The tips are better here.” She wants to make some friendships. She hasn’t had to make new friends in a long time.

She’s waiting on seven guys who sit on high stools at a table shaped like New Jersey. A silent kid hunches under his black hoody preying on the scene. He’s learning from the six elders with whom he shares wooden Jersey. He orders medium wings and the big boys call him a wuss. The big boys are a few bald dudes, some buzz cuts, and a few pairs of tapered jeans. Two of the big boys must be brothers because they look alike and both have the half-sit-on-bar-stool-torque-over-with-pelvis shift down to a science. But the one on the left towards the silent kid is the leader: beige collared shirt, brown woven belt, discrete balding on the upper peak of the back of the head, goatee, and the jock stance. He’s got the pelvic shift and the jock stance.

“They want the Steelers to win, ‘cause I guess it’s closer,” Ma-Shyrra says in passing.

The sound of the full throttle kick off show begins. “Oh say can you see?” The stench of mild, medium, and hot chicken wings. The sight of men in tights on the TV screen. Women in orange panties right here live. The taste of pitchers and pints. The jock stance! The touch of glory. “…and the home of the brave.”

Debacle: the middle TV’s delayed ten seconds. On the wall in front of wooden New Jersey hang three TVs like Goldie Locks channel surfing. The little one on the left and the big, big father of all things Best Buy on the right—they’re fine. But the middle one—supposed to be just right—is delayed. It’s tweaked. It’s messing up the order.

I’m on my first unsweetened Iced Tea. My waitress Shannon has long, straight light brownish blondish hair down to the middle of her back. All the girls have to wear their hair down: no pins, no nothing. Shannon’s been with the corporation for five years now. She just moved up here two months ago from Jacksonville, Florida. Her mom teaches at Drexel University, so she can take classes there all expenses paid. She’s working out which major to stick with. She was taking American Sign Language.

She says, “People don’t understand that ASL is a real language. These guys down in Jacksonville kept saying that it wasn’t a real way to communicate. I mean, there are even different dialects and accents of ASL. ASL is one of the top three used languages in the world. English, Spanish, and ASL.” She holds up consecutive fingers.

She says it’s hard to see what goes on within the world of deaf children and hearing parents. “These kids would be five, eight, nine, and their parents refused to learn ASL. They just wanted their kids to be normal. So the parents would force their kids to speak painful nonsense. The kids couldn’t even say ‘I Love You.’ They couldn’t communicate.”

She was going to be an interpreter and maybe even freelance and follow someone around. But she says it’s hard because “you literally know everything about this person. You know their whole personal life.”

One of the guys from what Ma-Shyrra called “that strange table of guys, strangest I’ve ever seen” comes over and asks to have his picture taken with Shannon and Ma-Shyrra. The girls get this all the time and they’re supposed to sell the pictures to the customers for five dollars, but no one ever does.

Jimmy, the manager, waves. Sometimes he rocks an orange hooded sweatshirt with Hooters written across the front in sporty, cursive bright-blue font. Sometimes he wears the manager black polo. Tonight: orange T-Shirt and an apron. He’s cleaning up with a broom and dust collector. He started here eight years ago—1997—as a cook for five bucks an hour. Now he’s the general manager and he knew today would be take outs and touch downs, “happens every year.”

Shannon sits down again returning to ASL. “Yeah, people don’t even understand that it’s a real language. The problem is our society. I wanted to go into journalism, but I hate the media. I just write for myself now.” She says she wrote a speech once for a communications class about being a Hooters waitress. “It’s the perception they have when you tell them that you work here.”

“Yeah, the perception,” Ma-Shyrra chimes in. “You get these looks, ‘Oh, you’re a Hooters girl?’”

“Yeah, the perception. The problem is our society. Our country. America’s so messed up. I can’t even listen to the president without turning off the TV. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. But my teacher loved the paper and it totally changed her perception. They had me send it to corporate.” Shannon really likes this corporation. “They’re so flexible with all of us in school and stuff. They’re so great.”

“Why are people still rollin’ in here?” Ma-Shyrra looks and nods towards four guys with cigarettes strolling to the table behind us. “The Super Bowl started. Go home!”

Scoreless first quarter. Scoreless Super Bowl XL.

Shannon comes back with a cheese quesadilla and a second unsweetened Iced Tea. Ma-Shyrra is starving and stares at my plate. She’s not supposed to eat and toy with customer food. The manager will “kill” her. But Jimmy’s not looking and she’s starving. She picks up the knife and fork, begins to cut a triangle from the top of a wedge, throws down the knife and fork, avoids eye contact with the Jimmy, looks up, looks around, starts to cut again, throws it down, and runs back towards the bar to pick up an order. When she’s on break, she usually just eats fries and grilled cheese. She wondered what the cheese quesadillas were like.

Scoreless first quarter. Super Bowl XL. The TV shouts.

My friend Dave enters, walks over, and takes the stool where Ma-Shyrra and Shannon had alternated sitting. He didn’t want to sit at home with his roommates just like every other night drinking beer and watching TV. He wanted to see this place. He looks to the seven dudes at wooden New Jersey and says, “You don’t want to intrude too much. Tonight’s their night. It’s like a fucking religious holiday.”

Flying pigskin! Second down…inside at 30!

“He’s gonna take off! He’s gonna take off….launch one!” Flying pigskin!

Cataclysm. O! O! O!

Flying pigskin.

Takeout night.

“Touchdown!”

Cataclysm. “He hit that second down!”

Instant replay.

Instant replay. Cataclysm! “O! O! O!” Claps surround sound.

Commercial break. Silence…and the home of the brave.

“Do they ever get cold?” Dave asks. Yeah, Ma-Shyrra’s freezing.

“Part of the allure is that a good looking woman will talk to you,” continues Dave, “At least feign interest. I mean, I don’t even know if most people realize that it’s feign.”

Timeout Pittsburgh.

“54 yards for Josh Brown…and the field goal is no good.”

Everyone cheers.

“7/3 Pittsburgh.”

Halftime.

Mick Jagger in surround sound. “Hey Detroit! Steelers fans. Seattle fans. Everybody good?”

Ma-Shyrra cleans the Hooters hot sauce bottle at a vacant table and restocks the sugar dishes. Quarter blue. Quarter pink. Quarter white. Quarter Hooters wipes. She fishes a Ketchup top out of a glass of water where it soaks.

“I can’t get no satisfaction.”

Ma-Shyrra gets up, abandons the fishing and hits the order screen near the window.

“I can’t get no….I can’t get no…”

Halftime.

Take out and touch downs.

“Hey, hey, hey…I can’t get no, no, no…That’s what I say.”

Third quarter. The beige collared brother’s got the jock stance again. Legs shoulder width apart. Pelvis half on stool. Elbows on the Jersey wooden table. Crossed arms on the Jersey wooden table. Hands out of pocket. Light cigarette. Puff. Left hand in pocket. Sit. Right elbow on chair. Obtuse angle—left hand in pocket. Chin up. Mouth out. Eyes left. Puff.

“A little contact there, didn’ it?” Puff. Waits for buzz cut to respond; buzz cut shakes his head.

“No?” Puff. Stream out. Bite right thumb cuticle. No field goal. 14/3 Pittsburgh. Cigarette out. Hands in pocket. Right hand out of pocket. Puff. Cigarette in ashtray. Left elbow on Jersey wooden table. Left knee bent. Left ankle crossed at right ankle. Jock stance. Puff.

Dave says the place is a big cock tease. “I mean, it’s kind of anticlimactic when you think about it. That’s like the whole point when you think about it by definition.” He says that’s why the regulars always come in. “There’s something safe in anti-climax. It means you’ll never reach something that you can’t re-top. It’s kinda like the Super Bowl.”

“This is gonna be a big, big play!” several voices shout.

The Seahawks run down field.

Eighty-yard run.

“If the players win tonight,” Dave says, “It’s the climax of their career. And then, where will they go?”

“There it is!!!”

TOUCHDOWN SEATTLE.

*      *      *

I ask Ma-Shyrra what her career aspiration was in high school.

“I wanted to be governor,” she says.

“Still?” I ask her.

“Aw, hell no!”

She considered sports management. She had an interview the other day but it didn’t work out. She says it’s “too cold up here to do anything. It’s like, why’d I ever waste my time getting a degree if I can’t do anything about it.” She majored in political science, which makes people start talking to her about politics. But she doesn’t want to deal with that anymore—politics and all. So, she just prays. “I just pray and God will lead the way.”

Natalie comes over and joins Ma-Shyrra. We’re at a low stool table and they sit across from me. They say that restaurant sales are down because of gas prices. They say it’s not the best location on the interstate and all – all stuck between shops and malls. They say that, “Men don’t shop and women don’t come here.”

Natalie said she never came in here until she applied. She had preconceived thoughts walking in, but once inside—it was “a whole different story.” Like with the uniforms, one waitress told me that she wore less when she worked at another restaurant nearby, “They sent me home because my shirt wasn’t short enough. Still, some of the girls here have to wear extra extra small orange shorts. To which Ma-Shyrra says, “Like that’s cute? That’s nasty!”

Apparently, the founders in 1983 wanted the uniforms to look like 1980s jogging suits because one of them had a secretary who wore that running every day. Along with their tank tops and orange shorts they wear shiny tan stockings, white aerobic socks scrunched up, and white sneakers. Then we’re on to hooters. Not the place we’re in, but the actual things we have. They can’t even imagine what it’s like to have big boobs. They wish they had half my chest to add to theirs. They “can’t even imagine!”

Natalie walks away, a few more guys enter the place, and Ma-Shyrra and I change topics. “As I get older,” she says, “I kind of find out what’s important. At some point, I’ll need God to guide my relationships. I’ll get serious with a guy and religion. I’ve tried so long and that just don’t work. My religion’s so weird. I go to church and believe in God.” Ma-Shyrra’s ex-boyfriend was a football player. “He was poor and he’d spend all his scholarship money on clothes. I’d rather date a bench warmer. He’ll spend more time looking and dealing with me,” she says pointing to herself.

Two tables leave. The customers get up and Ma-Shyrra runs over to clean the table tops off and shove the tips into her mini brown apron pocket.

She’s not used to cleaning up. Back at her old store waitresses paid busboys to clean off their tables with bus tubs. “If you were late at my old store, you get the last section and you can’t leave,” she says. “I’ll show up late here and kinda be on time, like ‘Where is everybody?’, ‘cause it’s not a big deal. I’m the first one here. There’s a lot associated with being on time. You make more money. Here, their reason is if you’re late you get a bad section and go home and therefore make no money. It’s just the way they do things. It’s not bad. Just a little different. I like it. I can get away with so much more here than at my old store.” She always crosses her arms into a perfect right-angled rectangle including her shoulders. She has a sharp collar bone. “I like working the floor because it seems like the day goes faster because I can talk to customers. I keep track of money during the day so I know where I’m at.”

I ask her what kind of music she listens to, noticing that the background music of the restaurant has been updated from 50s and 60s to contemporary pop rock.

“Country is still the best when you just broke up with someone, or down south crunk music. When I’m with my beau—slow R & B. I used to only like women country singers, but now I like male too. And I can’t do activist music about domestic violence. It just gets me down.”

She’s perched up against a chest high wooden wall that separates the cut section from the rest of the floor. Her long black hair is layered and straightened. “I have some bad memories with good music and people. Like my ex’s ex, Rosa, used to attack me. So like I can’t stand ‘Rosa Parks’” [by Outkast]. The place is gearing up for shift change. Natalie comes back over to join our chat. I ask them both what they’re doing for the rest of the day after their shift ends.

“I have to go cancel my account at this tanning salon,” says Natalie as she puts on lip gloss. “I hate being white. You have to tan yourself and then you get pale. Lucky you,” she says turning to Ma-Shyrra.

“I have friends that are Black, and tan,” says Ma-Shyrra. “My friends sunbathe. Some cover, some don’t. I’m actually allergic to the sun.”

I ask them if a lot of girls at their store gossip. “Not as bad as I thought,” replies Natalie, “Pretty much everyone gets along. “You’re here to work, that’s it,” says Ma-Shyrra, “I hated that bull crap in high school. But it’s not so bad here. At my old store…girls would. People would talk about the cutest girls. They were jealous, that’s what it was.”

On my way out, Ma-Shyrra runs over to me and writes my first and last name and school down on an old receipt. She says she’ll “friend” me on Facebook—a new-ish intercollegiate internet database of pictures, profiles, and conversations. I have an email in my inbox that night:

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:49:39 -0800

Ma-Shyrra has requested to add you as a friend. Before we can do that, you must confirm that you are in fact friends with Ma-Shyrra.

To confirm this request, go to:
http://upenn.facebook.com/confirminvite.php

Thanks,
The Facebook Team.

Would you like to confirm Ma-Shyrra as your friend?

*      *      *

Tonight in the back left corner rests a stage—a roughly four-by-eight-foot block of wood that stands roughly one foot above the ground. Behind the stage is a big screen TV that at all other times features sporting events. Tonight, it plays the contest live because there is a video camera across from the stage. Tonight, this place is packed. The Superbowl wasn’t even this busy—not even close.

Eight girls are competing, including the new girl Kristen who just started three days ago. She says she is nervous because “it’s one thing to wear a bikini on a beach, but another to be judged and indoors.” Lisa—an off duty waitress at my table—says they “take bets in the back.” She guesses that Kristen, Desiree, and Brittany will make top three in some order. Someone else agrees because “Everyone loves Desiree and she always wins.” I think I have a perfect seat up front until the contest starts. Suddenly, dozens of men slam up against me and around me with cameras and shouts and yells.

The contest is two rounds. In the first round each girl comes up in high heels, a bikini, and a big baggy white T-Shirt which she’ll auction off—literally auction off—of her body. Ma-Shyrra’s first, and I’m getting terrible pictures for her through the heads, necks, and shoulders stuffed around me. The biding starts at $15. She stands there gracefully, and the price doesn’t rise, which is confusing since she’s a contestant in Maxim’s online girl next door modeling contest. She takes off her shirt, there’s some cheering and camera flashing, and she exits—escorted and protected by two of the men that work as cooks and managers. The first round proceeds like this with bids ranging from $30 to $50. Except of course for Desiree—some guy pays $100 (one pointer finger and two hand o’s) for her to take her shirt off.

If anything can foreshadow who will win, it’s the army of cell phones that fist into the air the moment certain girls get on stage. As the select few step up in their heels and bikinis dozens of arms with cell phones shoot up and flashes start triggering everywhere to capture the moment, forever stored in a Motorola photo gallery. It is a violent, but playful, version of lighters hitting the air begging for an encore at a concert.

This really, really cute twenty-three-year-old guy next to me starts chatting. Louis is not my type really—he’s clean cut with a Hurricane Katrina relief T-Shirt, khaki shorts, and a backwards hat. I’m into scruffier types. He says that the older couple nearby is probably taking photos to get down to later. I ask him if he thinks they use the pictures like Viagra, just to make him laugh, since I can’t compete with gorgeous, chiseled bikini bodies. I ask him what he will do with the pictures in his cell phone camera. He tells me they are “conversation starters.” He also tells me you should always tell girls what they want to hear. I nudge him, giggle, and say that’s exactly what’s he’s doing.

By the end of the first round, tonight’s cock tease goes from being a packed standing room only airtight entrapment of testosterone, to being a loose free roaming zone of schmoozing. Until of course, Desiree comes up the second time—new bikini, no shirt (that’s how the second round works). One of the judges moves up against the stage to worship and study her like an ancient Grecian statue in the courtyard of some famous Italian church. His arms spread open, his brown leather jacket wilts from his shoulders, and his head cocks slightly backwards off his neck in wonder and awe of the bikini goddess. A complete riot of “fuck you”s and “get out of the fucking way”s and “what the fuck are you doing”s infiltrates the acoustic atmosphere. He’s ruining the entire group ritual: this isn’t his to own! That’s what the cell phone pictures are for—private worship. This is something communal—and the wooden tables, and wooden bar stools, and bottles of beer, and piles of wings are their pews and prayer books.

Lisa’s predictions are almost too perfect. When the very petite Kristen (age 21, but looks 13) gets up on stage her second time, the crowd goes nuts. She has hot pink, boy cut bathing suit shorts covering a butt that captivates the entire restaurant and leads everybody into a mesmerizing holiday. Lisa looks at me and nods her head towards Kristen with a “see, I told you so” look in her eyes. I respond with a verbal, “She’s a little pistol!” And then wonder if I’ve said too much, sinking back into my stool to observe again. It is nearly impossible to not participate.

When all the girls come on stage for the winners to be announced, Lisa’s predictions are literally perfect. In third place—Brittany, in second place—Desiree, and in first place—the new girl, Kristen. Judging by Desiree’s look, this isn’t what she herself predicted. Another off-duty waitress—Steph—comes over in a coat, clapping and cheering for all of them as everyone pours up to the front to get photos of the eight-girl line-up. As I’m kneeling, taking pictures for Ma-Shyrra, Steph nudges me and says, nodding towards Ma-Shyrra, “She looks miserable.”

“Really?” I say, as if I hadn’t noticed how upset she’d been all evening.

“Yeah, she doesn’t look too happy.” Then all the girls go in the back to clothe themselves.

When Ma-Shyrra comes out, she looks defeated and disappointed, so I ask her if she’s alright. She says she’s just upset about how it went. At her old store, she figured she didn’t place because she was Black. But tonight, she figures it’s because she wouldn’t booty shake.

“I’ve been bamboozled,” she says. “I don’t do that booty shaking stuff. The moment I saw that’s what it was, I didn’t want to do it anymore.” I tell her that sucks. I tell her I’m sorry it happened this way. I tell her she kept her integrity and in the end of the day, that’s what’s most important. She says, “Thank you.” I give her a friend nudge, and say I’ll see her next time. If I wasn’t going home to write about her—I’d have given her a hug.

Louis flirts with me throughout the contest: leans up against me to make physical contact, especially when he didn’t have to; tells me that he “hates Hooters—hates the entire idea of the corporation” and clearly his friends “dragged” him here; and asks me if I am on MySpace so we can keep in touch.

After the contest he and his boys are sitting at their table. As I leave the bathroom, head towards the bar to say bye to a regular (Jason), and then to the door to leave, Louis grabs my arm and stops me. We chat. We flirt some more. We play the “Oh my God, you too?” game. I haven’t done this in a while. I’ve been cooped up at school doing extracurricular activities. I don’t have time for my personal life.

He walks towards the bathroom, we say goodbye, and he touches my arm and says, “Well, I guess I’ll see you around here or something.” His friends call me over and say, “Give him your number!” They rip off a part of their receipt, and have me leave my number.

I haven’t given a guy my number in over a year. And I have never given a guy my number without his asking for it first. And I have never felt confident at a bikini contest—let alone in the presence of so many gorgeous women. I guess it’s just the nature of the place. I witnessed eight other women lose their inhibitions tonight. Being vulnerable can’t be that bad, right?

*      *      *

The parking lot is packed tonight—random Thursday—most likely because it’s Trivia night and there are several birthday parties. I do my usual: put my stuff at a table, order an unsweetened Iced Tea, chicken quesadilla with guacamole, go to the bathroom, and pass the regulars on my way back to base. Jason’s standing at his usual spot—the bar, face mashed up against one of the smaller TV’s hanging over the counter. He gives me a kiss on the cheek and a half hug. I ask him how Mike is and he says, “He’ll be gone for a long time. He got into some trouble and we don’t talk anymore.” Then Jason points to one of the birthday parties: 15 people, only four of whom are men, ranging in ages from what appears to be 13 to 60.

“You notice that?” he asks, “This place is changing. I told you that a while ago. Two four-year-olds just ran to the bathroom. And they’ve increased the girl’s short sizes—they all went up one size.”

As I sit back down, another birthday—co-ed customers—from the back of the restaurant is greeted by a rush of waitresses and the Hooters birthday song. Over the microphone, Christie—out of uniform in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt as Trivia night hostess – asks question number one, “What North American city has the longest subway system?” Question number two, “What’s the most common nickname of US college football teams?”

My friend Elizabeth who’s tagged along reminds me that “people just love trivia.” The place is pretty packed tonight: two large co-ed birthday parties, some couples, a few tables of three guy and one girl combos, and the usual multitudes of all male tables. In glancing around, with Jason’s reminder in sight, I notice a new addition to the ceiling and walls of merchandise: three children’s Hooters shirts. There’s even a new addition to the table: a brochure to purchase a Hooters MasterCard. A MasterCard brochure alongside Hooters Hot Sauce, salt and pepper, paper towels, and a sugar dish. A clutter of stuff complemented by trivia questions.

When Christie gets to question ten—“What number cannot be represented in Roman numeral?”—someone screams out “ZERO!!!”

Christie’s voice jumps out, “Please don’t yell out the answers. Write them on your paper.”

Everyone laughs as the volume briefly heightens a few notches. Everyone laughs and as always ESPN blends into the scene as moving wallpaper; yet, it’s as if nobody comes here to watch sports—just shout out trivia answers and get a year older.

At a lower stool clad table sits a girl in a bright pink shirt. She and her three male companions are young—they look no more than sixteen or seventeen, at least old enough to drive and get themselves to this interstate side establishment. She has a pink purse and would seem completely comfortable being in Hooters except for her constant stares and eye wanders. The chick glare—like the jock stance from Superbowl Sunday. She reeks of the non-waitress self-consciousness. Her dirty blond half-back wavy moussed hair coils with boredom and insecurities. She zips her purse. She plays with her phone. She drops her purse to the floor. She sends a text message. She looks around again, the waitress brings her a coke with two straws, and the guy next to her gives her bunny ears. She’s in on the group conversation and drops her phone to the tabletop. But she keeps up with the chick glare, she sips her drink, she presses her elbows to the table and clasps her hands into a single fist. Her silver watch slides halfway down her left forearm. She chick glares at me—briefly. Either she knows I’ve been watching her, she’s looking for a female comrade, or she wonders what the heck I’m doing here.

Noise from the other end of the restaurant, as a customer shouts, “What’s the question?”

Christie responds on the mic, “If we were listening we’d have heard the question.”

Deep male “oooooo’s” and “aaaahhhh’s.”

One guy at a table shouts, “It’s kinda hard to pay attention—that’s the whole point.”

Suddenly there’s another birthday celebration. Again, a rush of waitresses and the Hooters birthday song. One waitress stands up on a stool next to the table of fifteen and pulls one of the four guys up on an adjacent stool.

“Attention Hooters: This is Randy! Today’s his 17^th Birthday!”

All the girls huddle around—each line sung first by the waitress on the stool and then repeated by the other girls standing and clapping to the beat. They sing to the tune of the United States Marine Corps running cadence:

             It’s your birthday yes it’s true             

             (It’s your birthday yes it’s true)

            Hooters has a song for you

            (Hooters has a song for you)

            The good news is we sing for free

            (The good news is we sing for free)

            The bad news is we sing off key

            (The bad news is we sing off key)

            Sound off

            (Happy)

            Sound off

            (Birthday)

            Bring it on down

            Happy Birthday to you!

The stool waitress jumps down, and they all vanish into the pockets of their customers. Randy steps off the stool stunned and sits back down. The manager comes around and asks each table if “everything’s ok?”

When our waitress Michelle comes back over, she tells us that she’s been working here for about four years. She’ll be twenty-five in September and she nannies in addition to waitressing. Although, she hates this job now. And she says short sizes went up from extra extra small to extra small because “they’re trying to open up the clientele to families and women. More women equals less men. That’ll be good. I’m sick of this. I’m sick of the one-liner comments. From guys like those over there.” She walks to check up on those guys over there—an all male foursome at the next table.

She must have slipped to them that I was writing a report (that’s what they all call it here – my “report”) because the leader of the foursome pack—Chris—turns to me and asks, “What’s your report on?” Before I can give an answer, the red hoody, white T-Shirt, and blue jeans guy answers himself, “Sexism and how men treat women like shit?”

All four laugh.

Another one—Karim—asks, “Is it for women’s studies?”

This one’s wearing an Abercrombie zip up navy sweater, silver chain necklace, and he clearly stood at the mirror perfecting the gel in his hair. The other two are in jeans and a black and gray T-Shirt respectively. But no matter how typical their dress may be, in their stature, their vibe, and their jive, they got the Jersey look.

I ask them if they come here a lot. “I always come…,” Chris orchestrates the others into another symphony of laugher, “…here. I used to date a Hooters girl. I picked her up here when I was seventeen.” He’s 22 now. Just out of college working at a pharmaceutical company. He asks Elizabeth and me where we go to college.

Another class clown response from Chris, “U Penn? Holy shit. You don’t want to interview me. I’m not that smart.” Laughter.

“What’s your SAT score,” he beckons again, “I bet mine was half of yours?”

“Don’t give yourself that much credit,” pipes in black T-Shirt guy.

“Come on,” begs Chris, “Tell me. I’ll get a boner.” Laughter.

Chris points to black T-shirt guy, “His name’s Lev. He’s Jewish. You guys Jewish?” We nod. “Get to know him. He’s Jewish.” Cackles. Smirks. Laughter. Chris asks Elizabeth if she has a boyfriend, they all chug the rest of their beers, and wish me well on my “report.” They walk out. Michelle wipes down their table with cleansing spray and paper towels.

Shannon stops over to chat. “I wouldn’t be here so long if they weren’t so great. The owners are great. I met them back in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s an easy job, no brainer.” She says it’s an easy menu and starts comparing her old job to this one. She says there’s a huge difference because Jacksonville alone has five Hooters and the one she worked on was at a marina, where business is faster and better; local stores like this aren’t so busy.

Shannon is your girl next door. She talks with her elbows resting in the airspace next to her hips with her hands and wrists erect near her shoulders. She articulates with her upper torso and keeps everything from her waist down dead still.

She begins to explain the changes that they’re making here to have this Maple Shade franchise be more like corporate. They’re starting to certify the girls as image consultants to check each other’s make up and hair to perfection and appropriateness. I ask Shannon how she feels about that. She says, “If you’re confident with who you are, it doesn’t matter.”

I ask her what the changes are for.

“They’re getting more families here,” she says. “A five-year-old had his birthday here today. Everyone was clapping.” But she likes that they’re getting stricter, “as strict as corporate,” because strict means “better” and “standards.”

She says that in Florida, there weren’t eye level pictures of the girls in bikinis like there are here. “In Florida there were lots of women and children customers. I cater to women first anyway. We’re all women. We need to stick together. I’d probably have been burning my bras back in the 70s. If we did like men did, we’d be a lot further in this world.”

A guy with a camera phone gets in a waitress’ face near the door-side register. She pleads with him, “Will you stop taking my picture?” He snaps, “I only took one.” There is a bottle opener attached to the edge of the bar with a garbage can shoveled underneath to capture the caps. It must look like a myriad of cock teases in there. Every beer that sacrificed its cap, popped off by every waitress that sacrificed her looks, brought to every customer that sacrificed their vulnerability to be blatantly honest in their animalistic instincts for tits and ass; or bold love for damn good wings; or cheap dinner for their five-year-old’s birthday; or need, craving, hunger to watch the game…face smacked up against the screen on the TV hanging above the bar.

I bring Elizabeth over to meet Jason before we head back to West Philadelphia. Jason’s a big teddy bear: charming face, brown haired buzz cut, subtle goatee, Jersey look. He tells us about his job as a dispatcher and deliverer for the online purchasing branch of a moving company. He likes his job because it isn’t boring, “Like tomorrow, I have no idea where I’ll be going when I get up. But these guys that work back there in the kitchen and the managers, their job is boring. They think they’ll be working with sexy women—that’s what’s in the job description—but its not. They deal with all this drama…girl stuff. Girls wake up and their make-up’s off, they break-up with their boyfriends, they have to pick their kids up, or they’re on their flow.”

He says that even when the girls get hit on or harassed, they can bounce back, so the real drama is the stuff they already come into work with. “Girls on the floor, guys at the grill. It’s segregated. It’s not good. For the girls, it’s a contest. That’s where the money is, on the floor.”

He reminds me, again, that this place is changing. “Dirty old guys used to be in here on a night like this. Bikes lined up outside. Guys hootin’ and hollerin’…but they’re turning it into a family place. It’s weird…four-year-olds running around.”

*      *      *

The massive silver vent that hangs over the kitchen stove is a jig-saw puzzle of bumper stickers. It’s a Hooters tradition. Customers, waitresses, cooks, managers all bring in bumper stickers to paint the collective canvas. Segments of the roughly 250 piece tapestry tout: I break for Hooters; United We Stand, Fear the government that fears you; If you’re this close, introduce yourself; I ♥ Roadhead; It’s a man’s world, no wonder it’s such a mess; Caution: Blonde Thinking; the Grateful Dead logo; It’s not my PMS that’s bothering me, it’s you; This is my brain on sex, any questions?; Y-100 FM; Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place; Sexual harassment will not be tolerated, however it will be graded.

Clear, plastic pitchers hang from a wooden rack above the bar register like mistletoe. It’s a garden of empty moments, waiting to be filled with drunken memories. A little guy makes chicken wings at the wing counter island between the stove and the bar, which his flour tormented shirt indicates he’s been at all night. A customer asks the waitress (Christie) behind the bar, “Could you put mayo on that, Mommy?” A stocky cook slides a garbage can across the kitchen floor. Little man with his backwards Yankee hat keeps starring at Christie. He alternates looks between her and the rest of the kitchen—his chicken wing making skills inherent and second nature. He grabs bags of chicken from a cooler underneath the wing island counter, shakes the chicken into a bucket of water, tosses the wet chicken into a big plastic bowl of flour, twists the chicken around in the flour with his latex clad right hand, dumps the chicken into a drawer, twitches the chicken around a strainer, and abandons the chicken into a fry basket as it drowns into oil. The fried wings will emerge from the oil, fall into a bowl of sauce (mild, medium, or hot), sprinkle into a bowl, and fly to a table.

A cook making salads at the other end of the kitchen top spins a plate across the counter. He places some lettuce onto the white plastic plate (white plastic for salads, brown wooden-looking plastic plates and bowls for everything else). He’s got a backwards hat too—all four of the cooks back there tonight do. The open kitchen is their playground; like the waitresses, they’re on display, just anonymously without name tags. They’re always dancing, pushing each other, spinning bowls, tossing plates, shooting latex gloves at each other, and joking around. Salad cook humps the air with his arms erect.

Christie drizzles salt along the kitchen floor “so like you don’t slip when the floor is wet.” One cook wipes down the silver frying area, the cabinet doors resting under the stove, the stove itself, and it’s 9:45 p.m. on a Saturday night. No shift change. No closing in sight. But he does a full kitchen rub down cleanse. The stocky cook with his goatee, studded shinny earrings, and olive-green backwards hat walks across the kitchen with a stack of upside-down brown-tinted plastic cups. His walk is puffy, slow, and sluggish. Another cook shouts, “In uno momento,” while salad cook squats below the food prep counter and starts pulling celery out of a massive plastic container of water and into a smaller cylinder type thing ¼ the size. He’s picking weeds in a garden. He rolls the grandiose sized thing into the back, returns, and replaces the vacant spot with the smaller cylinder. It’s 9:55 p.m. on a Saturday night, and they’re prepping for the end of a long day.

*      *      *

The interview appointment I’d made with Jimmy, the manager, is set for 2:00 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. I drive the extra 1.5 miles past Hooters on Route 38 E. to a U-Turn/left turn loop at the Moorestown Shopping mall and drive the 1.5 miles back to Hooters on Route 38 W. headed back towards Philly. Brittany’s leaning up against the bar reading Hooters magazine, Lisa’s behind the bar register, and Jimmy’s cooking alone in the kitchen.

Jimmy waves and asks, “Do you mind if I cook while we chat?” I think, like go back there behind the kitchen with you? “Come on back here,” he continues and Lisa and Brittany smile, because this is pretty cool. “What do you want to know?” he asks, leaning his latex clad hands on the silver prepping island counter in the middle of the kitchen. He puts some chicken on the grill, makes a Caesar salad, and jerks the chicken wings and fries in the frying baskets.

The Maple Shade Hooters opened in 1994 with an attached banquet hall. Jimmy says, “In the first year, we made $110,000 a week. Now we make $30,000. It went down. It was the initial excitement, so we needed room to have combined sales.” They turned the banquet hall into Slates, as a local sports bar with a liquor license. “We help each other out.” Jimmy started as a cook eight years ago and worked his way up, as he’s been the general manager for two years now. He says that the pyramid from the bottom up is cook, kitchen manager, manager in training, second assistant manager, first assistant manager, manager, assistant general manager, and general manger. Of course, women can take on this path too – but like Lisa once said, “I could make more money waitressing,” so she left her stint as manager and went back to waitressing.

Jimmy—who went to school for advertising—goes on to explain that he never had a job that he liked before working here. “At first there are tons of girls and it’s 7 to 8 bucks an hour versus bagging groceries. It’s fun to cook. I could learn stuff. It was an accomplishment. Bagging groceries—there’s no accomplishment.” Now he’s in charge of a restaurant and it can be stressful— “All the blame’s on you, whatever messes up, it’s your fault. And now there’s nothing else for me to learn except how to make more money. You can only learn how to cook chicken wings so many times.” So he’s working on making more money both for the business and himself. He’s trying to make some changes to get more families in here.

“I’m gonna make my money off of the family that comes in for a $35 meal. The girls make their money off of the guy that tips them.”

Onto a serving tray and respective plates, he tosses some curly fries, gently delivers the meat and cheese of a cheesesteak into its breaded roll, lays down celery sticks with a container of ranch dressing, and maneuvers some wings out of the sauce bowl.

“I’m saving money by not having cooks right now. Make money by saving money,” he says as Lisa takes the tray out onto the floor. Some other orders are up. Orders are clasped into a massive binder paper clip on a thick cable wire from three different locations: above the door-side register, above the bar-side register, and above the bottle opener that hits up the edge of the bar counter. Then the order slips—secured tightly in their clasp—are flung across the wire to land in the center of kitchen information hanging above the cooks in the middle of the kitchen. Jimmy unhooks another order and starts on some more chicken.

This Hooters is one of “11 or 12 franchises” which means they are free to do what they want until corporate comes in, finds out, and says stop. Jimmy explains that Hooters was started in 1983 by six guys in Florida and is now run out of Atlanta. The corporate ones according to Shannon and Ma-Shyrra’s previous experiences are a lot different than this one. At this one, “It’s mostly locals and regulars” from South Jersey that come in here. But Jimmy “wants families in here. If I seclude myself to 50-year-old men, I’ll never make any money. I don’t need drunk guys wandering around the restaurant bothering people.”

I tell Jimmy that a lot of the girls say it’s annoying when people roll their eyes in shock upon hearing they work at Hooters. I ask him what it’s like for him, as a guy. He says, “It’s my least favorite conversation. ‘You work at Hooters? You’re the luckiest guy in the world.’ They think I get with girls and stuff. So I respond, ‘Well, what do you do?’ I tell them I’m working with thirty-five different women. It’s not the greatest job in the world. It’s hard work. I say, you’re just thinking these women are really happy but you’re the one they’re bitchin’ to me about. You know,” he looks at me and nods, “You’re a woman, you know what they go through. Sometimes it’d be nice to work with a bunch of guys and have guy talk, but all in all I like my job. We’re more like friends, not bosses and stuff. I never say someone works for me, always with me. It’s a lot different then other restaurants, it’s easier. I just enforce the rules, role with the punches. I can’t be a dick, ‘cause then no one would ever want to work here. Take the good with the bad. No one’s making a career out of waitressing.”

*      *      *

Ma-Shyrra and I played “Facebook message tag” for a while until one day I got a message that said: no more Facebook for me. And her link was just gone. I’d missed seeing her the last few times I’d been around. One week she took off work. One week I was out of town. One week she was working all morning shifts, when I had class. But she told me, “YOU GOTTA COME see me before the project is over.” She even gave me her phone number and invited me out with “a bunch of the girls.” I’ll always remember what she told me the day I met her: there’s a high turnover rate with new girls fired and hired every week. I worry that maybe something went wrong. Maybe the discrepancy between her “old store” and “new store” was just too much, too complicated, and too jarring coupled with moving and planning out her future. But I remind myself that she knows this store, this job, this company. And she’s resourceful. And just like other friends who have come and gone my life, her signing off of Facebook is hopefully not symbolic of her whereabouts.

*      *      *

One Saturday night I check out Slates to investigate Jimmy’s comments. The lack of lighting in Slates make the Maple Shade Hooters look like a Six Flags Great America holiday. The ambiance of Slates—the sports bar that attaches to Hooters via a closed wall and an open door threshold—is dark, and almost claustrophobic compared to its neighbor. The bar houses a candy store of hard liquor. The bar—a fat L shape. The wide outstretched base hosts three pool tables. The shaft houses the bar, another pool table, and several high stool clad tables in several shapes and sizes. Near the gate to Hooters, three video game machines are packed up against the wall behind the bouncer. Next to that, resides what looks like a living room: three different sized TVs side by side on the wall, a couch, a dart board, and a beer pong table. It looks like an adult frat party—an adult frat party next to the high school cafeteria of the Jersey highway. And the feel in Slates is at that cusp of a frat party when all the frat brothers, all the regulars, and all their girlfriends are there—waiting for everyone else to show up and pack it up into a full blown rager.

The regulars stand at the serving area chatting to the bartender—just like the regulars at Hooters, just like the regulars at any sports bar, just like the regulars anywhere, ‘cause they’re the ones in the know. The bouncer circulates the entire place like a chaperone on a racetrack. Lap after lap he looks over shoulders and chatter and beer. His name is Scott and he’s been working here for two months. He was hired to chill out the party because the insertion of beer pong brewed things up a bit. People were mouthing off, starting fights, and drunkenly fraternizing. His presence “sets order and customer safety. It works.” He keeps calling it a “hometown bar.” It’s a hometown bar with “lots of regulars” and “maybe three groups a night from Hooters. They watch a fight or somethin’ and come over.” I exit back through the threshold, the tunnel to Hooters. The vacation was nice, but I wanted to head back home.

*      *      *

Steph needs 2,000 bucks to pay for her real estate certification. Her new car is falling apart so she needs to pay for fixings. When I saw her at the bikini contest, she was down to working one night a week at Hooters. Now she’s back up to several days again. She’s even working Sunday morning, which she never does. She says Sunday is “a whole new set of girls,” so she’ll see how it goes.

My friend Amy is with me tonight. She, like a lot of my friends, just wanted to check it out and come and hang with me here. Steph is our waitress. She offers us sodas on her, but very appreciative, we pass and just order a slice of chocolate cake, to satisfy our own sweet tooth. She places the order and comes back to chat.

“How you been?” she asks me. She’s shifting back and forth debating about whether or not to sit down. “Aw heck, I’ll pull up a seat.” She grabs a stool from the next table and sits down.

“I thought you’re supposed to sit with us?” I ask.

“It used to be one cheek, one foot,” she says while simultaneously demonstrating where her butt and leg would end up, “One cheek, one foot. Now no seats. We have to stand.” I ask her when that changed.

“When Jimmy decided to be Medusa again,” she says. I ask her if that has anything to do with this place changing—like everyone else says.

She smiles, “Who knows. I mean, it’s called Hooters. This place is called Boobs!!!” She says that when families come in with their kids and ask if they can bring the little ones in, she wants to yell, “I mean, we’re not strippers!” It’s 10:52 p.m. on a Saturday night. Girls are closing out their sections and leaving. It’s emptying out. A guy from an adjacent table tells his buddies, “I have common sense; I just choose not to use it.”

Three teenage boys and what must be one of their mothers walk in and sit at a high stool, large circular table nearby. Their waitress walks over. The guys blush, giggle, and duck their heads into their menus. Literally, one guy looks like he’s wearing a laminated bonnet when the waitress walks away. The mom’s doing the chick glare. The chick glare and the mother neck rub—her hand brushes around the front of her neck and briefly under the collar of her shirt. She’s uncomfortable—but it’s not the starchy shirt collar. Hand along side cheek. Plays with her earring. Mother neck rub. Then her Corona comes and she pushes the lime into it. The teens are blushing and hitting each other and themselves. The kid next to the mother is wearing a trendy trucker hat with an airbrushed pink Playboy Bunny and the name “Jay.” The boys get up after ordering and nervously, ruggedly, childishly walk to the bathroom, just like girls who always go to the bathroom in groups.

Steph comes back. Continuing on about changes she says, “Now there is ranking in the schedules. And there’s a merchandise goal to sell at least one item per shift. It’s going more corporate because it’s a franchise. You used to be ranked based on how productive you were as an employee—busing, etc. It didn’t used to be so strict. Now new girls are getting shafted with crappy shifts—even if they have class during the day. And no more tongue rings in May.”

She says she wouldn’t know how to talk without hers because she’s so used to it now. She shows us her tattoo on her right outer calf—a peacock feather with a coy fish in beautiful pastels. It was free because her boyfriend is the artist. “We’re supposed to cover up tattoos, but we don’t really. It’s our way of saying ‘fuck you, we’ll sort of do what you say.’ I’m fed up with it. I’m done. I’m just doing this to pay for my certificate and car.” Steph goes to pick up an order.

Common sense guy—Bob—at the next table comes over to ask for a pen. He asks what I’m taking notes for. I tell him I’m writing a documentary about this place. He asks me what I think. I tell him that I think this place is a “no bullshit” zone. He says I’m wrong. He says, “These girls are incredible. They’re great at what they do.” But he says the girls push-up their bras when they walk into work because “it’s a business so they’re playing the role. You’re always playing a role. Most people are fake. It’s always a game. You don’t make any money lying, pretending you’re someone else.” Bob’s been here three times. He lives nearby.

Bob continues, “Everyone wears a mask. They have to. Whoa…we’re getting totally deep here…anyway…I think it has to do with your upbringing. Knowing right from wrong—respect. But I think it’s cool that you’re doing this. I love real life. I think that’s awesome that you came to Hooters. Next thing…strip club. Nice meeting you.”

***

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