The name Codi is derived from Gaelic. It means “Helpful.”
Codi is not getting doxxed, even though she was drunk on her last night working with me, got angry that I was selling a bunch of dances when she wasn't, and stated that my shawl looked like her mawmaw's table cloth. She's not getting doxxed, even though she laughed aloud when Natalie said I look like I “ride the short bus” in my shawl. I liked that shawl. I got it at a Cracker Barrel gift shop and wore it on the day I testified at the 2019 NLRB hearing against Centerfold Columbus. It gives me lulz to do things like wear Cracker Barrel gift shop shawls and still eclipse everyone else in sales. I want you to draw me like one of your French Girls wearing this Cracker Barrel gift shop shawl-- wearing ONLY this Cracker Barrel gift shop shawl.
This post is a Codi portrait and description of my interactions with her, not a doxx. She did not do excessively scabby things while we were coworkers. She only tipped Alex Cave because she needed the job. She verbally, socially, and openly supported my active resistance to Alex Cave. Prior to her last night working with me, she was relatively supportive of my social sovereignty. I just want to acknowledge that she existed, celebrate her, critique her, and analyze her workplace behavior. She was fired for excessive drunkenness and physical contact with customers, according to Natalie. She had a tendency to talk back to Buddy and not take his shit, so I suspect that had something to do with her termination as well. Natalie was Codi's workplace bestie until Codi was fired. After Codi was fired, Natalie said many unpleasant things about her. I quite enjoyed when Codi talked back to Buddy. I quite enjoyed when she regulated workplace social interactions. I quite enjoyed when she pissed off managers and rallied other dancers to agree with her. There is much to adore about Anonymous Codi; there is much to abhor about Anonymous Codi. Let's explore Anonymous Codi.
Codi was around 39 years old in 2019, which some dancers made fun of, due to their internalized misogyny. Many successful clubs have older women working in them, but Mouse's Ear mostly did not. Codi was at least my height, possibly taller, in better shape, with curvy hips, modest bosom, no stretch marks or cellulite, shiny clear skin, and non-obtrusive tattoos. One would never guess how many babies she had by looking at her, or that she was already a mawmaw. Her skin glowed, including her sweet Southern face. Codi has clear blue ocean colored eyes. Unfortunately for her bank account, she shaved her hair into a crew cut, which greatly reduced the amount of customers interested in her. Codi bleached her crew cut. People said she reminded them of Amber Rose.
Codi introduced herself to me on my very first night working in 2019. It was relaxing to sit and chat with her for several hours that first night, when not on stage or selling songs. She was a bit drunk, with liquor on her breath, but still charming and interesting. She has a cool accent that seems more deeply Southern, kind of an Alabama or Mississippi one. It has more of a rhythmic swing to it. She opened up and told me her life story within minutes of meeting me. She has five children, the first one born when she was around the age of sixteen, and the subsequent three born about a year apart after the first. She married a half black man who did not believe in birth control and thought he owned her body. She secretly obtained some birth control after her first baby or two, but he found it, punished her for it, and threw it out so she could not get to it. Having all those babies with their limited resources, her husband provided for the family by being a drug dealer. Unfortunately for him, he made a bad deal, and was shot by “Mexicans” (Codi's term) in some drug dealer warfare. She was left as a young widow and single mother to provide for herself. At some point, she met another black guy to be her boyfriend and help take care of her and the kids. She had her fifth baby with him. She and her fifth baby's dad were no longer together in 2019. She started at Mouse's Ear a week or two before I did. Her youngest was around thirteen years old at the time of our conversation. Family photos of Codi with her adult children and grandbabies look like a cool human rainbow of phenotypes.
Codi still loved and missed her dead husband. She said that she still kept his hat hanging up in her home. She spent money on a psychic, to reach her husband beyond the grave. She believes the psychic had the ability to reach him, because the psychic asked her about a hat, and told her to hang onto that hat. In the Richard Dawkins special “Enemies of Reason,” there is a specific scene that shows psychic cold-readers prodding around for information by mentioning a hat. The hat thing is just something that cold-readers bring up sometimes, because hats are a common item that a lot of people can relate to or draw connections to, especially when they're grieving and desperately grasping for traces of beyond-the-grave communication. I didn't mention being a Richard Dawkins fetishist to Codi, or mention buzzkill ideas like reasoning. I just nodded and listened. I was perplexed as to how she could stay with a man who destroyed her birth control and forced her to produce baby after baby after baby after baby. I was just sitting there thinking about how him getting killed was probably the most pragmatic thing that could've happened for Codi's freedom. She had her tubes tied after her fifth baby. Part of the reason her head was shaved was that her previous partners wanted her to have long hair, and she wanted to do something different for herself. Her tattoos were something that her husband didn't allow either. She owns her body, it is her canvas, she is an artist, and she can do whatever the hell she wants with her canvas during her precious time on Earth. I thought it was magnificent that Codi knew she owned herself after going through all that crap with her husband. As much as I dislike her personal style, I also thought her tattoos and haircut were beautiful because they were an expression of her sovereignty.
Codi stated that she was a former cocaine addict with no sense of smell, because her sinuses were so destroyed from all that sniffing. While not overtly political, she expressed favorable feelings for socialism, proudly declaring that she relied on food stamps to raise her offspring. Codi lived in a trailer with some of her kids, and she babysat her grandbabies. She made faint references to sporadically working at other less appealing clubs around town, like Emerald and MTM's, but did not elaborate on what she did for work over the past couple of decades. She had much less experience in strip clubs than me, and kind of seemed like a newbie.
Codi used to purchase narcotics off a drug dealer from Rockford, Illinois. He would come in sometimes to sit in the back and sell her something. At first I thought he was a customer, a very Eminem-seeming wigger type of a guy who I enjoyed chatting with. He and I discussed how Southerners just pretend to be nice most of the time but are actually usually evil. I enjoyed sitting with him for free sometimes, before Codi rushed over to him, shewed me away, gave him money for whatever it was he was selling to her, and did not dance for him. But, I also thought about how bothersome it was to have that type of crap in my place of employment, and how if there was proper security and management, troublesome crap like that would not be happening.
Codi noticed that I sell a lot of dances, and she noticed that it bothered a lot of our coworkers who didn't sell as many. She referred to her social interactions with our coworkers as them “correlating,” and informed me that some of them dislike me because I don't “correlate” with them. Instead of being mean to me about it, she called me over to where she and a couple of our coworkers were sitting, to simply ask me how I was able to sell so many songs. I looked her in the eyes and tried to focus on her, in the intense way that I focus on customers, to provide an example of the intensity. I explained to her that I can relate to customers by discussing similar interests, that customers don't necessarily want to hear about her personal life, and it's really about agreeing with the customer, making them comfortable, creating a persona they will like, while also being cognizant of time, of closing the deal, of not getting deflected with frivolous conversation unrelated to closing the deal, and being firm. I'm not sure she completely followed what I was saying, as her pretty blue eyes were struggling to keep focus and not roll around in different directions. I was having unfriendly thoughts when she asked me for my emotional labor. If I am going to be perfectly honest on this site-- and why not-- here is what I was actually thinking when Codi asked me for sales advice:
“Codi, you will never, ever sell as many dances as I do, for a number of reasons. You are unable to hold deep, intimate eye contact for any length of time or repeatedly crack open an anonymous customer's shell in a way that would manipulate them into spending money on you. You are unable to assert boundaries with regards to not letting customers waste your time, just like you were unable to assert boundaries with your loser husband when he got you pregnant even though you didn't want more babies. You are a giver, but in doing so, people take from you, steal from you, and waste your time. You are not viscous enough to hustle in the capacity that I do-- and being viscous is not a bad trait to have when living in a world of people like your deceased husband and our customers. You feel guilt when you should feel entitlement. You hesitate when you should seize. Furthermore, you talk to customers about things such as your kids, your grandkids, your cosmetology schooling, your everyday struggles. You have alcohol on your breath when you do so. I talk to them about things that interest them, first by prodding around getting to know them as individuals, then by reciprocating their interests with conversation on whatever topic that works, all within the course of a few minutes. I read the encyclopedia almost daily, and have a variety of topics that I can talk about, morphing into whatever a customer needs me to be. If a customer is a Trump supporter, I'll pretend to be a Trump supporter. If a customer is a hunter, I don't talk about being a vegan until after they've already paid me. You don't have to like these customers or have them care about your life-- most don't care about your life-- you just have to fake it long enough to get them to hand over the cash. Lastly, when all else fails, I say very, very, VERY filthy things to them in creative ways, with poetic language that is flowery yet medical, anatomical yet romantic. Having a strong command of the English language's vulgarities and being able to switch around styles helps a lot. I do not believe you will ever have the capacity to come up with some of the shit that I say to these freaks. I do not think you understand these freaks or care to understand these freaks. You bore them. Don't bother trying to like them. I hate almost all of them. Don't quit your day job. This work isn't for everybody. It isn't for you. Thank you for being a good sport about these things. Thank you for not insulting my art, my science, my hustle, like all of your friends do when they judge me for something that they only wish they could do as well. Much appreciated. Now stop wasting my time. I didn't come here to sit with you. I came here to maximize my income, spend as little time as possible around people like you, so I can maximize my freedom outside of these grotesque establishments called strip clubs.”
I couldn't say any of stuff though. I didn't want to get my ass beat, and Codi is so sweet. The DJ played “Heart-Shaped Box” by Nirvana after my advice session with Codi. Codi spent the majority of her work time hanging out with our coworkers who were young enough to be her daughters, like her workplace bestie Natalie. She hung out with Khaleesi, but also informed me that she dislikes Khaleesi. I only learned within the past couple of years that less than 50% of the population has an internal dialogue, and I do wonder what Codi's is like. Regardless of the differences between Codi and I, she went out of her way to tell her young brat friends to leave me alone, to explain to them that I was just doing my job, to remind them that I wasn't doing anything to bother them. They somewhat obeyed her soft Alpha advice for a while, which was wonderful. In all of my communicating with customers, I struggled to communicate to our coworkers and convey to them what Codi was able to do very easily. I was so thankful that Codi regulated and mediated things for me. The DJs played “Regulator” by Warren G every night for her. Alex Cave didn't seem to like Codi very much.
Mouse's Ear had a dancer named Lola who initially called me “catty” for not letting Alex Cave extort me at the end of each night. Alex Cave encouraged Lola to harass me. Lola has a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome face, similar to Greta Thunberg's, only with more melanin. I detested Lola in the beginning, because of her snide little pleb remarks defending Alex's extortion. But, Lola was a workplace friend of Codi's, who she respected and listened to like a matriarch. Codi went out of her way to instruct Lola to be nice to me, to tell people that they shouldn't bother me about not “tipping” Alex Cave. Codi's presence was such a balm for these Alex Cave problems, and I was so very thankful that she was there to shut people down as they echoed vestiges of YESSAH MASSAH BROWNING, YESSAH MISS CAVE.
Some time around late June, there was a slight financial lag at Mouse's Ear. Codi and a couple of her work friends decided to try The Ball for a few days. They were not successful at The Ball, and returned to work at Mouse's Ear. Codi began to exhibit more severe mood swings after her return from The Ball, as though she was deeply frustrated with her inability to be a financially successful stripper. I don't think her age had anything to do with her lack of success, because most experienced dancers in their 30s make more money than dancers in their 20s. After her return from The Ball, Codi wasn't as friendly with me. I was sad when that happened. She started to interrupt my table dances while I was in the middle of dancing, to say hello to customers who had no interest in spending money on her. If I chatted with Codi at the beginning of the night when she was sober, she was exceptionally grumpy and irritable with me. She was probably under a lot of financial stress. As much as I tried to conceal my judgment of Codi for her lifestyle, she was probably able to detect that I had snotty reservations about her. Around that time, one customer from Mouse's Ear informed me that he paid Codi for a sexual encounter outside of work, when her car insurance bill was late and she didn't make enough money dancing.
Codi completed cosmetology school some time prior to working at Mouse's Ear. She expressed regular anxiety about taking a cosmetology test to become certified or whatever. Her deadline to take the test was approaching, and she wasn't sure if she was going to make it. With Codi struggling to survive her whole life, resorting to prostitution and hoping to one day become cosmetologist, all I could think about was how sad it is that this country doesn't encourage more trades programs for women, as alternatives to academia. Codi is tall, tough, able-bodied, and resilient. She would be well suited for any number of trade careers such as welding. She is sociable and well-liked by her peers, compassionate with her coworkers, and supportive of those of us who resist predatory illegal labor violations. If Codi had an opportunity to join the trades, I'm sure she would make an excellent steward, kindly hearing grievances and standing up to the boss. With her artistic ability to cut hair, I'm sure she would make an excellent craftswoman. She'd also get paid better and have better benefits than working in feminized industries where misogynist-capitalists don't compensate women as much as they deserve. At least one of Codi's beautiful adult sons is in the military, possibly more. I hope she never has to bury him because of some stupid war. Codi and her progeny deserve so much more than this country has given to them, especially when her military family is giving so much to the country.
I checked Codi's facebook when starting this series, to see that she is now a licensed stylist at a chain hair cutting place. I have legitimately cried several times since then because I am so happy and proud of her for taking that test. She was so worried about it, stressing out in the Summer of 2019, slaving away at Mouse's Ear. She has been through so much, and had a difficult start. Triumphs rippling outward, achievements of mind and body, are so wonderful when one can become sovereign, and she's doing it. She-- Helpful, hair stylist, mawmaw, independent woman, survivor, warrior, angel-- Codi.
