Charm School, Part One | Beauty School Dropouts

“A long time ago, when there were kings and queens and knights and fair young maidens, and people married more for the love of money than for the love of each other, a system arose — whereby men and women could express their romantic impulses for each other — called courtly love. It’s where the term ‘courtship’ came from. Knights in shining armor went on great journeys to bring back exotic gifts for their queen. They went to war to defend her honor. Once the wars had been won and the spoils collected, the knights brought them back and laid them at her feet. She, in turn, would bestow on them her favor; and sometimes . . . her affection.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?”

So . . . that first paragraph was me. My name is Oren Watson. I’m a full professor in both the English and Humanities Departments at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

However, that finely crafted, well-rehearsed monologue was not delivered in a UIC classroom; but at an adult learning center in the old Uptown National Bank building, caddy-corner from the Green Mill. It was the first class of Charm School, roughly ten years ago. Or, Charm School Confidential, as it was called then.

You’d think I could have requisitioned a space at UIC. But I wasn’t yet a full professor; I was a mere associate professor, and the school wanted no conflicts of interest — no liability scuffles — as a result of our little dog and pony show. You’ll understand why, presently.

That blunt response came from a girl named Patti, who was just waiting for an opportunity to disrupt the proceedings. She had been sitting there, in a vintage wooden high-school desk unit — you know, the kind you might find in a 70s urban classroom drama: a dozen wads of hardened chewing gum underneath; profanities and initials etched and inked-in on top — with her arms folded and her legs asprawl, like Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause.

But before I tell you what happened next, I want you to meditate a bit on the imagery in that opening paragraph. Imagine a medieval setting, rolling hills and verdant fields beneath a moated castle. The king and queen proceed out of the castle, across the drawbridge, and are met joyfully by peddlers, jugglers, musicians, and jesters. The royal couple, attended by courtesans, courtiers, and squires, sit on a platform, shaded by a colorful, billowing tent. The king kisses and fondles his courtesans; which leaves the queen free to flirt with the knights.

Then, darker times. A battalion of knights travels solemnly on horseback through misty fields and forests. Knights and barbarians battle each other in bloody chaos.

On return from their crusade, a series of knights, on bended knee, offer exotic trinkets to the queen on her throne. One handsome fellow gets a special nod from the queen. Later that night, the queen, in her bedroom, drops her robe and lies back on her bed, pulling that one lucky, shirtless knight on top of her.

These are the things that were going through my mind as I rattled off that soliloquy. Patti jolted me back into reality.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

I looked up . . . or rather, down . . . because I was lost in my oraculation; my head was tilted and my eyes were focussed on a turkey on the back wall (I’ll explain in a moment.). But anyway, I came to my senses and looked down to find Patti and her entourage — Shawna and Tish — glaring at me. Shawna and Tish had been playing with their phones as I spoke. But Patti had been listening. And when Patti spoke — whenever Patti spoke anywhere for any reason — Shawna and Tish paid attention.

A bit about these girls. Patti was a dancer at a nightclub. Vic’s club. And I’ll get around to introducing Vic in a moment. But as you may know, trendy nightclubs sometimes employ dancers — mostly girls; but sometimes guys — to dance on a box, or in a cage, or around a pole, or what-have-you, as decoration. Living statues, so to speak. And I’m not talking about strip clubs. Regular nightclubs, where trendy twenty-somethings congregate, drink and writhe to EDM or hip-hop into the wee small hours. That’s what Patti did.

Tish and Shawna were always together. I don’t know why; I don’t know how. But they instinctively moved in sync, like a school of fish. It was uncanny. They crossed their legs at the same time. They reached for their phones at the same time. They mumbled and muttered at the same time, mostly in support of Patti’s obnoxious declarations. Otherwise, they were silent. And they laughed . . . OMG, the laugh! Shawna — 145 pounds of sugar in a 95-pound sack — spraying scattershot her ear-splitting machine-gun laugh. Tall Tish — who should have been 145 pounds; but who was closer to 95, because of her eating disorder — goth chick, dark stringy hair, tattoos and piercings (Because that’s part of the goth uniform. I mean, what kind of goth would you be if you didn’t have skulls and demons painted and pierced on your carcass?), and laughter that resembled a concatenation of barnyard noises.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]We had simultaneously reached the same point, through vastly different paths, that all men must reach if they are to mature, where it’s not enough to have sex with hot women.[/su_pullquote]

So, there they were, the three of them, sitting in the front row, to my left, close to the door, glaring at me. In the middle of the classroom, a couple of rows back, sat Lois. And to her left, also on the front row, sat Ellen.

Lois has since changed her look. But at that time, Lois Truman, a gay lady in her 50s, wore obnoxious men’s shirts. Vic and I met her at a fundraiser at a gay bar.

And then there was Ellen. Ellen Hanneke. A former student of mine, and sort-of friend. She was the starting point guard for the UIC women’s basketball team. I say “sort-of friend” because I was more of a mentor to her. But truth is, we enjoyed each other’s company. We got together almost every weekend in her off-season for pick-up games, or one-on-one if nobody else was around.

And off to my right, leaning back against a heating grate — warming his nervous ass, I suppose — with his arms folded, was Vic. Vic Vance. My partner in this Charm School endeavor.

Vic and I went to DePaul together. Or rather, we lived in the same freshman dorm. We were friendly, but we weren’t friends. I moved off-campus at the end of that year. Vic joined some silly fraternity. This was in the mid-late 80s.

We lost touch after that, until the fall of 2007, a few months before we started the Charm School business. What followed was a whirlwind bromance. We became close friends fast because of our mutual desperation for women. And not just any women. We had simultaneously reached the same point, through vastly different paths, that all men must reach if they are to mature, where it’s not enough to have sex with hot women. Even lots of hot women.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

My eyes rested on Patti. As my grandparents would say, my jaws were flappin’, but nothin’ was comin’ out.

Vic jumped in. “Patti!”

Patti: “What universe are you livin’ in?”

Me: “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

Patti: “You talkin’ kings and queens and knights in shining armor. Where are these people? Where are these men? Most of the men these days don’t be actin’ like no king. And they treat women like shit.”

Tish: “Fo’ real!”

Shawna: “Uh-huh!”

Me: “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

Patti: “Why the fuck should I learn how to act like a queen if the men in my life are just gonna smack me down and treat me like a ho and call me ‘bitch’?”

Tish: “Yup!”

Shawna: “Uh-huh!”

Me: “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

Vic: “Well maybe if you didn’t dress like a ho and act like a bitch, you’d attract better men.”

Patti: “What, like you? Better men, like you — Mr. Sleep-With-a-Different-Ho-Every-Night?”

Vic: “Hey, I don’t do that anymore. I’ve changed. And that’s what this is about, Patti. You can change.”

[su_pullquote align=”right”]“I agree that we, as women, can learn things from men that we can’t learn from each other. But right now, it kinda looks like two guys trying to make young women more attractive to them.”[/su_pullquote]

Patti: “I like myself fine, just the way I am.”

Ellen: “Well then, why are you here?”

And suddenly, all eyes were on Ellen.

Patti: “I’m here because Vic begged me to come.”

Vic: “I didn’t beg you to come.”

Patti: “And he begged me to bring friends.”

Throughout this, Lois . . . poor Lois, older than the rest of these girls by thirty years . . . watched this fight develop with bemused detachment — the way one might watch lovers quarrel, or dogs play-fight. Looking back at this moment now, I can see that she was probably attracted to all of these girls.

Needless to say, I hadn’t planned on this eruption of chaos after my soft intonations about courtly love. And I was taking refuge in that image of a turkey on the back wall. You see, the room was also used for ESL classes. And so there were colorful posters — the kind you see in grade school classrooms — covering most of the wall space. They described the parts of American culture necessary for passing a U.S. citizenship exam — geography, history, government structure, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, traveling, shopping, counting money, and so forth. Feel free to ask your shrink why my eyes landed on a poster about the Pilgrims and the Indians and the first so-called Thanksgiving feast.

Anyway, I snapped-to when Lois finally got my attention with a look that declared: Are you gonna do something about this mess, or what?

Me: “We’re glad you’re here, Patti. And we’re glad you brought your friends . . .”

Tish: “Tish.”

Me: “Tish, and . . .”

Shawna: “Shawna.”

Me: “Shawna. Obviously, we’re still ironing the kinks out of this endeavor. But the point of Charm School Confidential is to help young women find the social skills to attract better men.”

Patti: “Wait a minute . . . who the hell are you to teach women anything?”

Me: “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

Patti: “What the fuck you know about being a woman?”

Vic: “What the fuck you know about being a man? What’s that got to do with anything?” 

Ellen: “It is possible that we can learn something valuable from a man’s perspective.”

Patti: “Okay, yeah. But why ain’t they teaching men how to be better men? Why is it that we the ones got to change?”

Lois: “That is a good point.”

And suddenly, all eyes were on Lois.

Lois: “Why is it that women have to do the changing? Shouldn’t men be changing, too?”

Patti: “For real!”

Tish: “Uh-huh!”

Shawna: “You got that!”

Lois: “I mean, I agree that we, as women, can learn things from men that we can’t learn from each other. But right now, it kinda looks like two guys trying to make young women more attractive to them. Even though, I know, you guys aren’t really into women.”

And suddenly, all eyes were on Vic and me.

Patti: “What!?”

Vic turned red, and I have to assume that I did too.

Vic: “Oh, we’re into women!”

Lois: “Honey, you don’t have to pretend anymore. This is America. Be proud!”

Patti laughed. Erupted . . . with laughter, is more accurate. Rat-a-tat-tat went Shawna’s machine gun laugh. Tish snortled and brayed. Together they sounded like a petting zoo.

Patti: “Is that it, Vic? You gay?”

Vic: “Christ, we’re getting off topic here! Patti, you know that the girls that come to the club could use a little help when it comes to handling themselves around men.”

Patti: “Whadaya mean?”

Vic: “Aw, come on! Really? You bitch all the time about how crass the girls are in the ladies’ room, and on the dance floor. You make fun of them. The gum snapping. The hair twirling. The potty mouth. The bathrooms that look like piss porn. The constant texting.”

At this point, Vic began acting out his rant.

Vic: “Hey, look . . . I’m texting AND I’m dancing. . . . Selfie! . . . Hey, Mr. DJ . . . if I show you my boobs, will you play that Rihanna song one more time? . . .
       (texting gestures)
OMG, I hear Justin Timberlake is gonna be here tonight! . . . Wait . . . there he goes now! Justin . . . come back! . . .
       (texting)
OMG, I just missed Justin Timberlake because I was texting!”

Ellen grabbed her stuff and headed out.

Me: “Wait . . .”

She stopped.

Ellen: “I came here because my life sucks and you promised to help me. I didn’t come here to be ridiculed. If you ask me, you guys are the ones who need charm school!”

Me: “Ellen . . .”

But she was gone.

Vic: “Thanks a lot, Patti!”

Patti: “I wasn’t the one making fun of . . .”

Me: “Ellen.”

Patti: “Come on, girls.”

Queen Patti and her court ladies had never really settled in. So they were out the door pretty quickly. From the hallway, I heard Patti snark, “Well, I guess this makes us beauty school dropouts!” Rat-a-tat-tat and hee-haw came the laughter from Shawna and Tish, echoing back to the classroom.

I shrugged at Lois. “Sorry.”

Vic: “We’ll get you a refund.”

Lois: “What? No way,” as she gathered her belongings. “I believe in you guys.”

Me: “Really?”

Lois: “When you get your shit together, you’re gonna have an excellent product. And believe me, there IS a need for social skills training for both women and men. You just gotta work out the particulars.”

Me: “Maybe we should do coffee sometime.”

Lois: “Sure.”

She stopped at the door with her backpack slung over one shoulder of her aviator jacket.

Lois: “You guys don’t remember me, do you? We met at Sidetrack. You know, the fundraiser?”

Vic lied: “Oh, yeah!”

Neither one of us remembered her.

Lois: “You guys make a cute couple.”

And then she was gone.

Vic (sarcastically): “Lover!”

Me: “Don’t . . .”

I wagged a threatening finger at him.

And suddenly, the bromance was on the rocks. Vic and I meandered around the desk at the head of the class, like zombies without a whiff of living flesh, avoiding eye contact, occasionally seeking refuge out the windows in the neon lights of the Green Mill.

Finally, Vic muttered, “Fuck ‘em!”

Me: “Fuck ‘em?”

Vic: “Yeah, who needs ‘em?”

And then it was my turn to leave in a huff.

Vic: “Oren, wait. Let’s talk about it. Oren . . . “

Rule of thumb, folks . . . when you walk out in a huff, be sure you have ALL your belongings.

Vic: “Oh, good . . . you’re back.”

Me: “No . . . I forgot my keys.”

Vic: “Wait . . . let’s talk about it. Oren . . . “

But I just couldn’t stand the guy at that moment.