Naked Lunch Stripped of Pretensions

WASHINGTON — “You know what’s really good here?” Donna says. “The broiled fish. All the fish. Really.” Funny, I had not pegged Joanna’s 1819 Club as a broiled fish kind of place. Nor did I figure Donna, who is sitting next to me wearing a black bra, G-string and gauzy wrap, as a broiled-fish kind of girl.

Go figure.

It is 1 p.m. and Joanna’s is packed with the lunch crowd: suits and ties, briefcases, trench coats. Mostly white, but a smattering of blacks and Asians. All men.

The power lunch has become a cliche in Washington. Powerful men and women deciding the fate of legislation, Cabinet appointments and whole countries. The power lunch takes place at a variety of Washington addresses distinguished by high prices and bad food. “The bad food is not accidental,” a Washington native once told me. “It is our way of showing how the conversation, what you say, is more important than what you eat.” But not everybody in a business suit and tie goes for a power lunch. Surrounded by the most famous restaurants in downtown Washington is Joanna’s. Where powerful men spend their lunch hour looking at naked women.

Donna, pretty, bearing a certain resemblance to Madonna and borderline zaftig, has just finished her three-number dance set in which she has removed all her clothing. The strippers at Joanna’s do not really strip in the classic sense of a prolonged and teasing removal of clothes. The undressing here is done in a relatively quick and business-like manner. The tips that are thrust into the garters of the dancers--the only thing they leave on--are their main form of salary.

“And I wait until they’re buck naked before I invest a buck,” says Alan C., a 24-year-old businessman. Alan, wearing a herringbone jacket, foulard tie, gray slacks and black, tasseled loafers, comes to Joanna’s once every other week.

With him is Steve T., a systems analyst for a telecommunications firm. Steve, 23, is wearing a muted glen-plaid suit, lavender Polo button-down shirt, and a rep Ralph Lauren tie with cricket players on it. He has come to Joanna’s two or three times a week for the last five years.

“It’s not like a fantasy,” he says, “but it is also not real.”

Donna grabs the bar that runs across the top of the stage behind her and swings back and forth. “Very impressive,” Alan says and reaches into a pile of dollar bills he has on the table in front of him. He holds up a single to catch Donna’s attention.

She comes over and puts one leg up high onto the back of the black, plastic banquette where Alan sits. The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” plays loudly in the background. Alan sticks a dollar in Donna’s garter. Donna smiles at him and dances away.

“At another place, I once saw a guy stick a $5 bill in a girl’s garter and then try to take four ones out in change,” Alan says. “They threw him out.”

Earlier, a dancer named Nan had taken the stage and stripped off a tiny bikini. She looked to be just out of her teens.

“A Milk Carton Girl,” Alan said. “You know. The kind of girl who has just run way from home? Milk Carton Girl.”

Alan and Steve have taken dates to Joanna’s with mixed results. “We went on a double date,” Alan says. “It was a blind date for me and a first date for Steve. It was OK, but later my girl started going feminist and talking about exploitation and that.”

“But my girl was interested in it,” Steve says. “She was a good sport.”

The lighting system at Joanna’s is not elaborate, and the girls usually end up bathed in a red glow, looking very much like rotating chickens in those infra-red grocery store rotisseries.

When Donna joins us, her garter is packed with bills. “I was in a good mood,” she said. “You do well when you’re in a good mood. The audience can tell. A good week? I’ll make $1,500. Usually, I’ll make $800 to a $1,000. After three months, we get medical and dental.”

Donna’s real job, she tells us, is being a representative for a building maintenance firm. She grew up in Red Bank, N.J. She used to be a cosmetologist in California. She is 23 and a member of Overeaters Anonymous.

She does not push drinks. She accepts a Perrier. She sips and talks, and when lunch is over and we prepare to go, she says brightly: “So, you guys got any buildings that need maintenance?”

There is no sociological point to be made here.

Some, power lunch in Washington. Others, naked lunch.