Finally, and for many most importantly, the ability to carve out a uniquely personal exchange between the lap dancer and lap dancee, something so easily documented in the smartphone era. At the very least a selfie, but even better a video of your idol engaging you—you!—in actual conversation. A digital keepsake that you will be able to carry with you and show off—to those, one hopes, who will share your enthusiasm rather than react with an air of endurance—until the end of time, or at least until such time as you lose the phone that you foolishly neglected to back up the contents of and realize that you have lost not only your phone but also proof of your contact with stardom.
But there will be another Comic-Con—they’re hardly rare now—where, if your luck with luminaries prevails, you will again find yourself in (or, more accurately, maneuver yourself into) immediate proximity to your chosen celebrity’s latest lap dance, which is when you can say, “Hey, Carrie, it’s me, Jeffrey Altuna! We met at last year’s Florida Con! I was with that girl Corby with the Slave Leia tattoo on her shoulder! Yeah! Right! How you been? We’re down here visiting friends in Houston and, lucky me, this is the weekend for this. And anyway, Cheryl, that’s my wife—say hey, honey—anyway . . . hell, I lost my train of whatever I was saying . . . Only that it’s great to see you again. And Gary! Hey, boy! Tongue still hanging down, I see. Gosh almighty, he is so cute! We have a Westie–poodle mix—my oldest calls it a Woodle—and we love him to bits, but he’s just nowhere near as bright as your little man here. You get him a Twitter page like you said you wanted to? Instagram! Better still! How awesome! Does he have many followers?? 41k?! That’s more than most humans! I’ll follow him right away! What’s his name on it? Gary Fisher @garyfisher! That’s brilliant! How did you think of it? . . . I’m kidding! What do you think I am?? Some fan moron? No, I’m totally kidding again! We are just big fans. We love you for just being who you are—maybe not regular, but not not regular, you know? I hope I’m not talking too much—guess I am ’cause of how Cheryl’s looking at me, she’s got my number, but could I ask you something? And I’m not talking about some super-dark secret inside scoop or anything because I know you’re not allowed to say, but my neighbor Bob reads up on all this and he reckoned that the black boy’s skin is dark because of some hex that the Dark Side puts on him. Is that true? If yes, just nod your . . . I know, I know. I’m sorry—I just promised Bob I’d ask you if I saw you, and well, here we are! I couldn’t let an opportunity like this just—boom!—swish by, right? I mean sure, no, yeah, I see that’s quite a line, I’ll let you go. I just wanted, I’m just glad to see you again like this and I gotta say, we are really looking forward to the opening on December eighteenth. Can’t wait! Okay, bye, Gary! Take good care of your mama now—ya hear? Bye now!”
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i need you to know that I’m not cynical about the fans. (If you thought I was, you would quite properly not like me, which would defeat the purpose of this book and of so much else that I do.) I’m moved by them.
There’s something incredibly sweet and mystifying about people waiting in lines for so long. And with very few exceptions, the people you meet while lap dancing are a fine and darling lot. The Star Wars films touched them in some incredibly profound or significant way. They remember everything about the day they first saw Star Wars one, two, and three (which were officially, of course, IV, V, and VI): where they were, who they were with, what obstacles they had to overcome—cut school? skip practice?—in order to be there. And once they got there, how the experience surpassed any expectations they might have had, resulting in some life-changing experience. How, that day, things for them ceased to be in any way the same from then to forever after.
So of course when they meet me, many of the Forever Altered long to tell me all these things and more, and at length.
There’s the girl with my signature tattooed to her ass, the couple that named their child Leia Carrie, the guy who had his name legally changed to Luke Skywalker. (Imagine the policeman’s face when he stops Luke Skywalker for speeding: “What happened, Obi-Wan wouldn’t let you use the X-wing fighter tonight?”) They have marriage ceremonies where, instead of the more traditional vows, one says, “I love you,” and the other says, “I know.” They come dressed in the outfits, and not only are the women in the metal bikini but some men are wearing it, too, and it looks fantastic.
For the most part they’re kind and courteous, and as if that weren’t enough, they quite frequently appear before you in amazing homemade costumes whipped up by Alderaan-obsessed parents for their Forcefed children. Tiny Ben Kenobis, little Lukes, miniature Darth Vaders, and—my personal favorites—the teensiest of Princess Leias.
These smallest of small Leias are brought to me like tiny offerings, prize possessions held aloft for my blessings and my praise, both of which they receive in abundance. Do the children know that it’s “me” that they are dressed as? Of course not! Those under four—all they know is that they’re hot, that there are way too many people swarming around everywhere, and that they just want to go home, or anywhere other than standing in this line with similarly swaddled sorts spilling out of their sci-fi garb with no imminent sign of escape.
One little girl came by who’d been told she was going to meet Princess Leia; imagine her excitement, that is, until she saw the new me.
“No!” she wailed, squirming her head away from the sight of me. “I want the other Leia, not the old one.”
Her father flushed, then leaned apologetically toward my ear. “Well, no, you see she doesn’t mean that—we’ve just seen the first three films and loved you in them so much—”
“Please!” I interrupted. “You don’t have to apologize for my looking older to your daughter after forty years. I look older to me, too, and I don’t apologize to myself—though perhaps I should.”
Vast airwaves of awkwardness ensued, his daughter unable to look at me and confront what time had done. It all ended well though, with me promising to get plastic surgery (after I explained to the little girl what that was) and getting her father to promise to read his daughter bits of Wishful Drinking, and look at its pictures together, so she’d see what the actual Carrie was like and how pretty she could be once the endlessly extraordinary Leia was finished.
The youngest fans who do know where they are (and where they’re likely to be for quite some time) rarely seem happy, and when they finally reach their inexplicable destination they become paralyzed with shyness and hide behind whatever part of their parents they can access through their stormtrooper getups. The most desperate, confused, or hungry ones cry in fear or embarrassment or exasperation, or all three, while I do my best to soothe them. I bust my ass trying to soothe them, for their pain is palpable and I have rampant empathy.
And while the adults are unfailingly polite, there’s a certain lack of empathy among some of them for me. They know they might be bothering me with their requests—a selfie, a lengthy inscription, an extra few “for my friends, they love Star Wars as much as I do, one of them even more”—and they’re quick to acknowledge this and pretend that they could accept rejection. But fuck it, they know they’re not asking me to do anything that hard. They present their requests with the pretense that I have the option to refuse, but we’re all aware that the exchange could move very quickly to, “Well, you wanted to be in show business, and if you didn’t want people to want your autograph you should never have become an actress.”
They also frequently want you to write a piece of dialogue, and that is how I first came to understand who they thought Leia was. I knew who she was to the women, but the men really liked her unthreatening little bitchiness, which was probably even less intimidating because I’m short. All the lines they want me to write are like “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” The biggest favorite is “Why, you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder.” They can’t get enough of it.