Puffing, Part 1

Note: All names have been changed, and always will be from here on out. Also, sorry for the delay and lack of new pictures–my laptop was stolen this week.

I pull up to Peachy Puff’s office in downtown SF, and buzz in. As usual, I’m early, and sit by myself until my  pseudo supervisor for the night, Megan, walks in. Megan smells of cigarettes, and is wearing an olive-green bomber jacket and skinny jeans.  She has bangs and her hair is dyed down the middle so that one side is bleach-white and the other half is reddish-brown.

Immediately, she starts giving me instructions on what everything in my tray costs, and how to take stock of everything before going out for the night.  I assume Megan will be candy girling–or as I later learn they call it, puffing–with me, but it turns out she’s the driver.

” I used to puff, but I just don’t have selling in me. I get the concept and everything, but I’m just like, you don’t want something? Then fuck off!”  ‘Fuck off’  seems to pretty much be the way Megan punctuates her sentences. She’s the kind of cynical pirate-mouthed brand of hipster I’m sometimes guilty of acting like, but taken to an impressive extreme.

In walk two other girls.  On first glance, I assume one of the girls is actually middle-aged; a boxy woman with the deep voice of a longtime smoker. It takes a few minutes before I realize Ruth is actually most likely a transgender woman, and seems somewhere mid-transition. She’s matter-of-fact yet sweet–and how do I put this gently?  Not very conventionally beautiful. She gets dressed in red and black stripped tights and a candy striper jacket, the least revealing of the costumes.

Ruth has come in with her friend Sharon, who she met when they both started puffing together 6 months ago. Sharon has a southern drawl, and is what most people would diplomatically call plain, with an appearance you can’t quite recall at the end of the night. Her spirit and accent are undeniably friendly, and she wears mini sticker stars around one eye, as if to accentuate this point.

Sharon and Ruth tell me they bonded over being “flat broke”, despite the fact that they both puff 5 nights a week. While the guy who hired me had admitted this wasn’t meant as a full-time job, he had also said that girls average between 100 and 200 bucks a night, a decent income.  Once Ruth and Sharon have gotten on a roll giving me advice, I decide to ask them how much I might expect to make.

“Don’t worry about it,” they both chime. “It’s your first night and it’s a crapshoot with it being Christmas Eve,” says Sharon.

“Well how much do you make on an average night?” I ask.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Some nights I walk out of here with 15 dollars, some nights with 115.  The bad nights are rare, but so are the really good nights.”

“15 dollars?! For the whole night?” I can’t hide my shock, no wonder they’re broke.  Who would keep doing such hard work with the risk of so little money, and no base pay? Sharon seems to read my mind.

“It’s not meant to be a regular job.  But with the way things are now, this is all there is.  Back in the good days, Peachy’s Puffs actually used to CHARGE girls 200 dollars just to get a tray to start puffing.  That’s how much money you made selling.  Now, well, it’s not like that.”

Journalistic intentions or not, the idea that I’ll probably be making less than 50 bucks tonight is not great news.

Sharon and Ruth continue to give me advice for my first night, with Megan punctuating them with sentences with points of fucking and offing.

“There’s always going to be that one person,” says Ruth in an instructive, playful tone. “Now, that person will usually be a girl.  And she will usually be blonde.  And she WILL try to speak for the entire group.  She does not speak for the entire group.”

“Yea, if someone tries to do that I say I’m sorry, was I fucking talking to you?” Megan adds. I wonder to myself how it was that she had the highest tray average when she puffed, as she claims.

I ask if other women are often threatened by Peachy Puffs girls.

“I mean, San Fransisco is filled with pretty girls.  Some pretty guys, too,” laughs Sharon.  “You think about it, they spend all this money on their dress and makeup, and they think, yea I’m hot. And then they get to the club and there’s 200 other girls–”

“Same fucking black dress, same black shoes–” Ruth shakes her head.

“And then we roll in, looking different, in our costume–” says Sharon.

“And we’re smiling, and we’re happy,” says Ruth.

“That’s why I dyed my hair two different colors,” adds Megan, bringing the subject back to its clear point.  “I wanted to look different. Alright let’s go.”  She turns to me. “Just to warn you, my car is fucking disgusting.”

Sharon helps me fit my tray, which helps it feel less heavy.  It sits at my belly button, and makes me feel I’m carrying Marlboro triplets.  What’s become of the girl who refused Kraft mac and cheese at 12 years old  after learning they were owned by Philip Morris? She’s now a woman, peddling nicotine, in fishnet stockings. A tape recorder pressed against her bosom is her moral alibi, but if she’s honest, well, she’s pretty sure she’s having fun.

To be continued