RunAround Sue (photo by Sweet Dirty Darla)RunAround Sue began running around long before she was drinking whiskey (and trust me folks that was pretty young). Born out of the Virginia soil and raised within the West Virginia coalmines, she began shaking it at an early age while running from the law with her mama. When she was old enough to make it on her own, she high-tailed it to the big city. Here, her sense of southern hospitality soothes many a broken heart. Catch her if you can…

First you’ll find freckles. Squint and you’ll catch the slightest sight of cinnamon seasoning her skin.

There’s no better reason to get to the Habana Outpost for its burgeoning Burlesque Series, and beat every other eager audience member to the front row. Lay claim to your own seat like you were Columbus on a burlesque-quest, staking out your territory as close to the stage as you can – because, up front, beyond this eco-friendly eatery’s solar-powered kitchen and benches upholstered with recycled sails, it’s all about the spotlights. Nothing but hot wattage emanates from the Fernels overhead, warm enough to get you sweating.

Not as if you needed any help squeezing beads of perspiration from your forehead. Let’s just say … sweat comes naturally when you set your sights on Sue.

Here’s my story, sad but true. It’s about a girl that I once knew. She took my love and ran around with every single guy in town.

You’ll never hear Dion & the Belmonts crooning this tune again without thinking of her with a web of fishnet wrapped around each leg. It looks as if some fisherman has hooked himself the catch of a lifetime. The one that got away.

Ah, I should have known it from the very start. This girl would leave me with a broken heart. Now listen people what I’m telling you. Keep away from RunAround Sue…
The spotlight strikes, the shaft cast across the stage hits her skin. She bats her eyes. Twists a finger through her hair, noosing it around the knuckle. And then The Shimmy one of three basics that make up the holy trinity of burlesque – The Bump, The Grind, and The Shimmy. Her skirt hikes itself up along the length of her thighs with the sheer power of her hips as they wriggle back and forth. Her top suddenly comes off, revealing a red rhinestone bustiere – paving the way for the holiest of moments, The Big Reveal. The corset goes with a wink and a grin – presenting a pair of red sequined pasties, heart-shaped Valentines, complete with a tassel twirling straight through the center like an arrow piercing the heart.

Bull’s eye.

“The best way to learn is to go to shows,” Sue says, speaking about how she kick-started her stage career. “You’re only limited by what you enjoy.”

RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Rio and used with permission from Shimmy Magazine)She smiles so wide, her eyes actually squint. Dark eyes, to boot. The color of coal dust. Speaking to her immediately after her performance, the glitter sprinkled across her cheeks leaves her looking as if she were squeezing a couple of diamonds from her eyes right then and there. Just goes to show the southern belle is alive and kicking, even within this sprawling metropolis. Which is probably what compelled her towards burlesque in the first place. That vintage sense of decorum. Burlesque etiquette. Manners matter backstage, where the girls are always polite to one another in the dressing room. Nobody elbows each other for mirror-space. There’s a certain sense of camaraderie, a sequined-solidarity that plays against that standard presumption of backstage cattiness. No claws here. Each girl lines up alongside one another in front of the mirror, primping for their big moment under the spots – checking eyeliner, puckering lips. Makeup is occasionally exchanged, while one girl zips up the other. Every reflection is of a beauty about to embrace the stage, momentarily frozen in their own pose, their likeness displayed in some revisionist Final Supper by way of Raoul Gradvohl.

***

RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Rio and used with permission from Shimmy Magazine)RunAround Sue is a tall-tale in the making. Her bio claims she came from the West Virginian coalmines, all raw and swarthy. If that’s the case, this city sure turned her into a diamond. Lucky for us, she’s kept her southern hospitality. Sue’s made it her personal mission to “make people comfortable,” as she puts it, soothing as many broken hearts as humanly possible.

Lord knows there are a few in this town.

What roots her onstage persona to reality is akin to that pickup line best left buried in the cliché bin. Any gent who ends up using this bit on her readily deserves a drink tossed right into his face.

Was your mother a thief? Because she stole the stars right out of the sky and put them into your eyes…

Turns out, RunAround’s was.

Seven years old and this girl’s on the lam with her family. Mom had found her way on to the FBI’s most wanted list for a stint, making little Susie’s upbringing all about wiretaps and armed robbery. Not that she even realized it at the time. Wasn’t this how all kids grew up? Born to run? Childhood was a never-ending adventure, marked with one road trip after another. Little RunAround didn’t have a clue that she was running away from the law, and grew up believing that the world always had you on the go.

The mystery will have to remain murky for the rest of us, the names changed to protect the innocent – but the story’s still there for the telling (and myth-making). Wasn’t all too uncommon for mom to wake Sue up in the middle of the night, packing their bags with what clothes they could grab fast before making their way to the next hideaway. Home is forever temporary, never permanent. What roots you to any given abode is the family you have within it – which, for Sue, seemed to be a rotating roster of ex-cons freshly out on parole, looking for a couch to crash on. RunAround’s play-pals were folks “who’d really gone through it,” as she recalls – growing up within an extended family of felons that seemed to have instilled in her a sense of comfort around the more nefarious elements of humanity.

RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Rio and used with permission from Shimmy Magazine)If ex-cons were on one side of the family, the feds were on the other.

“The FBI taught me how to be a spy,” she mentioned to me. One of her most potent memories is of the feds eavesdropping in on one of her sporadic collect-call conversations with her mother, listening in on the line while the two gals chatted – searching for that little tidbit of info that could be construed as a clue as to mom’s whereabouts. Postcards would have to pass through the bureau’s hands before they could make their way to Sue, even if her name was on the address. If there was mention of a “beautiful field with flowers” – then it went on a list of potential hot spots where momma was hiding. Could’ve been Georgia. Could’ve been Colorado.

“Her name wasn’t Gail for nothing,” she said. “Means high winds.”

One thing was for sure, though. Wasn’t as if Sue was going to rat. Even when mom went off to the big house, you can be sure it wasn’t because of her.

“Wasn’t different, wasn’t weird,” RunAround said, whether she was visiting her mom in a house with a white picket fence or a state penitentiary with iron bars.

Believe me when I say Sue visited both. New houses in new states. Never the same mailing address for more than a month. Long drives at unheard of hours, where little girls should be asleep in their own bed – but here’s Sue, all dreary-eyed and dreamless, mom by her side, behind the wheel, taking the two of them as far away from the authorities as their hot-wired car would allow.

RunAround had the FBI on her tail before she even knew how to shake it. And shaking it sure is what she does best.
RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Harris)RunAround’s been cutting her teeth in the burlesque circuit for the last year of her life now. Makes her pretty fresh on the scene, but from the way she shakes it – you’d think she had been doing this her whole life. Hell – you’d say that she’d been born up there on the stage. She’s shimmied through such venues as Original Cyn at Lucky 13 and The Shimmy at Jimmy’s at Jimmy’s No. 43, presented by Amelia Danger. She’s trained with the best of them, having snuggled herself under the wings of such seductive sages as the preternaturally sexy Nasty Canasta, Dottie Lux, and Veronika Sweet. (And hey, boys and girls – you can too. Check out their workshop at “School of Shimmy” .

It’s pretty clear from the sheer number of events happening in and around town that the burlesque culture hasn’t been merely making a comeback, but become its own institution.

“This industry is run mainly by women,” Sue throws in. “Nothing shady about it. Makes it feel safe.”

Now she’s hosting her own show. A pretty bold move for a relative newcomer – but that’s Sue for you. Call it a southern thing, if you have to – but Sue’s got herself an entrepreneurial heart.

“Pleasure and philanthropy can be happily married,” she says, sipping her tequila. The game plan behind Habana Burlesque is to hold a raffle at the end of every evening’s performance, where the winner can pick one of five particular charities to make a donation to with a cut from the door. If that doesn’t get your humanitarian heart pumping, nothing will. Parting company with seven bucks for a pair of pasties never felt so… charitable.

Future events include “Storybook Burlesque” – where each performer gets to pick their favorite fictional figure and create a routine around them in hopes of raising awareness for literacy.

Sue’s father, a Vietnam vet, always said, “If you know how to read, you can learn anything.”

RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Harris)Look how it took. Dad would be proud, seeing how his words of wisdom have continued to stick after all these years – while, for myself, I’m crossing my fingers that someone puts together a dance revolving around Anna Karenina. Even a Bronte sisters routine. The three of them, in unison – Emily, Anne and Charlotte, all twirling their tassels together on stage.

“It’s fun to enjoy your body,” Sue concludes just before her next number. “Fun to get attention. Fun to dress up. Part of the fantasy is to be in front of a group of people.”

Which brings us back to the burlesque. Sue’s on stage again. The final routine of the night for RunAround is such a subtle heart-wrencher, it has to be shared in detail. “The Way You Look Tonight” by Peggy Lee and the Benny Goodman Orchestra strains through the stereo. Starts off with a dreamy-toned xylophone. Horns drift in – then fade out. A string-section tinkles away in the background, just as Lee chimes in…

With your smile so warm and your cheek so soft, there is nothing for me but to love you. Just the way you look tonight.

Wearing this creamy bronze Grecian-style dress, along with elbow-length black satin gloves, RunAround steps onto the stage. Her red hair is pinned up into place, exposing her shoulders. There are those freckles again, mixed in with the glitter.

She’s utterly transformed. The carefree felon has been replaced with someone so stunning; she’s become immaculate – leaving the audience completely speechless. It’s the subtlety of the routine that gives the dance its power. Moves are much more minor, intimate. This invites every spectator to lean in a little closer, take the performance in as if each one of us were completely alone with her. As if it were just the two of us.

Lovely, never, never change. Keep that breathless charm. Won’t you please arrange it – ‘cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight.

The choice in music, the costume, the dance – all the men in the house can imagine themselves sent back to a more refined period of time. We’ve each become her husband, returning from an evening on the town to our penthouse apartment in the Upper East Side. She slips a record on the stereo while we fix ourselves a drink at the bar. It’s her favorite song, so you know something’s up. And as soon as you step into the bedroom – it begins.

RunAround Sue (photo by Dale Harris)First the hairpins. She pulls each one out, slowly – the metal hitting the floor like spent cartridges from an automatic machine gun, one right after the other, cling, cling, cling, that red hair of hers bleeding down her bare shoulders.

The dress is next. She reaches behind herself, unzipping it down the back. This cloth pillar topples to the floor – and you can’t help but suddenly wonder why more buildings don’t fall with such grace. What’s left standing is this black satin structure, a skyscraper skinned down to the garters, the lacy frame supporting such breath-taking beauty.

And that’s where the routine stops. RunAround runs her hands along her hips, reaching towards her own breasts – and turns. Just turns enough so that you can’t help but feel the world rotating on its axis while you stay still, immobile, yearning to turn the earth back the other way. Back towards Sue.

It’s within that brief moment, with her, that everyone in the audience is better than we really are. More than whom we are. And it’s when the spotlight dims and the curtain
closes that we come back to reality.

We’re the low-lifes. The criminals. We’re the petty thieves that RunAround welcomes into her open arms. She’s our siren, our muse – our patron saint. She makes us noble in our own failures. With her in our hearts, our misery is somehow dignified.

RunAround Sue, patron saint of all the sad sacks.


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RunAround Sue began running around long before she was drinking whiskey (and trust me folks that was pretty young). Born out of the Virginia Soil and the West Virginia Coalmines, she began shaking it at early age while running from the law with her mama. When she was old enough to make it out her own, she hightailed it to the big city where her sense of southern hospitality soothes many a broken heart. Catch her if you can...

Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. He is the author of Rest Area, a collection of short stories, and Miss Corpus, a novel—both published by Hyperion books.